On "Whether Possessive Deictics Are The Deixis Of The Participant They Possess"

Martin (1992: 132-3):

The issue then is whether possessive Deictics are the deixis of the participant they possess.  Is the possessed participant identified through its possessor, or does the possessive Deictic neutralise the participant's phoricity (as with the neutralised reference in the grammar of little texts)?  Du Bois' data indicates [sic] that a frog of his or a friend of John's do not alternate with his frog or John's friend to introduce participants (1980:243-245); pending further investigation this suggests that the interpretation of possessive Deictics as the deixis of the participants they possess is correct.  Accordingly, possessive nominal groups will only be coded once for phoricity below, even though they realise two participants.  This is after all literally what the grammar of the English nominal group argues: "recover the identity of the possessed participant here through its possessor".

Blogger Comments:

[1] The notion of a "possessed participant" confuses clause participant with nominal group Thing.  A possessive Deictic modifies the Thing of a nominal group.  The entire nominal group realises a participant, even in Martin's restricted definition of participant.

[2] This misunderstands deixis.  To be clear, a possessive Deictic structurally realises features of the system of nominal group DEIXIS.

[3] The notion of "the participant's phoricity" confuses the Thing of a nominal group, misunderstood as a clause participant, with the items that make phoric reference.  This confusion derives from misinterpreting textual reference as ideational denotation, as explained in many previous posts.

[4] This is misleading, because it misrepresents Du Bois (1980: 243-5), who is concerned with possession being expressed either through verbs or noun phrases:

For clothes as for body parts, no descriptive mode initial mentions bear possessive adjectives — that is, a shirt of his does not occur — or otherwise indicate possession in the noun phrase. In virtually all cases possession is already expressed (have) or implied (have on, etc.) in the verb or preposition. In other words, when a "human" frame element (a body part or item of clothing) is mentioned, possession will ordinarily be expressed in one way or another. If the descriptive mode is selected, the verb serves to express possession, but if the narrative mode is selected, possession must be expressed in the noun phrase.

[5] Given the above, this is a non-sequitur, inferred from a misrepresented citation, in support of a misunderstanding of deixis.

[6] This confuses nominal groups with reference items.

[7] Such nominal groups realise only one participant, even on Martin's definition of participant (as nominal group functioning as Medium or Agent).

[8] There is nothing "literal" about a grammar "arguing".

[9] This confuses nominal groups with reference items, and Things with participants, and presents the confusion as a quote, as if it were a widely accepted maxim.

On Possessive "Pronouns" In Deictic Position

Martin (1992: 132):

Possessive pronouns in Deictic position, function like embedded nominal groups to realise a participant different from that coded through the Numerative ^ Epithet ^ Classifier ^ Thing structure.  Like embedded groups, these possessive pronouns function in place of the deixis that would otherwise be associated with the group.  This raises the problem of how to interpret the phoricity of the participant realised through the Thing in possessive groups like his frog, John's friend and so on.  Halliday and Hasan (1976: 70) and Halliday (1985: 160) treat possessive pronouns as a type of specific deixis, alongside the, this, that, these and those.

This seems to imply that the identity of the frog and the friend in his frog and John's friend is being coded as recoverable, alongside the identity of his and John.  His frog in other words does not mean 'a frog of his' nor does John's friend mean 'a friend of John's'; where the latter meanings are intended then the expressions one of his frogs or one of John's friends would have to occur.  Du Bois (1980:243) concurs, arguing that "his is similar to the in that it demands (presupposes) identifiability, but different in that it supplies some extra information that may help make the identification possible".

Blogger Comments:

[1] This confuses ideational denotation ('realise a participant') with the interpersonal function (deixis) with the textual function (reference) of possessive adjectives (confused with pronouns).  In SFL theory, the entire structure of a (ranking) nominal group realises one participant.

[2] To be clear, possessive adjectives function as the Deictic of the nominal group.  Deictics aren't associated with nominal groups, they are part of its structure.

[3] On the one hand, "participant realised through the Thing" confuses clause participant with nominal group Thing — even in terms of Martin's definition of participant as nominal group functioning as Medium or Agent.  On the other hand, the notion of a Thing being phoric confuses ideational denotation with textual reference.

[4] This non-sequitur demonstrates the degree to which Martin fails to understand the model of reference (and deixis) in Halliday & Hasan (1976) and Halliday (1985).  The nominal groups his frog and John's friend include only one potential reference item, his, whose identity is signalled as recoverable elsewhere.  Neither frog, nor John's, nor friend functions as a reference item signalling identifiability; on the contrary, each provides an identity.  The confusion again arises from misinterpreting textual reference as ideational denotation.

[5] This demonstrates the absurdity that arises from these misunderstandings SFL theory.  In these instances, the same meaning is realised through different wordings (Deictic vs Qualifier).

