Martin (2013: 55):
Martin (2013: 54):
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To be clear, this again misunderstands not as a Mood Adjunct instead of part of the Finite do not. Again, here not is simply a formal or written variant of n't. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 175):
Finally, we should note that the negative word not occurs in two functions: either it is simply a formal or written variant of the Finite negative element n’t, in which case it is part of the Finite; or it is a distinct modal Adjunct in Mood or Residue. In the latter case it is phonologically salient and may also be tonic
A genuine example of not as a Mood Adjunct is
After all that, I couldn't not go, could I?
Martin (2013: 53, 54):
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To be clear, the not in the data is not a Mood Adjunct, but part of the Finite, as Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 175) explain:
Finally, we should note that the negative word not occurs in two functions: either it is simply a formal or written variant of the Finite negative element n’t, in which case it is part of the Finite; or it is a distinct modal Adjunct in Mood or Residue. In the latter case it is phonologically salient and may also be tonic.
A genuine example of not as a Mood Adjunct is
After all that, I couldn't not go, could I?
Cf. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 177)
Martin (2013: 54):
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To be clear, this is no longer true. Instances like the following are now commonplace:
What a generous person you are … not!
Martin (2013: 52):
Martin (2013: 52):
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Martin (2013: 52):
[1] This gloss of the metafunctions is potentially misleading. The ideation metafunction is the construal of experience, not the construal of discourse, and the interpersonal metafunction is the enactment of interpersonal relations, not the enactment of discourse. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 7-8):
The ideational metafunction is concerned with construing experience — it is language as a theory of reality, as a resource for reflecting on the world. … The interpersonal metafunction is concerned with enacting interpersonal relations through language, with the adoption and assignment of speech roles, with the negotiation of attitudes, and so on — it is language in the praxis of intersubjectivity, as a resource for interacting with others. The textual metafunction is an enabling one; it is concerned with organising ideational and interpersonal meaning as discourse — as meaning that is contextualised and shared.
[2] The claim that 'SFL's distinctive approach to meaning and constituency in fact grew out of the development of axis (system/structure relations) from the early 1960s' is very misleading because it is untrue on several counts.
Firstly, Martin misunderstands axis as system/structure relations, as stipulated in realisation statements. In SFL Theory, axis is a local dimension whose two orders are the paradigmatic and syntagmatic (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 32), with system and structure as their respective dimensions. Realisation statements are located on the paradigmatic axis, and as the name suggests, the relation between the axes is simply realisation.
Secondly, the SFL approach to the metafunctions and constituency did not grow out of the development of either axis or system/structure relations from the early 1960's.
On the one hand, the metafunctions are a distinct global dimension from the local dimension of axis (ibid.), and first appeared in Language Structure and Language Function (Halliday 1970).
On the other hand, the SFL approach to constituency, a rank scale, is a distinct local dimension from the local dimension of axis (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 32), and derives from the method of ranked constituency analysis, rather than immediate constituency analysis, as first set out in Categories of A Theory of Grammar (Halliday 1961), and explained more fully in Introduction to Functional Grammar (Halliday 1985).
The rhetorical significance of Martin's misleading bare assertion (the ipse dixit fallacy) is that it assumes the conclusion (the petitio principii fallacy) of the entire monograph. That is, it is one logical fallacy serving another in an invalid argument for a false conclusion.
Martin (2013: 50):
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To be clear, these are interrogative forms of the thematic equative:
The fact that these clauses are thematic equatives casts further doubt on Martin's thematic analysis of Tagalog. As Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 93, 95) explain for English:
This kind of clause is known as a thematic equative (cf. Halliday, 1967/8), because it sets up the Theme + Rheme structure in the form of an equation, where Theme = Rheme. The particular clause type that is being exploited to form a thematic equative is the identifying clause… . In a thematic equative, all the elements of the clause are organised into two constituents; these two are then linked by a relationship of identity, a kind of ‘equals sign’, expressed by some form of the verb be. …
A thematic equative (which is usually called a ‘pseudo-cleft sentence’ in formal grammar) is an identifying clause which has a thematic nominalisation in it. Its function is to express the Theme-Rheme structure in such a way as to allow for the Theme to consist of any subset of the elements of the clause. This is the explanation for the evolution of clauses of this type: they have evolved, in English, as a thematic resource, enabling the message to be structured in whatever way the speaker or writer wants.
If the same is true of Tagalog, then thematic equatives may be a resource for highlighting a different element as Theme. In English, for example, it is used to avoid selecting an unwanted marked Theme (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 97).
Martin (2013: 49):
Note that, although it is the functions that are labelled, the structure actually consists of the relationships among them.
