Construing A Scale From Hyponym To Ellipsis (Via Word Classes)

Martin (1992: 373-4):

While message parts are not in themselves phoric, they may be realised phorically, through the systems of SUBSTITUTION and ELLIPSIS at group rank in lexicogrammar.  These systems have been presented in detail in Halliday and Hasan (1976) and their discussion has been assumed throughout English Text.  It is important to review here however the continuity between nominal and verbal ellipses and substitutes and the taxonomic cline from general superordinate to more specific hyponymic items.  This grading is outlined in Table 5.27 and illustrated for nominal and verbal realisations of message parts below (see especially Halliday and Hasan 1976: 106 & 129).  Hasan (1985: 74) generalises these relationships under the heading co-classification.

Table 5.27. General to specific grading of substitution, ellipsis and taxonomic relations
	nominal	verbal
ellipsis	–	–
substitution	one, ones	do, do so
pro-noun/verb	one, thing	do, happen
general noun/verb	thing, person, stuff etc.	do, take, make etc.
superordinate	ship (air/space/sailing)	attack
é ê	boat	race
	sail-boat	sail
	yacht	manœuvre
hyponym	12-metre	tack

Blogger Comments:

[1] The claim here is that units of the experiential metafunction on the discourse semantics stratum, message parts, can be realised on the lexicogrammatical stratum, at group rank, as phoric, by the system of substitution–&–ellipsis, one of the types of cohesion, a resource of the textual metafunction.  That is, experiential semantics is realised "phorically" by textual lexicogrammar, by a system does not involve phoricity.  Phoricity is an aspect of another system of textual cohesion: reference.

[2] This confuses two distinct resources of textual cohesion: substitution–&–ellipsis and lexical cohesion.  The former is the textual deployment of interpersonal relations, the latter is the textual deployment of experiential relations.

[3] This is not a grading from general to specific.  An omitted element is not more general that a substituted element, etc.  Moreover, the grades are not ranks on a one-dimensional scale, but are a mixture of categories of different types, with classes of grammatical form, noun and verb, wedged in between two different types of cohesive relations: substitution–&–ellipsis and a type of lexical cohesion (hyponymy), with the latter relation forming part of the scale.

[4] Halliday and Hasan (1976: 106) is Table 5: The forms of one, and related items in a section on nominal substitution; and Halliday and Hasan (1976: 129) is Table 6: The forms of do in a section on verbal substitution.  Neither supports Martin's claim for a grading from ellipsis to hyponym.

[5] In discussing cohesive devices (textual metafunction), Hasan (1985: 74) distinguishes co-classification from co-referentiality (identity of reference) as follows:

In this type of meaning relation, the things, processes, or circumstances to which A and B refer belong to an identical class, but each end of the cohesive tie refers to a distinct member of this class. 

Misconstruing Instantial Probabilities As Structural Relations

Martin (1992: 372-3):

Like reference chains and conjunctive structures, lexical strings were treated as covariate structures; message parts are typically both depending and depended on.  However, it was pointed out that the lexicalised message parts are not phoric and that the retrospective dependency that characterised phoric reference items and conjunctions was not relevant.  Rather message parts enter into relationships of mutual expectancy in text, fulfilling predictions deriving from preceding text at the same time as they create expectancies about what will follow.  In this respect lexical relations are more field-like than particulate in nature, and it was suggested in 5.4.1.6 above that they might be better modelled as a kind of lattice rather than as a string…

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously argued, covariate structures are not structures. They are related units (X related to Y) not structured units (X structured as A^B).

[2] In SFL theory, interdependency is a logical system.  In discourse semantics, a message part is an experiential unit.

[3] 'Lexicalised message parts' are the lexical realisations of discourse semantic message parts.  Here they are construed as if they are both at the same level of symbolic abstraction (stratum).

[4] In SFL theory, the different kinds of pointing, phora, are features of cohesive reference, a non-structural resource of the textual metafunction.  Conjunction is construed here as a structural resource of the logical metafunction.

[5] In SFL theory, this type of 'prediction' during logogenesis is modelled as instantiation probabilities of register.

[6] The argument here is:

• message parts are related by mutual expectancy,
• therefore the relations are more like fields than particles,
• therefore, the relations would be better modelled as a lattice than as a string.

A Summary Of Discourse Systems Inconsistencies

Martin (1992: 372-3):

This chapter concludes the presentation of the four major discourse systems developed in this book.  Lexical relations represent the discourse semantics of experiential meaning.  The association of discourse systems with metafunctions and their unmarked realisations in lexicogrammar can now be summarised as in Table 5.26.

Table 5.26. Unmarked realisations for discourse semantics systems in lexicogrammar
(discourse system)	metafunction	lexicogrammaticalisation
ideation	experiential	transitivity; group rank experiential grammar; lexis as delicate grammar; collocation
conjunction	logical	clause complex: logico-semantics & interdependency
identification	textual	nominal group: deixis
negotiation	interpersonal	clause: mood

Blogger Comments:

[1] The discourse semantics model of experiential meaning is a "development" of the lexicogrammatical system of lexical cohesion, a system of the textual metafunction, mixed up with the notion of lexis as most delicate grammar.  It involves units, message parts, that are related logically and/or interpersonally.

