Martin's Criticism Of Matthiessen's Network

Martin (2013: 73):

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, here, yet again, Martin adopts the opposite perspective to SFL Theory by giving priority to structure over system.  A grammatical system is devised on the basis of the meaning being realised, not the structures that realise it.

[2] To be clear, as previously explained, Matthiessen's network properly restricts recursion to just those features that can be realised iteratively. Matthiessen (1995: 232):

Martin's clause network, in contrast, allows potentially unlimited insertions of Medium and Process, and potentially unlimited selections of both 'middle' and 'effective' if the feature 'agentive' is selected. So it is Martin's network that does not account for the structures he has presented.

[3] Matthiessen's network only presents recursion in effective clauses because that was the extent of its description. As Matthiessen (ibid.) made clear:

The system network in Figure 4-14 sets out a partial specification of options and their realisations.

It is misleading of Martin to claim that Matthiessen restricts agency to effective clause, because the network is immediately preceded by instances of agency, all of which are middle clauses. Matthiessen (ibid.):

For instance:

The general kept the soldiers marching.
The general helped the soldiers march.
The general required the soldiers to march.
Well they got the army digging

∞

In summary, Martin here misleads the reader by deliberately misrepresenting Matthiessen's network, and promoting his own very poorly constructed network as successful in comparison.