Misconstruing A Mood Adjunct (Intensity) As A Continuity Item [2]

Martin (1992: 231):

[4:164] CONJUNCTION He felt like relaxing,

                                 only he was upset about the race. 

            CONTINUITY    No, I'm not busy.

                                 I was only reading.

Blogger Comments:

[1] In SFL theory, this is not conjunction, a non-structural resource of the textual metafunction, but a structural relation (extension: variation: subtractive) of the logical metafunction.

[2] The function of only here is interpersonal: a mood Adjunct of intensity (counterexpectancy: limiting), and so it does not mark a continuity relation with the previous message.

I	was	only	reading
Subject	Finite	mood Adjunct: intensity	Predicator
Mood			Residue

[3] Ironically, there is a continuative in this example, no, which marks a genuine relation of continuity with a previous message (not presented).  As previously noted, Martin misconstrues genuine continuatives as marking a logico-semantic relation of addition.