[2] This continues the confusion between markedness and congruence.  The realisation of semantics in lexicogrammar is either congruent or incongruent (metaphorical).  A pattern is either unmarked (typical), as when Theme conflates with Subject in a declarative clause, or marked, as when Theme conflates with a functional element other than Subject in a declarative clause.

[3] If the discourse system of ideation were an experiential system at the level of semantics, it would be realised by an experiential system at the level of lexicogrammar — and a theoretical requirement would be the inclusion of realisation statements that specify the relations between the two stratal systems.  Here, the lexicogrammatical realisations are said to include lexis as most delicate grammar and (only) one type of lexical cohesion, collocation, a non-structural system of the textual metafunction.  The model is claimed to be a development of lexical cohesion, but this is omitted from the list of lexicogrammatical realisations.

[4] The discourse system of conjunction is claimed to be a logical system at the level of semantics, and to be realised in the lexicogrammar by the logico-semantic and interdependency relations of the clause complex.  However, it makes no distinction between logical deployments of expansion (creating complexes) and textual deployments of expansion (cohesively marking transitions between messages).  Moreover, the logical relation of projection is omitted altogether from the semantic model — because, in fact, the model takes the textual deployment of expansion (cohesive conjunction) as its point of departure for logical semantics.  The discourse semantics system also omits the logical relation of elaboration in cases where the interdependency relation is hypotaxis.  For the rich panoply of miscategorisations of logical relations, see most of the critiques of Chapter 4.

[5] The discourse system of identification is claimed to be a textual system at the level of semantics.  If this were so, its realisations would involve the textual systems at the level of lexicogrammar, such as those of theme, information and cohesion.  Even if the textual metafunction is reduced for discourse semantics to merely 'reference as semantic choice', the realisation of the system of identification in lexicogrammar would be the cohesive system of reference.  As demonstrated in previous posts, by treating cohesive relations as structures, the discourse system of identification confuses the system of referring with the items thus referred to.

[6] In SFL theory, the semantic system realised by the lexicogrammatical system of mood is termed speech function.

Misidentifying Transitivity Rôles And Expansion Types

Martin (1992: 371-2):

Australia II is an Actor in [5:36kk] but a Car[r]ier in [5:36ll]; similarly the Americans are a Medium in [5:36y] but an Agent in [5:36dd]; and 'being ahead of' is variously realised as a Process [5:36kk], Attribute [5:36ll], Goal [5:36y] and Circumstance [5:36dd].

Boats leading
kk	Australia II	+	leading	x	by a couple of = boat-lengths
ll	Australia II	+	leading [was ahead]	x	by 21 seconds
y	Americans	+	leading [increased lead]	x	to 46 seconds, at second = mark
dd	Liberty	+	leading x more & more [surged ahead]
Fig. 5.36. Nuclear structures for ‘leading’ in text [5:36]

Blogger Comments:

[1] Clause [kk] — like clause [ll] — construes an attributive relational Process.  Viewed 'from above', it construes 'being–&–having', not 'doing–&–happening'.  Viewed 'from roundabout', the unmarked present tense for lead in such a clause is the simple present leads, rather than the present–in–present is leading, which rules out the material Process analysis.

kk

Australia II	was leading		by the same margin
Medium	Process	Range	Extent
Carrier	relational: intensive	Attribute: circumstantial

ll

she (Australia II)	was	21 seconds ahead	around the fifth mark
Medium	Process	Range	Location
Carrier	relational: intensive	Attribute: circumstantial

[2] In clause [y] the Americans serves as Agent, not Medium, and in clause [dd] Liberty serves as Medium, not Agent.

y

at the second mark	the Americans	had increased	their lead	to 46 seconds
Location	Agent	Process	Medium	Extent
	Actor	material	Goal

dd

Liberty	surged	ahead
Medium	Process	Location: motion: away from
Actor	material

[3] In clause [kk] 'being ahead' is construed as Process and circumstantial Attribute, not just Process, and in clause [ll] also as Process and circumstantial Attribute, not just Attribute.

[4] The relation between Medium and Process is complementarity, not extension, for reasons previously given.

[5] The relation between Agent and Nucleus is enhancement, not extension, because the Agent is the external cause of the Process unfolding through the Medium.

Misrepresenting Grammatical Metaphor & Neglecting Interstratal Accountability

Martin (1992: 371-2):

The major advantage of the stratified approach is related to the problem of grammatical metaphor. Being less tied to lexicogrammar, the nuclear relations analysis is freed to recognise semantic continuities across a diversified range of realisations. Because the TRANSITIVITY structures are so varied, cohesive harmony analysis would give a very different account of chain interaction among the following messages than the nuclear relations analysis re-presented in 5.36.  Australia II is an Actor in [5:36kk] but a Car[r]ier in [5:36ll]; similarly the Americans are a Medium in [5:36y] but an Agent in [5:36dd];

Blogger Comments:

[1] Grammatical metaphor is raised here as a problem, but the supporting argument does not present examples of grammatical metaphor.  Instead, it identifies (and misidentifies) a range of different participant rôles played by Australia II and the Americans — as if these constitute instances of grammatical metaphor.

[2] In SFL theory, the relation between semantics and lexicogrammar is clearly defined as realisation: the higher level of symbolic abstraction (semantics) is realised by the lower level of symbolic abstraction (lexicogrammar).  In this model, semantics is thus not less tied to the lexicogrammar — it is simply that the relations between the stratal systems are neither thoroughly considered nor made explicit.