This complementarity means that there are two ways in which a given structure can be extended. For multivariate structure the relevant process is embedding as an element of structure is realised by an element of the same or higher rank (a process originally referred to as rankshift). This kind of extension was exemplified by the embedded nominal group in (1) above and the embedded clauses in (6), (7) and (8). For univariate structure on the other hand the relevant process is iteration – as an element of structure is repeated an indefinite number of times.
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[1] To be clear, rankshift involves a rank unit, not an element of function structure, operating at a lower rank, as when a clause is shifted to the rank of word to serve as an element (Qualifier) of nominal group structure.
[2] To be clear, 'iteration' was not discussed in the authors' source: Halliday (1965). It first appears in IFG in the second edition (1994).
[3] To be clear, because a structure consists of relationships between elements, not the elements themselves, an iterative structure means that it is a relationship that is iterated, not an element. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 451):
A univariate structure is an iteration of the same functional relationship: for example ‘and’ as in Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davy, Dan’l Whiddon, Harry Hawk, Old Uncle Tom Cobbley and all; ‘equals’ as in Tom, Tom, the piper’s son (Tom = Tom = the piper’s son); ‘is a subset of’ as in new-fashioned three-cornered cambric country-cut handkerchief (what kind of handkerchief? – country-cut; what kind of country-cut handkerchief? – cambric, ... ); and so on. Such iterative structures are unique to the logical mode of meaning; they are, as noted, formed out of logico-semantic relations.
The authors' misunderstanding of structure as its functional elements is one of several factors that undermines the validity of the argumentation in this paper.
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