Martin (2013: 48):
Note that, although it is the functions that are labelled, the structure actually consists of the relationships among them.
Martin (2013: 43):
In the analysis, the unmarked positive has no Mood element, it consists of Residue (Predicator): the verb form (e.g. look) is Predicator only, with no Finite in it. The other forms have a Mood element; this consists of Subject only (you), Finite only (do, don’t), or Finite followed by Subject (don’t you). Any of these can be followed by a Mood tag: won’t you?, will you? – showing that the clause is finite, even though the verb is non-finite (the imperative of be is be, as in Be quiet!, not the finite form are.
Martin (2013: 40):
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To be clear, in SFL Theory, features of systems, such as the MOOD system, are not classes. It is form, not function, that is categorised into classes; e.g. word classes, group classes.
Martin (2013: 40):
Technically speaking, as noted above, a sequence of classes redounding with one another is referred to as a syntagm. Redounding functions are referred to as structures. … By 'redound' we mean that the classes of functions are redundant with respect to one another — in other words they are mutually expectant (given one class or function the co-appearance of another is not random). This is simply a more technical way to say that the classes form a syntagm or that the functions form a structure and so make a meaning beyond the sum of their parts.
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[1] This misunderstands the notion of redundancy. To be clear, 'redundancy' refers to the skewing of probabilities away from equiprobability. Halliday (2003 [1987]: 122):
In an ideal system, one having two states that are equiprobable, there is no redundancy. Once we depart from equiprobability, redundancy sets in. In all open systems the probabilities are skewed, so that the system carries redundancy.
In SFL Theory, 'redundancy' is used to refer to realisation relations between strata. Halliday (2002 [1992]: 356):
Consider a minimal semiotic system, such as a protolanguage – a system that is made up of simple signs. This is based on the principle of redundancy. When we say that contents p, q, r are “realised” respectively by expressions a, b, c, what this means is that there is a redundancy relation between them: given meaning p, we can predict sound or gesture a, and given sound or gesture a we can predict meaning p. This relationship is symmetrical; “redounds with” is equivalent both to “realises” and to “is realised by”.
with these probabilities variably skewed along the cline of instantiation. Halliday (2002 [1992]: 359):
The [language] system is permeable because each instance redounds with the context of situation, and so perturbs the system in interaction with the environment.
Halliday (2003 [1997]: 260):
If we consider register variation first: viewing from the "instance" end, we can recognise a text type as a collection of similar instances. But when we shift perspective and see it as systemic variation, each of these text types appears as a register, a kind of subsystem which redounds with the properties of the context in terms of field, tenor and mode.
Martin, however, misunderstands the skewed probabilities of redundancy as just any mutual expectancy, and applies this to the sequencing of items on the syntagmatic axis.
[2] As demonstrated above, redundancy is not a more technical way of saying that syntagms and structures "make a meaning beyond the sum of their parts". The crucial point that Martin omits is that, just as a system is the relationships among its features, a structure is the relationships among its functions. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 451):
Note that, although it is the functions that are labelled, the structure actually consists of the relationships among them.
And in other contexts verbs are used to classify (and are thus not gradable):running shoesindustrialised nations
… Imperative clauses, giving commands, are typically indicated in English by the absence of a Finite and a Subject function.
In addition Halliday recognises Modal Adjuncts which add an interpersonal comment of some kind to the clause (a modalisation of probability below) …
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[1] To be clear, industrialised is gradable: there are less industrialised nations and more industrialised nations.
[2] To be clear, 'giving' is a poor choice of words, pedagogically, since commands involve demanding goods-&-services, as opposed to giving them.
[3] This is misleading, because, within the category of modal Adjunct, SFL Theory distinguishes between mood Adjuncts and comment Adjuncts. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 184):
We can recognise two types of modal Adjuncts, (i) mood Adjuncts and (ii) comment Adjuncts. (i) Mood Adjuncts serve within the Mood element, and are closely associated with the meaning of the Finite element – the limiting case being modality, which (as we have seen) can also be realised by the operator serving as Finite. (ii) Comment Adjuncts serve outside the Mood + Residue structure of the clause. They are not part of the proposition realised by Mood + Residue, but are instead comments on it (propositional) or on the act of exchanging it (speech-functional).
… we have been dealing with pronoun systems realisation by single unit structures (by single words) above …
In the next chapter we'll move on to consider system networks realised by structures consisting of more than one element …
Note that, although it is the functions that are labelled, the structure actually consists of the relationships among them.
