Dependent Clauses, Speech Function And Negotiability [New]

Martin (1992: 41-2):

Hypotactically dependent clauses may turn out to be better taken from a discourse perspective as an intermediate case (between embedded and independent clauses) — quantative [sic] studies might well show them to be more negotiable than embedded clauses, though less likely to be responded to than independent ones. Note in this connection that when projection is used to express modality metaphorically (Halliday 1985a:336), it is the structurally dependent clause that is in fact being negotiated:

I think he'll be there. (meaning 'maybe he'll be there'.)

— Will he? (more likely than Oh, do you?)

This need not of course block the 'sardonic' interlocutor from negotiating the projecting clause as if it deserved a congruent reading:

"I'm inclined to think—" said I.

"I should do so," Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently.

I believe that I am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but I'll admit that I was annoyed at the sardonic interruption. "Really, Holmes," said I severely, "you are a lit[t]le trying at times." (Doyle 1981:769)

Pending quantitative investigation of these patterns, hypotactically dependent clauses will be grouped with embedded ones as in the network above. The most negotiable clause type in this category involves dependent elaboration as these clauses can be tagged:

α Sherlock put Watson down,

= β which was mean, wasn't it?

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously observed, Martin is here trying to determine the grammatical unit that realises speech function, but is instead concerned with arguability ("negotiability"), which is a separate issue from speech function. Embedded and some dependent clauses may be presented as unarguable, but that does not necessarily entail that they do not realise a statement, question, command or offer. For example, in this hypotactic complex:

I asked if you like Joy Division

the dominant clause realises a statement, while the dependent clause realises question, as demonstrated by its paratactic agnate:

I asked "do you like Joy Division?"

[2] To be clear, thirty years on, these quantitative investigations remain undone.

[3] To be clear, this needs to be accounted for in the model, not just mentioned and forgotten.

[4] Strictly speaking, despite the relative pronoun which, the expansion relation in this instance is extension, rather than elaboration, since

• the dependent clause adds to the meaning of the dominant clause, rather than describes it;
• the paratactic agnate of the dependent clause is and that was mean, wasn't it?;
• it does not involve tone concord, since the unmarked tones would be tone3 and tone1.

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 468):

There is one group of non-defining relative clauses that strictly speaking would belong with extension rather than elaboration; for example,

||| She told it to the baker’s wife, || who told it to the cook. |||

Here the who stands for ‘and she’ and the clause is semantically an additive: the agnate paratactic variant would be ... and she told it to the cook. …

Note that such instances are not characterised by tone concord.