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).
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.
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.
Tagalog makes a distinction between what is generally referred to as inclusive and exclusive 'we' — a distinction in other words between reference to the speaker and one or more others, including the addressee, and the speaker and one or more others, excluding the addressee. … Schachter & Otanes (1972) label the paradigm they propose as follows:
Their labelling raises two questions. The first issue is the choice of the label non-plural instead of singular; this is presumably because the pronoun kata, which refers to the speaker and one addressee, involves more than one person (so is not singular). The second concern is the label dual; this is a rather odd choice of term, since dual is usually used as part of a NUMBER system ([singular], [dual], [trial], [paucal], [plural] etc.) not a PERSON system; and in any case, the 'plural' inclusive pronoun tayo refers to more than two people (the speaker, addressee, and one or more others). But we can see the problem Schachter & Otanes have here: the categories they inherited from the Greco-Roman tradition don't fit — because Tagalog has four persons not three.
The first group is called non-plural rather than singular because it included dual pronouns, meaning literally 'you (singular) and I'.
[2] To be clear, this misleads by ignoring the explanation given by the authors. Schachter & Otanes (1972: 88) explain the reasoning behind their number proportionalities as follows:
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.
Martin's purpose in ignoring the explanation given by the authors will be seen in the following post.
[4] This is misleading because it is not true. Tagalog has three persons, not four, since, as Martin himself acknowledges, 'dual' is a number category, not a person category.
