Confusing Experiential Content With Textual Reference

Martin (1992: 107):

	MARKED:		UNMARKED:
	SINGULAR	PLURAL/MASS	SINGULAR	PLURAL/MASS
UNRESTRICTED	any	any	a	/ïsm/
NONPARTICULAR	/some/	Ø	a	/ïsm/
PARTICULAR	one	/some/	a	/ïsm/
MAJOR ROLE	this, a certain	these, certain	a	/ïsm/

This paradigm grades Deictics in relation to the importance to a text of the participant they introduce.  There are various ways of measuring the centrality of a participant in discourse.  The more central the participant the more likely it is to be Theme, the more likely to be Agent or Medium rather than [c]ircumstance, the more likely it is to provide a referent for a phoric item and so on.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This grading of Martin's "indefinite" Deictics confuses his deixis categories (unrestricted, nonparticular, particular) with the importance of an instantial participant (major rôle).  In terms of SFL theory, the difference between the former categories (unrestricted, nonparticular, particular) and the latter (major rôle) is the distinction between non-specific deixis (any some one) and specific deixis (this these certain).

[2] This again confuses (structural interpersonal) deixis with (non-structural textual) reference, and misrepresents these grammatical systems as discourse semantic.  The theoretical inconsistency involves both metafunction and stratification.

[3] The term 'introduce' betrays the confusion of the first appearance of a participant (experiential metafunction) in a text with the system of reference (textual metafunction).  The theoretical inconsistency is in terms of metafunction.

[4] This confuses the experiential content of a potential referent (participant) with the textual system of reference.  The theoretical inconsistency is in terms of metafunction.