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.