Tone And Syllabification

Martin (2013: 98):

Blogger Comments:

[1] This wording is potentially misleading. It is the choice of TONE, which is the choice of pitch movement for the tonic segment of the tone group, that is relevant to the realisation of MOOD.

[2] Trivially, India comprises three syllables, /in di: ə/, so the penultimate syllable is di, not Ind.

Misunderstanding The Trinocular Perspective On Strata

Martin (2013: 77-8):

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, viewing a nominal group 'from above', stratally, means viewing the grammar from above: seeing the grammatical unit as the realisation of meaning; for example, as the congruent realisation of a participant element, or as the metaphorical realisation of a figure or sequence.

Importantly, it is not the nominal group that is 'evaluated' and 'tracked in the text' but the meaning that it realises. So these are not viewing the grammar from above, but instead just viewing the stratum above: semantics.

Similarly, viewing 'from below' stratally means viewing the grammar from below: as wording that is realised phonologically or graphologically. Again, it is not the nominal group that has rhythmic structure, but the prosodic phonology that realises it, and not the nominal group that is spelt with an initial upper case, but the graphology that realises it. So this is not viewing the grammar 'from below' but instead viewing the stratum below: phonology or graphology.

In short, Martin misconstrues viewing 'from above' as viewing 'above', and viewing 'from below' as viewing 'below'.

Outline Of Chapter 6

Martin (2013: 11):

Blogger Comments:

This foreshadows the misleading misunderstandings to appear in Chapter 6.

Firstly, the intonational system of TONE realises the system of KEY, not MOOD. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 168):

The tones are not, however, simply additional markers attached to the realisation of mood. They realise distinct grammatical systems of their own, which are associated with the mood categories. The general name for systems that are realised by tone is KEY. The term KEY covers a number of systems;

Secondly, rank is a way of modelling formal constituency, but semantics has no form, and so no formal constituency to model as a rank scale.

Thirdly, the 'probabilistic perspective' relates the cline of instantiation, not with any one stratum, such as context. For example, for context, the instantiation probabilities of field, tenor and mode features distinguish one situation type from another, and for language, the instantiation probabilities of content plane features distinguishes one register from another.

Mistaking A Lower Rank Syntagm For A Higher Rank Function Structure

Martin (2013: 8-9):

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this mistakes a syntagm of classes of form at phoneme rank (consonant^vowel^consonant) for a function structure at syllable rank (Onset^Nucleus^Coda). This is analogous to mistaking a syntagm of classes of form at group rank (nominal^verbal) for a function structure at clause rank (Senser^Process).