Halliday (1985: 170):
Textual meaning is embodied throughout the entire structure, since it determines the order in which the elements are arranged*, as well as patterns of information structure just as in the clause (note, for example, that the unmarked focus of information in a nominal group is on the word that comes last, not the word that functions as Thing: on pantographs, not on trains [in those two splendid old electric trains with pantographs]).
Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 387-8) add to the foregoing as follows:
This means that there is a certain potential for assigning experientially similar meanings different textual statuses within the structure of the nominal group. In particular, they may be presented either as Classifier or as Qualifier (e.g. wooden table ~ table of wood) and as either Deictic or as Qualifier (e.g. my brother’s house ~ house of my brother), with the Qualifier having the greater potential as news.
* On the order in which the elements are arranged, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 381) explain:
So there is a progression in the nominal group from the kind of element that has the greatest specifying potential to that which has the least; and this is the principle of ordering that we have already recognised in the clause. In the clause, the Theme comes first. We begin by establishing relevance: stating what it is that we are using to introduce this clause into the discourse, as ‘this is where I’m starting from’ – typically, though by no means necessarily, something that is already ‘given’ in the context. In the nominal group, we begin with the Deictic: ‘first I’ll tell you which I mean’, your, these, any, a, etc. So the principle that puts the Theme first in the clause is the same as that which puts the Deictic first in the nominal group: start by locating the Thing in relation to the here-&-now – in the space-time context of the ongoing speech event. From there we proceed to elements that have successively less identifying potential – which, by the same token, are increasingly permanent as attributes. By and large, the more permanent the attribute of a Thing, the less likely it is to identify it in a particular context.
