The Thought Occurs

Tuesday 1 September 2015

Meaning "Beyond" The Clause

In SFL theory, the two enabling metafunctions, the logical and the textual, provide the means of realising meaning "beyond" the clause.

The logical metafunction does this structurally, by relating clauses in complexes by means of interdependency and the logico-semantic relations of expansion and projection.

The textual metafunction does this non-structurally, through the cohesive relations of reference, substitution–&–ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion.

Anyone who claims that the grammatics does not model meaning "beyond" the clause does not understand the theory (or is being dishonest).