Classifier + Thing (Or Compound Noun?)

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 378):

A sequence of Classifier + Thing may be so closely bonded that it is very like a single compound noun, especially where the Thing is a noun of a fairly general class, e.g. train set (cf. chemistry set, building set). In such sequences the Classifier often carries the tonic prominence, which makes it sound like the first element in a compound noun. Noun compounding is outside the scope of the present book; but the line between a compound noun and a nominal group consisting of Classifier + Thing is very fuzzy and shifting, which is why people are often uncertain how to write such sequences, whether as one word, as two words, or joined by a hyphen (e.g. walkingstick, walking stick, walking-stick).

The relation between Classifier and Thing may be elaborating, extending or enhancing. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 183): 

External vs Internal Cohesive Conjunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 611):

Relations between representations of segments of experience are called external relations, and conjunctions marking such relations are called external conjunctions. … 

Relations linking text segments in their interpersonal guise are called internal relations – internal to the text as a speech event, and conjunctions marking such relations are called internal conjunctions.

Metaphorical Expansion Of Ideational Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 226):

Projection And Expansion Manifested Throughout Ideational Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 224):

Two Fundamental Semantic Motifs: Expansion And Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 223):

Projections And Expansions Construed As Things

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 202):

Dreyfus And Hao On Circumstantial Meaning

A multi-stratal perspective on circumstantial meaning

Shoshana Dreyfus (with Jing Hao in absentia)

This presentation provides a ‘broader’ understanding of what is previously known from a grammatical perspective as ‘circumstantial meaning’ or circumstantiation. This ‘broader’ perspective takes into account more abstract meanings beyond grammar, considering both field (at the register stratum) and discourse semantics, in addition to lexicogrammar. The paper shows how the lexicogrammar alone is not able to adequately account for the meaning potential of ‘circumstantial meaning’, and how by examining this region of meaning from three strata, a fuller account of circumstantial meaning is made possible. A richer account of circumstantial meaning is necessary because, while circumstances may be considered structurally peripheral, earlier explorations of circumstantial meaning (such as Dreyfus & Jones 2008, 2011; Dreyfus & Bennett 2017) show that this area of meaning often makes important contributions to the register of any given text and to the building of disciplinary knowledge. This exploration is demonstrated through two texts: a student’s high scoring piece of creative writing from the subject of English in the final year of schooling and a synopsis of a history book on the Chinese fishing industry in colonial Australia. These texts reveal the significantly different ways in which circumstantial meanings are used in different subject areas – i.e. to contribute to setting up an ‘ambience’ in literary texts and to developing knowledge in history.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, as Halliday & Matthiessen (1999) have argued, the 'broader', 'more abstract' meanings that are manifested in circumstantiation are the highly generalised categories of expansion and projection, which they term 'transphenomenal' because they 'operate across the various categories of phenomena' (p223), and generate patterns that constitute 'fractal types' because:

… they are principles of construing our experience of the world that generate identical patterns of semantic organisation which are of variable magnitude and which occur in variable semantic environments.

[2] To be clear, in SFL theory, 'field' is the ideational dimension of context — from the culture as potential to varying institutions/situation types to varying situations as instances.  Register, on the other hand, as a functional variety of language, is a sub-potential of language, not the systemic potential of context.  Here the authors are merely repeating Martin's (1992) misunderstandings of field, context and register, as demonstrated here (field), here (context), and here (register).

[3] To be clear, in SFL theory, it is the grammar that construes ('intellectually constructs') the semantics.  That is why understanding the grammar (wording) of a language is the means of understanding its semantics (meaning).

[4] Here the authors misinterpret the peripheral status of circumstances in terms of ergativity as peripheral status in terms of semogenesis (making meaning), and use this misinterpretation as a straw man against which to argue.

[5] To be clear, in SFL theory, knowledge is meaning, and 'disciplinary knowledge' is the meaning (semantics) that realises an institution (context sub-potential).  Both levels of symbolic abstraction involve all metafunctions, and so are not limited to field (context) and ideational meaning (semantics).

Circumstantiation: One Of The Many Manifestations Of Expansion And Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 669-73, 676):

Let us now present a systematic and comprehensive summary of the different grammatical environments in which elaboration, extension and enhancement are manifested: see Table 10-3. As the table shows, the environments of manifestation can be differentiated in terms of (i) metafunction – textual (CONJUNCTION), logical (INTERDEPENDENCY; MODIFICATION) and experiential (CIRCUMSTANTIATION; PROCESS TYPE: relational), and (ii) rank – clause and group/phrase. (The table could, in fact, be extended downwards along the rank scale to take account of patterns below the rank of group/phrase within the logical metafunction: word and morpheme complexes also embody interdependency relations that combine with expansion.) 

From a grammatical point of view, the environments set out in Table 10-3 are, of course, all different. But seen from above, from the vantage point of semantics, they are all agnate ways of construing expansion. Collectively they thus construe expansion as a semantic system. This means that for any given type of expansion we want to express, we have at our disposal a range of resources. For example, if we want to express an enhancing relationship of cause, the opportunities made available by the grammar include the one set out in Table 10-4. 

… Let’s now turn to the semantic domain of projection. Like expansion, projection is manifested both logically and experientially within the ideational metafunction; but outside the ideational domain, it is manifested interpersonally rather than textually, thus contrasting with the textual manifestation of expansion: see Table 10-5.

 

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).

Circumstance Vs Expanding Clause

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 369):

In the creation of text, we choose between augmenting a clause ‘internally’ by means of a circumstantial element and augmenting it ‘externally’ by means of another clause in a complex. The decision depends on many factors; but the basic consideration has to do with how much textual, interpersonal and experiential semiotic ‘weight’ is to be assigned to the unit.

Expansion & Projection Enable The Metaphorical Elaboration Of The Semantic System

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 294-5):

The whole metaphorical elaboration [of the semantic system] is made possible by a fractal pattern that runs through the whole system. We have suggested that the metaphorical elaboration is a token–value relation; but in order for it to be a token–value relation within the semantic system, it has to be natural in the sense that the token and the value domains have to be similar enough to allow for the token to stand for the value. … The principle behind this similarity is the fractal pattern of projection/expansion … 

That is, while grammatical metaphor constitutes a move from one “phenomenal domain” to another … this move is made possible because fractal types engender continuity across these domains: the metaphorical move from one phenomenal domain to another takes place within the one and the same transphenomenal domain.

Expansion & Projection: Fractal Types

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 223): 

Since projection and expansion operate across the various categories of phenomena, we referred to them as transphenomenal categories. As transphenomenal categories, they are meaning types that are in some sense “meta” to the organisation of the ideation base: they are principles of construing our experience of the world that generate identical patterns of semantic organisation which are of variable magnitude and which occur in variable semantic environments. Such patterns therefore constitute fractal types.

Expansion And Projection: Transgrammatical Semantic Domains

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 593):

… there are semantic domains that are construed in more than one place in the grammar, by more than one system local to one particular grammatical unit. These semantic domains range over two or more grammatical domains, spanning two or more grammatical units. There are two fundamental semantic domains of this kind — expansion and projection.