Strategically Misapplying The Term 'Incongruence'

Martin (1992: 134):

The incongruence between participants, nominal groups and the explicit realisation of deixis is summarised in the following table.

	# NOMINAL GROUPS	# PARTICIPANTS	PHORICITY MARKED
structural it	1	-	-
idioms	1	-	-
indefinite negation	1	-	-
Attribute	1	-	-
Range	1	0/1	-/once
Extent	1	-	-
Role	1	-	-
possessive Deictics	1/2	2	once
Pre-D/N/E/C	2	1/2	once/twice

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL theory, 'incongruence' refers to the relation between semantics and lexicogrammar in cases of grammatical metaphor.  So the unintended claim here is that all these cases are examples of grammatical metaphor.  To demonstrate that these are genuine cases of grammatical metaphor, it would be necessary to provide the congruent (non-metaphorical) counterpart of each.

Martin's use of the term here is strategic, and misleading, because grammatical metaphor is a genuine motivation for stratifying the content plane of language into semantics and lexicogrammar, and Martin is trying to justify his system, IDENTIFICATION, as the semantic counterpart of grammatical reference.

[2] For some of the misunderstandings that invalidate the claims of this table, see the previous fifteen posts.

Confusing Textual Reference With Interpersonal Deixis

Martin (1992: 134):

There may be good experiential reasons for doing this.  Pre-Numeratives for example make mass nouns countable (e.g. three boxes of jam) and count nouns "massable" (e.g. a flock of geese).  And having split participants in two, independent deixis selections may be taken up in each nominal group: some boxes of that jam I like, a flock of those geese we saw.  Where deixis is made explicit in both nominal groups, they are best taken as realising two participants and coded twice for phoricity; where deixis is not coded in the second group and the group is presumed as a single participant, this is hardly necessary (e.g. a strong cup of tea, this kind of beer, etc.).

Blogger Comments:

[1] Trivially, extended Numeratives do not make count nouns "massable".  In a flock of geese, both nouns are count nouns.

[2] As previously explained, in such nominal groups, it is not that a participant is split in two, but that two different nouns serve as experiential Thing and logical Head.

[3] To be clear, it is the determiner that serves as interpersonal Deictic that potentially also serves as a textual reference item.  As previously explained, the notion of a nominal group realising two participants, each "coded for phoricity" arises from confusing non-structural textual reference with structural interpersonal deixis of the nominal group.

Misconstruing Nominal Group Heads As Participants

Martin (1992: 133-4):

In a sense these [nominal group] structures take a single participant and split it in two.  Pre-Deictics [d]o this by focussing on some facet of the whole: back, side, face, front, back [sic], top etc.  Pre-Numeratives parcel off a measurement: jar, bunch, pack, carton, slice etc.  Pre-Epithets provide distinct nominal groups for both the participant being differentiated (e.g. the tallest) and the group out of which (superlative; e.g. the mountains) or with respect to which (comparison) it is being distinguished (cf. the discussion of relevance phoricity above).  Pre-Classifiers bring the class, breed, kind, type, species etc. of Thing to nominal attention.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This again confuses clause rank participant with group rank Thing (or Epithet — see [4] below).

[2] To be clear, such 'facet' expressions are now classified as extended Numeratives (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 395).  Each 'facet' term serves as the Thing of the embedded nominal group serving as the extended Numerative.  In terms of logical structure, it serves as the Head of the (ranking) nominal group.

[3] To be clear, such 'measure' expressions are now classified as extended Numeratives (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 395).  Each 'measure' term serves as the Thing of the embedded nominal group serving as the extended Numerative.  In terms of logical structure, it serves as the Head of the (ranking) nominal group.

[4] To be clear, Martin's "Pre-Epithet" is an Epithet that serves as the Head of a nominal group.  That is, in this case, Martin confuses clause rank participant with group rank Epithet.

[5] As previously explained, Martin's 'relevance phoricity' is Halliday & Hasan's (1976) comparative reference, misunderstood, rebranded, and relocated from non-structural grammar to structural discourse semantics.

[6] To be clear, such 'variety' expressions are now classified as extended Numeratives (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 395).  Each 'variety' term serves as the Thing of the embedded nominal group serving as the extended Numerative.  In terms of logical structure, it serves as the Head of the (ranking) nominal group.

Misconstruing Embedded Things (And An Epithet) As Participants

Martin (1992: 133):

Another way in which nominal groups can expand their structural potential to realise more than one participant is through embedding in Pre-Deictic, Pre-Numerative, Pre-Epithet and Pre-Classifier positions (for the first two of these see Halliday 1985:174-175).  This can be exemplified as follows (embedded groups in bold face; see Martin 1988 for further discussion):

Pre-Deictic	the top of the mountain
Pre-Numerative	a pair of boots
Pre-Epithet	the tallest of the mountains
Pre-Classifier	that kind of gear

Blogger Comments:

[1] This again confuses the nominal group function of Thing with the generalised clause function of participant.  In these three examples, the confusion extends even to Things in embedded nominal groups serving as three types of Extended Numerative: Facet (Martin's Pe-Deictic), Aggregate (Martin's Pre-Numerative) and Variety (Martin's Pre-Classifier):

the	top	of	the	mountain
Premodifier	Head	Postmodifier
Numerative: facet			Deictic	Thing
Deictic	Thing

a	pair	of	boots
Premodifier	Head	Postmodifier
Numerative: aggregate			Thing
Deictic	Thing

that	kind	of	gear
Premodifier	Head	Postmodifier
Numerative: variety			Thing
Deictic	Thing

[2] In the remaining example, which is falsely presented as of the same type of structure as the other three, the confusion extends even further, to an Epithet/Head (Martin's Pre-Epithet) of a nominal group:

the	tallest	of	the	mountains
Premodifier	Head	Postmodifier
Deictic	Epithet	Qualifier
			Deictic	Thing

For superlative Epithet as Head of a nominal group, see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 391).