[6] On the one hand, this is a non-sequitur from a falsehood that is invalidly inferred from a non-sequitur that is invalidly inferred from Halliday and Hasan (1976: 70) and Halliday (1985: 160).  On the other hand, it is falsified by every instance of an X of Y's ever spoken or written.

[7] This is misleading, since it is entirely spurious.  Du Bois (1980:243) has nothing whatsoever to say on this matter.  What Du Bois (1980: 243) actually says is:

 

The "extra information" Du Bois refers to is, as Halliday & Hasan (1976: 71) explain, the person signalled by the possessive Deictic, in comparison with the definite article, which has no content.

On Nominal Groups Realising Attributes But Not Realising Participants

Martin (1992: 130):

In addition there are four TRANSITIVITY functions, typically realised by nominal groups, which do not necessarily realise participants: Attribute, Range and Circumstances [sic] of Extent and Role.

Attributes describe or classify participants; they are realised by adjectives, indefinite nominal groups or attitudinal superlatives.  Their indefinite deixis in contexts where they are describing participants that have already been introduced gives away the fact that they are not realising a participant themselves:

[3:67]  He         was        silly/a silly man/the silliest thing
            Carrier  Process  Attribute

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin has defined 'participant' in terms of nominal groups functioning as the Agent or Medium of a clause.  This definition already excludes Attribute, Scope (Range) and all circumstances.

Moreover, it also excludes all the other Range functions: Behaviour, (emanating) Phenomenon, Verbiage, Attribute, (decoding) Value, as well as all the Beneficiary functions: Client, Recipient, Receiver.

[2] To be clear, in SFL theory, Attributes are participants.  An Attribute is the class to which an entity (the Carrier participant) is ascribed (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 267).

[3] This is only exceptionally true.  In almost all cases, superlatives feature in identifying clauses, not attributive clauses.

[4] This confuses interpersonal deixis with textual reference.  Non-specific Deictics serve no reference functions.

[5] This confuses ideational denotation with textual reference.

[6] This is a non-sequitur, even in Martin's terms (ideational denotation).  Consider the following:

At the party, Jim met Anne.  Anne was a lecturer.

In the first clause the participant Anne is introduced. In the second clause, the Attribute a lecturer realises the same participant.

On Nominal Groups In Idioms Not Realising A Participant

Martin (1992: 130):

An example of an idiom containing a nominal group not realising a participant was introduced among the examples relevant to [neutralised] reference above: flash in the pan fizzles.  The idiom preserves the Deictic the precisely because it is collocationally frozen; the nominal group is not relevant to participant identification because "the pan" is not a participant in the text.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This continues the confusion between clause participant and nominal group Thing.  To be clear, only ranking nominal groups realise participants.  Embedded nominal groups, such as those realising Qualifiers of nominal groups, do not realise participants.  This is not restricted to idioms.

[2] To be clear, the participant in this instance is the Actor flash in the pan.

flash in the pan	fizzles
Actor	Process: material

The participant is realised by a nominal group whose Thing is flash:

flash	in the pan
Thing	Qualifier

The Qualifier of the nominal group is realised by a prepositional phrase whose Range is realised by a nominal group whose Thing is pan:

in	the pan
minor Process	Range the pan Deictic Thing

[3] This is tautology presented as argument: the Deictic is preserved in the idiom because it is frozen in the idiom.

[4] This continues the confusion between nominal group deixis and reference.  To be clear, the nominal group is not relevant to textual reference, because reference is not a system of the nominal group.

What is relevant to textual reference is that the pan includes the determiner the whose demonstrative reference is homophoric (self-specifying).

[5] This continues the misunderstanding of textual reference as ideational denotation.

Confusing Deixis, Reference, New And Theme

Martin (1992: 109):

This scale is in certain respects a natural development in a language like English which has developed the definite/indefinite articles the way it has.  Prior to the development of this system there was no need to mark every nominal group as "given" or "new".  But "newness" could be made explicit, as it can be in many languages (see Martin 1983:60-62 for discussion), with the cardinal one or, in the plural, a quantifier like some.  In Tagalog, for example isa 'one' and ilan 'few' can even be used to over-ride the very strong association of Theme with definiteness noted above in 3.2.  The use of related items to realise [particular] reference in English reflects this pattern.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is a bare assertion, unsupported by evidence, or argument (see below).  As previously demonstrated, the scale itself confuses (interpersonal) non-specific Deictics and post-Deictics with (textual) reference items, and these with what is claimed to be the centrality of (experiential) participants to a text.

[2] The English definite and indefinite articles — in SFL theory, the 'weak' specific and non-specific determiners (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 368) — did not, and do not, mark nominal groups as given or new (with or without scare quotes).  Deixis and information are distinct grammatical systems, the former an interpersonal system of the nominal group, the latter a textual system of the information unit.

