The Thought Occurs

Tuesday 20 May 2014

Internal Vs External Enhancing Relations

1. Clause Complexes

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 419):
… the enhancing relation may be internal rather than external; that is, the beta-clause may relate to the enactment of the proposition or proposal realised by the alpha-clause rather than to the figure that it represents. For example, if it is not too personal an inquiry, what limits do you set… means ‘if it is not…, I ask you…’; that is, the condition is on the act of questioning, not on the content of the question.

2. Cohesive Conjunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 545):
Many temporal conjunctives have an ‘internal’ as well as an ‘external’ interpretation; that is, the time they refer to is the temporal unfolding of the discourse itself, not the temporal sequence of the processes referred to. In terms of the functional components of semantics, it is interpersonal not experiential time.