Misunderstanding Structure Markers

 Martin & Doran (2023: 16):

1. Structure markers 

In  systemic functional linguistics (hereafter SFL) Halliday’s description of English grammar (1985  and subsequent editions) is generally taken as a benchmark,  proposing as it does rich functional descriptions of clauses, groups and phrases. In the fourth edition (2014) a number of references are made to what are termed “structure markers” – with reference to of in nominal groups, to in verbal groups and conjunctive binders (e.g. that, which, whether, if; when, because, if, although) and linkers (e.g. and, or, but, so). Of these, binders and linkers are treated as structural Themes but otherwise analyses with distinct function labels for structure markers are not provided.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is potentially misleading. To be clear, the reason why Halliday's description is 'taken as a benchmark' is that SFL is a theory devised by Halliday. Without Halliday, there is no SFL; without everyone else, there is.

[2] To be clear, on the one hand, the perspective taken here by the Martin & Doran is the opposite of the perspective taken in SFL. That is, instead of identifying how meanings are expressed, the authors are concerned with identifying what expressions mean.

On the other hand, the authors here disclose their misunderstanding of the SFL notion of structure. As Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 451) make clear: 

Note that, although it is the functions that are labelled, the structure actually consists of the relationships among them.

Because a structure consists of relations, a structure marker marks a relation. For example, of marks a relation between nominal groups, while binders and linkers mark tactic relations between rank units.

The reason why binders and linkers are also treated as structural Themes is that they also serve as these functional elements in clause structure. The reason why the structure marker of is not assigned a function label is that it does not serve as a functional element in nominal group structure.

This fundamental misunderstanding of structure forms the basis of this paper.