Claiming The Verb 'Stand' Is A Repetition Of The Verb 'Tabled'

Martin (1992: 327):

Derivational variants were classified as repetitions in 5.3.2 above, alongside inflexional members of a lexical item's formal scatter.  This implied that congruent and incongruent realisations of a particular message part would be treated under this heading.  Accordingly, both the verb stand and the noun table in [4:2:[9]] would be treated as repetition of the verb tabled in [4:2:6], both of which are antonyms of ground (taking tabled as a metaphorical variant of stand on the table).

[4:2]  6.m.  With the Dachshund, a Dachsund is tabled.
         8.p.   With the bigger breeds of dog, they're stood on the ground.
         9.s.   we stand our dog on the table.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is invalid reasoning.  Treating the various forms of a single lexical item as repetition does not imply that multiple lexical items — incongruent realisations of message parts — can also be treated as repetition.  Only the repeated lexical item within the message part, by definition, constitutes a lexical repetition.

[2] The invalid reasoning, above, leads to an absurd conclusion: that stand is a repetition of tabled.  In SFL theory, there are two instances of lexically cohesive repetition in the text: tabled-table and stood-stand.

[3] Obviously, neither of the lexical items, stand or table is an antonym of the lexical item ground.  By definition, an antonym is a word opposite in meaning to another: stand is not the opposite of ground; table is not the opposite of ground.