Misrepresenting 'Canonical' Multivariate Structure

Martin & Doran (2023: 28):

At this point let’s look a little more critically at Halliday’s (2002 [1979]) proposal that multivariate structures realise non-recursive experiential systems and that univariate structures realise recursive logical systems. We’ll address the multivariate structure/non-recursive systems association first, by focusing on structures involving Epithets and Things in nominal group structure. Recall that in a canonical multivariate structure of this kind each variable is distinct and occurs once. As far as the Epithet function is concerned this works fine for Korean (Martin and Shin 2021). Each nominal group is limited to just one Epithet.

The only way to introduce additional description into the picture is via a paratactic word complex realising the Epithet. For example in (12) we have three adjectives forming a word complex realising just one Epithet. Note that the final adjective in the Epithet necessarily takes the suffix -n, linking it to the Thing — as shown in both (11) and (12). In order to add more adjectives Korean deploys the paratactic linker -go, since expanding the number of adjectives involves building a paratactic word complex realising the Epithet. We cannot add additional Epithets to the structure. Thus *빠른 아름다운 혁신적인 자동차 (*ppareu-n areumdau-n hyeoksinjeogi-n jadongcha), where the adjectives have the linking suffix -n rather than parataxis marking -go, is ungrammatical.

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[1] To be clear, this obsolete claim is from an exploratory paper by Halliday in 1965, at the time of Scale-&-Category Grammar, when there were no metafunctions, and so, no metafunction structures. In the theory that replaced it, Systemic Functional Grammar, the variable of a multivariate structure is the relationship between the functional elements, not the functional elements themselves. For example, the multivariate structure of the verbal group involves the different relationships that obtain between Finite, Polarity, Auxiliary and Event, but this does not preclude the possibility of there being more than one Auxiliary; Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 397):

The experiential structure of the finite verbal group is Finite (standing for ‘Finite operator’) plus Event, with optional elements Auxiliary (one or more) and Polarity. Finite verbal groups range from short, one-word items such as ate, where the Finite is fused with the Event and there is no Auxiliary, to long strings like couldn’t have been going to be being eaten (Figure 6-13). 

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, it is a linker that marks a paratactic relation. If the suffix -n does not mark a paratactic relation, then it either marks a hypotactic relation, in which case it is a binder, or it marks the function Epithet — or both the relation and the function.