The Thought Occurs

Wednesday, 30 July 2014

What The Stratification Of The Content Plane Means

Semantics is lexicogrammar — viewed at a higher level of symbolic abstraction (meaning).
Lexicogrammar is semantics — viewed at a lower level of symbolic abstraction (wording).

Tuesday, 29 July 2014

Why Eco-Functional ‘Selection’ Rather Than ‘Pre-selection’?

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 94):
Such selections have been referred to as “pre-selections”, but in order to avoid any connotations of temporal sequence, we prefer the term “selection” for such relations in the ideation base.

Thursday, 10 July 2014

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.

Wednesday, 9 July 2014

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.

Tuesday, 8 July 2014

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.

Thursday, 26 June 2014

Clause Structure Vs Clause Complex Structure


Clause: Multivariate


Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 384):
A multivariate structure is a configuration of different functional relationships … . Note that, although it is the functions that are labelled, the structure actually consists of the relationships among them.

Clause Complex: Univariate


Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 383-4):
The tactic structures of complexes are relational in nature; they are the kind of structure that we have called univariate, to distinguish it from the multivariate structures … . A univariate structure is an iteration of the same functional relationship; … Such iterative structures are unique to the logical mode of meaning; they are formed out of logico-semantic relations.

Wednesday, 25 June 2014

Unmarked Vs Marked Themes In Declarative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 73, 74):
In a declarative clause, the typical pattern is one in which Theme is conflated with Subject; … We shall refer to the mapping of Theme on to Subject as the unmarked Theme of a declarative clause. The Subject is the element that is chosen as Theme unless there is good reason for choosing something else
A Theme that is something other than the Subject, in a declarative clause, we shall refer to as a marked Theme. The most usual form of marked Theme is an adverbial group … or prepositional phrase … functioning as Adjunct in the clause. Least likely to be thematic is a Complement, which is a nominal group that is not functioning as Subject — something that could have been a Subject but is not … . Sometimes even the Complement from within a prepositional phrase functions as Theme … .

Blogger Comments:

Note that such a clause has either an unmarked Theme or a marked Theme, not both.  Those who ignore Halliday and stupidly think that the Subject is always Theme would have to analyse the clause on your left is the main bedroom as:

on your left
is
the main bedroom
Theme: marked
Rheme
Theme: unmarked

that is, with two distinct 'points of departure' and the 'body of the message' being simply is.

Thursday, 5 June 2014

Logico-Semantic Relations Between Process+Medium And Other Participants

Agent — Initiator, Actor (effective), Phenomenon (effective), Sayer (effective), Token (effective), Attributor, Assigner — and Beneficiary — Client, Recipient, Receiver — are related by enhancement.

Range varies between elaboration — Scope, Behaviour, intensive Attribute, intensive Value (middle) — and projection — Phenomenon (middle), Verbiage.  See Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 172-6).

Wednesday, 4 June 2014

Syllabification: Trinocular Perspective

from above (grammar): morpheme boundary



w
i
z
d
ø
m
from below (phonetics): maximum articulatory closure





from above (grammar): morpheme boundary




m
o
n
s
t
r
ø
s
from below (phonetics): maximum articulatory closure





from above (grammar): morpheme boundary



l
o
b
s
t
ø
from below (phonetics): maximum articulatory closure








Tuesday, 3 June 2014

Intonation

Our intonations contain our philosophy of life,
what each of us is constantly telling himself about things.

Marcel Proust

Wednesday, 21 May 2014

External Vs Internal Temporal Conjunction

1. External Temporal Conjunction

Halliday & Hasan (1976: 239, 240):
… it is a relation between events […] first one thing happens then another.  The time sequence […] is […] in the content of what is being said
… the cohesion has to be interpreted in terms of the experiential function of language; it is a relation between meanings in the sense of representations of ‘contents’, (our experience of) external reality
… those which exist as relations between external phenomena

2. Internal Temporal Conjunction

Halliday & Hasan (1976: 239, 240):
The time sequence is in the speaker’s organisation of his discourse. … a relationship between different stages in the unfolding of the speaker’s communication role — the meanings he allots to himself as a participant in the total situation. 
… the cohesion has to be interpreted in terms of the interpersonal function of language; it is a relation between meanings in the sense of representations of the speaker’s own ‘stamp’ on the situation — his choice of speech role and rhetorical channel, his attitudes, his judgements and the like. 
… those which are as it were internal to the communication situation.

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.

Wednesday, 14 May 2014

Wishful Thinking

Modulation smuggles desideration into cognition.

eg They think science should aggrandise humanity.

Tuesday, 6 May 2014

Interpersonal Iconicity: Semiotic And Social Distance

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 629):
The potential for negotiation in dialogue created by metaphors of mood is directly related to the contextual variables of tenor. These are usually discussed in terms of status, formality and politeness. What they have in common is a very general sense of the social distance between the speaker and the addressee. Here interpersonal metaphor is part of a principle of interpersonal iconicity: metaphorical variants create a greater semiotic distance between meaning and wording, and this enacts a greater social distance between speaker and addressee.

Sunday, 4 May 2014

Logical Vs Experiential Structure

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 520): 
… the logical system, within the ideational metafunction, engenders a different type of linguistic structure from that of the experiential system. In the logical world, the parts are not constituents of an organic configuration, like the process, participants and circumstances of the clause. They are elements standing to each other in a potentially iterative relationship; and each element represents an entire process.

Friday, 2 May 2014

Dependent Clauses Vs Circumstances

A dependent clause is a logical expansion (or projection) of another clause within a (univariate) complex.

A circumstance is an experiential element of the (multivariate) function structure of a clause.

Tuesday, 29 April 2014

Circumstantial Vs Modal And Conjunctive Adjuncts

Diagnostic: Textual Potential

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 279):
Modal and Conjunctive Adjuncts are outside the transitivity system, hence while typically thematic, they are not topical Theme and therefore cannot be given special thematic prominence; nor will they carry the only focus of information in the clause. … But many items can occur both as circumstance and in one of the other functions.

Sunday, 27 April 2014

Prepositional Phrases As Participants

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 278):
Wherever there is systematic alternation between a prepositional phrase and a nominal group, as in all the instances in Participant functions realised by prepositional phrases, the element in question is interpreted as a participant.

Saturday, 26 April 2014

Material Clauses: Transformative Vs Creative

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 186):
Neither happen to nor do to/with can be used [as probes] with creative clauses …

Friday, 25 April 2014

Mental Clauses Vs Material Clauses

1. Diagnostic: Tense

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 206):
In a ‘mental’ clause, the unmarked present tense is the simple present … But in a ‘material’ clause the unmarked present tense is the present in present … 

2. Diagnostic: ‘Do’

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 207):
Mental processes … are not kinds of doing, and cannot be probed or substituted by do.

Thursday, 24 April 2014

Relational Clauses Vs Mental Clauses

1. Diagnostic: Consciousness

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 212): 
… while one participant in a ‘mental’ clause, the Senser, is always endowed with consciousness, this is not the case with ‘relational’ clauses. 

2. Diagnostic: Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 213): 
With a ‘mental’ clause, the phenomenon of consciousness can be construed as an idea brought into existence through the process of consciousness and represented grammatically as a separate clause … but this is not possible with ‘relational’ clauses.