Our system network formulation of the revised paradigm is presented below, with PERSON and NUMBER as simultaneous systems, but with a different set of oppositions than those we distinguished when working on the English systems. From this we can see that although English and Tagalog have comparable regions of meaning as far as their pronouns grammar is concerned, no pronoun in one of the two languages can ever be the exact equivalent of a pronoun in the other — because the valeur, to use Saussure's term, is different. The systems are comparable but not equivalent.
Martin (2013: 24):
This is misleading, because On The Ineffability Of Grammatical Categories (Halliday 1984) is not at all about a balancing act of 'respecting both terminological traditions and the language to hand'. Instead, the paper explains that grammatical categories can only mean themselves. That is, while it is possible to provide an encoding definition of a grammatical category (how it is expressed), it is not possible to provide a decoding definition of a grammatical category (what it means). Halliday (2002 [1984]: 292-3, 303, 307, 309):
Once having reified these abstract categories by naming them, the Greek grammarians went on to ask what the names meant. What ‘is’ a noun? they wondered. At first, this was a question of: how do I recognise a noun when I see it? how do I know whether something is a noun or not? But before long the questions came to be asked in the other direction: what ‘is’ a noun, in the sense of what function does it serve? At this second stage, instead of treating ‘noun’ as the Value and then supplying a Token for it, the definition now treats ‘noun’ as the Token and seeks to supply a Value for it. Instead of ‘a noun is a word that inflects for number and case’, we have ‘a noun is the name of a person, creature or thing’. This is a decoding definition, one which embodies a notion of ‘what the category means’. … But how does one define by decoding? how do we say what a grammatical category means? …
The meaning of a typical grammatical category thus has no counterpart in our conscious representation of things. There can be no exact paraphrase of Subject or Actor or Theme – because there is no language-independent clustering of phenomena in our experience to which they correspond. If there was, we should not need the linguistic category to create one. If language was a purely passive partner, ‘expressing’ a ‘reality’ that was already there, its categories would be eminently glossable. But it is not. Language is an active participant in the semogenic process. Language creates reality – and therefore its categories of content cannot be defined, since we could define them only by relating them to some pre-existing model of experience, and there is no model of experience until the linguistic categories are there to model it. The only meaning of Subject is the meaning that has evolved along with the category itself. …
To understand these categories, it is no use asking what they mean. The question is not ‘what is the meaning of this or that function or feature in the grammar?’; but rather ‘what is encoded in this language, or in this register (functional variety) of the language?’ This reverses the perspective derived from the history of linguistics, in which a language is a system of forms, with meanings attached to make sense of them. Instead, a language is treated as a system of meanings, with forms attached to express them. Not grammatical paradigms with their interpretation, but semantic paradigms with their realisations. …
What I have been trying to show with this illustration is that while, with a category like Subject, it is impossible to answer the question ‘what does it mean?’, this does not signify that it has no meaning. The problem of ineffability is common to all grammatical categories; there are various reasons why some may seem less problematic than others, but it is an illusion to think that any can be exhaustively defined. And this, as I remarked above, is not because of the shortcomings of natural language for serving as a metalanguage, real though such shortcomings are. Rather the converse: it is the very richness of natural language, its power of distilling the entire collective experience of the culture into a single manageable, and learnable, code that puts its categories beyond the reach of our conscious attempts at exegesis.
We've adjusted the labelling for the paradigm below, to better capture the proportionalities involved. Instead of using traditional PERSON and NUMBER labels we've turned to discourse semantics, and chosen more transparent terms to capture what is going on. One problem with this for some linguists is that our labels now sound more contextual than grammatical, and formal grammarians might object to them on such grounds; and they are perhaps less familiar to linguists than the traditional ones, and so outsiders might find them harder to understand. …
… there is a system of PERSON, based (in English, as in most other languages) on the opposition of ‘you-&-me’ versus ‘everyone (and perhaps everything) else’, and then on that of ‘you’ as opposed to ‘me’ (see Figure 2-2). …
On the other hand, the NUMBER categories are derived from Martin's source, Schachter & Otanes (1972: 88), not Martin's discourse semantics:
The plural pronouns have, as a group, the meanings of the corresponding non-plural pronouns with the additional meaning 'and others' (or 'and another'): thus the first-person plural is literally 'I and others', the dual plural 'you (singular) and I and others', etc.
[2] To be clear, the claim here is that a problem with more transparent terms is that they might be harder to understand.
[3] Trivially, in SFL Theory, 'context' is the culture modelled as a semiotic system, and formal grammarians do not use 'context' in this sense, so the labels that Martin has falsely claimed to be his own would not look more 'contextual' to them, and so would not be their grounds for objecting to them.
