Misconstruing Adpositions As Structure Markers

Martin & Doran (2023: 41-2):

Our analysis raises issues about how far to extend subjacency duplex modelling in our descriptions. For adpositions this brings us in effect to the fuzzy boundary between participants and circumstances and the line drawn between structure markers on the one hand and prepositions or co-verbs on the other. The following excerpts from Halliday with Matthiessen (2014) flag the distinction as follows:

There is also one class of expressions with of, one of the few places where of functions as a full preposition (i.e. representing a minor process) as distinct from being merely a structure marker; for example, die of starvation. The corresponding WH- forms are why? or how?. (2014: 321)

The Medium is also the only element that is never introduced into the clause by means of a preposition (again with the same exception of medio-receptives); it is treated as something that always participates directly in the process. (Note that the structure the cooking of the rice, where the Medium follows of, is not an exception; of is functioning here, as it typically does, not as preposition but as structure marker – cf. genitive ‘s in the rice’s cooking.) (ibid. 341)

What appears to be taken as criterial here is whether or not of is simply positioning participants in transitivity structure or is specifying some kind of “circumstantial” meaning (e.g. “cause” in die of starvation; cf. die from starvation). For many languages the challenge here lies in drawing a line between peripheral participants (e.g. roles akin to English Recipients and Receivers) and Circumstances of Location — and their marking by the same adposition (e.g., English to, Tagalog sa, Korean e). In terms of this paper we are exploring how to draw a line between a subjacency duplex analysis (restricted perhaps to Recipients and Receivers in English) and a prepositional phrase analysis (restricted perhaps to Circumstances of Location in English).

Blogger Comments:

[1] Again, as previously demonstrated, the argument for interpreting submodification in a nominal group as a subjacency duplex structure was invalid and based on misunderstandings of theory. And no argument whatsoever has been proffered for the validity of applying the model to other structures.

[2] As previously demonstrated, because the authors misconstrue structure, the relationships between functions, as the functions themselves, they also misconstrue markers of those functions, adpositions, as structure markers. Because adpositions are not structure markers, they are irrelevant to the aims of the paper: a subjacency duplex analysis of structure markers.

[3] This misunderstands the quotes from Halliday & Matthiessen (2014). To be clear, their point is that the preposition of either functions as a 'full preposition', that is as a minor Process/Predicator, or it does not, in which case it functions as a structure marker that marks a relation between two nominal groups.

[4] Again, 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. For an SFL approach to these matters, see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 167-176) on degree of participanthood and degree of involvement.