Wednesday 20 January 2016

Misrepresenting Internal Conjunctive Relations

Martin (1992: 409):
Winter's (1977) Vocabulary 3 items include a large number of these metaphorical realisations of internal conjunctive relations.  Comparative and consequential relations are noted in the following list, reprinted from Chapter 5:
action
event
reason (consq)
cause (consq)
expect (consq)
result (consq)
compare (comp)
fact
situation
conclude (consq)
kind
solution (consq)
condition (consq)
manner (consq)
specify (comp)
contrast (comp)
point
thing
differ (comp)
problem
way (consq)


Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of SFL theory, these are not metaphorical realisations of internal conjunctive relations — though some (e.g. cause, condition, manner, reason, result, way) could serve as metaphorical realisations of types of expansion, as Thing and/or relational Process.

In SFL theory, internal conjunctive relations obtain through the deployment of expansion relations by the textual metafunction in creating cohesion.  Only temporal enhancement affords the possibility of internal cohesive relations.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 545):
Many temporal conjunctives have an 'internal' as well as an 'external' interpretation; that is, the time they refer to is the temporal unfolding of the discourse itself, not the temporal sequence of processes referred to.  In terms of the functional components of semantics, it is interpersonal not experiential time.