"Granting These Structural Orphans A Home"

Martin & Doran (2023: 44):

Structure markers make important contributions to the realisation of systemic options in many languages, though in some (such as those with adpositions at group rank) more than others (such as those where inflectional morphology carries a heavy load). And there are many cases, some reviewed above (e.g. nominal group complexes and embedded clauses in Korean and Tagalog), where structure markers make explicit what goes with what and cannot be ignored. Our goal here has been to suggest a way forward for grammarians disposed towards granting these structural orphans a home.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously explained, adpositions (and inflectional morphemes) do not function as structure markers. Instead, they mark functions in structures. To be clear, SFL construes structure as the relations between functional elements. 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.

A structure marker, in this view, is a marker of relations, not of functional roles. Because adpositions are not structure markers, they are irrelevant to the aims of the paper: a subjacency duplex analysis of structure markers.

[2] To be clear, genuine structure markers mark relations between elements. For example, linkers mark paradigmatic relations and binders mark hypotactic relations, but this is already theorised in SFL Theory (e.g. Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 453, 611), so any suggestion that these functions have been ignored or not been made explicit before this paper by the authors is misleading.

[3] To be clear, the authors end their paper, as they began, with a logical fallacy: presenting lexical metaphors that position the reasoned invalidation of their model as an immoral act. This is the fallacy known as an Appeal to pity (argumentum ad misericordiam): generating feelings of sympathy or mercy in the listener to obtain common agreement. The sentiment might be summarised as "Make Structure Markers Great Again."

Misconstruing Multivariate And Paratactic Structures As Having "Heads"

 Martin & Doran (2023: 25):

For particulate structure this means bringing nuclearity into the picture and re-interpreting multivariate structures as orbital (with satellites related to a single nucleus) and univariate structures as serial (i.e. multi-nuclear). This additional variable (i.e. nuclearity) allows for the recognition of “heads” in both experiential and logical structures. The canonical “head” in an orbital structure is exemplified by the Thing in nominal groups, the Event in verbal groups or the configuration of Process and Medium in clause structure; the canonical “head” in serial structure is the α variable in hypotactic complexes – e.g. the primary tense choice in an English or Spanish verbal group (Martin et al. 2023) or the projecting clause in a reporting clause complex across languages.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, as previously explained, Martin's model of structure misconstrues multivariate experiential structure as hypotactic univariate logical structure, and so it is this misconstrual that 'allows for the recognition of "heads" in experiential structures'. However, because Martin's model of structure misconstrues univariate logical structure as paratactic univariate structures, it does not 'allow for the recognition of "heads" in logical structures', since a paratactic structure links elements of equal status, and as such, has no Head element.

[2] This is potentially misleading. To be clear, unacknowledged by Martin & Doran, the notion of Process and Medium as nucleus in the ergative model of the English clause appears in Halliday (1985: 147):

The Process and the Medium together form the nucleus of an English clause; and this nucleus then determines the range of options that are available to the rest of the clause. Thus the nucleus ‘tear + cloth’ represents a small semantic field that may be realised as a clause either alone or in combination with other participant or circumstantial functions.

Importantly, for Halliday, the meaning of 'nucleus' is distinct from the meaning of 'head', which is why he uses the different terms. The nuclear model construes a cline from the most central to the most peripheral. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 348):

the nucleus of ‘Process + Medium’ has an inner ring of additional participants as well as an outer ring of circumstances surrounding it: see Figure 5-40.

[3] To be clear, this is an instance of self-contradiction. If Martin models logical structure as serial (i.e. multinuclear), and it is nuclearity that 'allows for the recognition of heads', then, in a logical structure every single nucleus is a head, and there are no satellites.

[4] This is misleading, because it invites the reader to falsely credit Martin et al. (2023) with the insight that the realisation of primary tense serves as the element of the logical structure of a verbal group. Halliday (1985: 177):

The primary tense is that functioning as Head, shown as α.

"Sweeping Structure Markers Under The Carpet"

Martin & Doran (2023: 17):

As Fontaine (2017:280) comments, “It is well known that of-expressions are problematic…”. McDonald (2017:263) similarly expresses concern about the need to account “for a structural marker that is not itself part of a structure, such as of in English, de in French, zhi in classical Chinese or de in modern Chinese, or no in Japanese”. …

As SFL addresses an ever-wider range of languages and extends descriptions to include group/phrase and word rank systems and structures, sweeping structure markers under the carpet becomes less and less tenable. Thus in this paper we  focus on these structure markers and suggest how to deal with them. In doing so we re-visit SFL’s conception of types of structure and suggest a generalisable account of structure markers which makes room for their analysis in tables or trees.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Fontaine's comment is an example of the logical fallacy known as Argumentum ad populum:

appeal to widespread belief, bandwagon argument, appeal to the majority, appeal to the people) – a proposition is claimed to be true or good solely because a majority or many people believe it to be so.

And Martin & Doran's use of Fontaine's comment is an example of the logical fallacy known as Ipse dixit (bare assertion fallacy):

a claim that is presented as true without support, as self-evidently true, or as dogmatically true. This fallacy relies on the implied expertise of the speaker or on an unstated truism.

[2] To be clear, 'structure marker' is precisely how such items are accounted for. If they are not part of a structure, then they cannot be interpreted as part of a structure. Nevertheless, this is precisely what Martin & Doran propose in this paper.

[3] To be clear, this is an example of the logical fallacy known as Red herring:

introducing a second argument in response to the first argument that is irrelevant and draws attention away from the original topic

since it makes the further claim that accounting for such items as structure markers is 'sweeping them under the carpet'; see [2]. This red herring then serves as a fallacious straw man to be defeated by the authors in this paper.