[3] Here Martin uses a claim about Theme to argue a claim about New, as an argument about deixis misunderstood as reference.

[4] Trivially, this confuses the numeral 'one' with the non-specific determiner 'one'.

[5] This is a bare assertion, unsupported by evidence, or argument.  Moreover, it confuses a misunderstanding of deixis ('particular') rebranded as reference with given and new information.

[6] To be clear, Martin has made a (false) claim about two determiners, a(n) and the, and claimed, without evidence or argument, that the claim holds for different determiners: any, some, one, this.  In terms of logical fallacies, this might be considered a fallacy of composition: assuming that something true of part of a whole must also be true of the whole.

∞

Derrida (1998) referred to the rhetorical use of multiple inconsistent arguments to defend a point as Kettle logic (la logique du chaudron).

Deploying A Logical Fallacy To Deceive The Reader

Martin (1992: 108-9):

In between these outer poles is the contrast between [nonparticular] and [particular] reference.  This opposition predicts that the relevant deixis in [3:26] and [3:27] codes participants less central to the text than those in [3:28] and [3:29].

NONPARTICULAR

[3:26] The boy passed /some/ rock (or other) and then went down to the pond.

[3:27] The boy looked around and saw trees, bees and grass, but no frog.

PARTICULAR

[3:28] There was one frog there (in particular) that the boy liked…

[3:29] There were /some/ frogs there (in particular) that the boy liked …

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misconstrues a rebranding of non-specific partial Deictics some and one (in [3:26], [3:28] and [3:29]) and the absence of deixis (in [3:27]) as serving a referential function.  That is, it confuses the Deictic classification of a Thing (rock, frog, frogs) — and the lack of such a classification — with the presentation of an element as identifiable; see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 623).

[2] This is misleading.  The feature opposition does not "predict" that the deixis "codes" participants in terms of their varying centrality to the text.  This is a bare assertion unsupported by textual evidence or argument.

To be clear, Martin has merely constructed instances that do not appear in text [3:88], a child's retelling of Mercer Mayer's Frog, Where Are You?, and used instances of the title character frog for the participant he claims to be "coded" as more central.  Using a title character to argue for its centrality to the text is not just circular reasoning, a logical fallacy, but an attempt to deceive the reader.

Self-Contradiction And Circular Reasoning

Martin (1992: 103):

Text [3:16] shows that generic reference can be phoric: they refers generically to hot deserts, which information has to be recovered from the co-text.  But [3:16] also shows that generic participants can be introduced either definitely or indefinitely: the true hot deserts vs cool deserts.  Significantly, it does not seem to matter whether definite or indefinite deixis is used. … The reason for this is that with generic reference definiteness does not matter; as long as the experiential content of a generic nominal group is understood, it is clear which participant is being identified.

Blogger Comments:

[1] By definition, all reference is "phoric", whether endophoric (anaphoric or cataphoric), exophoric or homophoric.

[2] This again confuses the system for referring with the referent.  It is the referent that is generic, not the referral.

[3] To be clear, this is inconsistent with (contradicts) the unsupported claim on the previous page; Martin (1992: 102):

Presenting ["indefinite"] reference is thus strongly associated with first mention and presuming ["definite"] reference categorically associated with second mention.

[4] This again confuses the nominal group system of un/specific deixis — misconstrued as in/definite — with the cohesive system of reference.

[5] This is an instance of the logical fallacy known as circular reasoning.  The reason it does not seem to matter is that it does not matter.

[6] This again confuses the system for referring with the referent.  Given that it is actually the referent that is generic, the claim here is that as long as the experiential meaning of the generic referent is understood, it is clear which of the possible referents resolves the identity of the reference item.  If this were true, anaphora resolution wouldn't be the huge problem it is in Natural Language Processing (NLP).

Martin's Reason Why Discourse Semantic Units Cannot Be Defined "As Categorically As" Grammatical Units [New]

Martin (1992: 59):

A2 Can you get me a beer in light of my impending death from thirst? …

The point is that seen as process, any dialogue is an on-going site of textual dynamism. There is nothing to prevent an interlocutor digging in and negotiating information presented as non-negotiable: my impending death from thirst is not presented for grading in the first example above; but one can imagine contexts in which it is contested, light-heartedly or not.

Because of this dynamism it is not possible to define discourse units as categorically as grammatical ones. There is a system, but its potential for ongoing re-contextualisation means that there will always be rough edges for the analyst. Analysis in other words will inevitably involve interpretation.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this is a non-sequitur. The ability to negotiate wording that lies in the Residue of a clause (in this instance: my impending death from thirst) can have no bearing on what constitutes a unit at a higher level of symbolic abstraction. If such a wording is taken up for negotiation, it simply falls within the Mood or Residue of the following clause. In SFL Theory, the semantic unit that such clause realises is a move (proposition or proposal) in an exchange (Halliday 1985: 69-71).