Using A Report Of Unseen Data To Support An Unlikely Claim

Martin (1992: 107):

What is being suggested here is that for English the centrality of a participant conditions probabilistically the way in which it will be introduced.

Unfortunately there is only a little textual evidence supporting this claim.  One piece of which the author is aware derives from research reported in Rochester and Martin (1979).  Unpublished analyses undertaken in conjunction with this research showed that mass and plural nouns lacking an indefinite article (e.g. frogs, grass) provided referents for other nominal groups three times less often than when an indefinite article was present (e.g. some frogs, some grass).

Blogger Comments:

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

[2] This again confuses 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.

[3] To be clear, the unpublished evidence for this claim is not produced for the reader to assess.

[4] Trivially, some is not an indefinite article, but, in SFL theory, a partial determiner that functions as a non-specific Deictic (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 368).

[5] The claim here is that 

• a plural or mass noun modified by some 
• is three times more likely to be referred to in a text than 
• a plural or mass noun not modified by a Deictic.

The claim can be provisionally tested by examining text [3:16] provided earlier by Martin.

Fifteen per cent of the world's land area consists of deserts. The true hot deserts straddle the Tropics in both hemispheres. They are found on all continents between the latitudes of approximately 15 to 30 degrees, and they extend inland from the west coasts to the interiors of these continents. They are never found on east coasts in these latitudes as all east coasts receive heavy rains from either on-shore trade winds or monsoons. 

Cool deserts are found further polewards in the deep interiors of large continents like Eurasia or where mountains form rain-shadows, which keep out rain bearing winds that might otherwise bring wet conditions. 

There are five major hot desert belts in the world … The largest hot desert extends from the west coast of North Africa eastwards to Egypt and the Red Sea — this is the Great Sahara that covers 9 million square kilometres.

Analysis:

Number of plural or mass nouns modified by some: 0

Number of references to plural or mass nouns modified by some: 0

Number of plural or mass nouns not modified by a Deictic: 14

Number of references to plural or mass nouns not modified by a Deictic: 1

Moreover, of the 5 instances of cohesive reference items, 4 referred to a nouns modified by a definite article:

1. they > The true hot deserts
2. they > The true hot deserts
3. they > The true hot deserts
4. these > of approximately 15 to 30 degrees
5. this > The largest hot desert

Summary:

Judging by this small sample, the provisional findings are that, contrary to Martin's claim, a plural or mass noun modified by some is not only less likely to be referred to, but also less likely to appear in a text, than a plural or mass noun not modified by a Deictic.  Significantly, the analysis also shows that the nouns most likely to be referred to are those modified by the definite article.