Logogenetic Patterns Of Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 587):

The patterns that are developed in this way are, however, patterns of meaning, not patterns of wording; they are patterns at the level of semantics rather than the level of lexicogrammar. This is so because text is, as we have emphasised, a semantic phenomenon in the first instance; it is meaning unfolding in some particular context of situation. For example, the grammatical system of conjunction gives speakers and writers the resources to mark transitions in the development of a text — that is, to mark rhetorical relations used to expand the text step by step; and the rhetorical relations that are marked in this way are semantic relations organising the text as a flow of meaning.

Cohesion: Marking Textual Transitions And Manipulating Textual Statuses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 586-7):

Cohesion includes

1. the system of conjunction for marking textual transitions in the unfolding text and 
2. the systems of reference, ellipsis and substitution, and lexical cohesion for manipulating textual statuses of elements in the flow of information.

Logogenetic Patterns: Instantial & Registerial Systems

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 586):

The logogenetic patterns that emerge as a text unfolds form a transient system that is specific to that text; but from repeated patterns over many such transient systems may in turn emerge a generalised system characteristic of a certain type of text or register.

Logogenetic Patterns

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 586):

… in the course of unfolding of text, lexicogrammatical selections create logogenetic patterns at all ranks. This patterning in the text that has nothing to do with composition or size: instead of composition (the relationship between a whole and its parts), the patterning is based on instantiation (the relationship between an instance and a generalised instance type). The patterning represents a slight move up this cline from a single instance to a pattern of instances, as in a news report where one projecting verbal clause after another is selected until this emerges as a favourite clause type.

Lexicogrammatical Resources Beyond The Upper Limit Of Compositional Organisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 586):

… although the grammar does not extend its compositional organisation beyond the rank of clause, the resources of lexicogrammar make two fundamental contributions beyond this upper limit of grammatical units:

(i) the creation of logogenetic patterns and

(ii) the marking of cohesion.

Schematic Organisation And Rhetorical Relations

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 583-4):

This schematic organisation is contextual: it is projected onto the text from the context … in which it operates. At the same time, the text is organised semantically as a complex of rhetorical relations, and it is these relations that are realised by the combination of conjunction and clause complexing.

Textual Transitions: Complementarity Of Conjunction And Taxis

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 583):

These two resources complement one another in the grammatical realisation of transitions in text. The general principle of complementarity is this: clause complexing does relatively more work locally, while conjunction does relatively more work non-locally and even globally. Clause complexing ‘choreographs’ the local development of text by means of univariate structure, indicating both taxis and type of logico-semantic relation. Conjunction can work together with clause complexing, reinforcing local relations, but it tends to take over from clause complexing as the relations become less local and more global. Looked at from the point of view of lexicogrammar, this means that local organisation tends to be ‘tighter’, whereas the more global organisation tends to be ‘looser’. At the same time, looked at from the point of view of context, the more global organisation is subject to more contextual guidance in the form of generic structure.

Textual Statuses: Lexical Cohesion

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 582, 583):

Unlike reference and ellipsis, the resource of lexical cohesion is, in general, neutral with regard to textual statuses; … A given lexical item can be assigned any of the textual statuses; it is not predisposed to any particular status.  Similarly, a given lexical relation is also neutral with respect to textual statuses.  However, a particular lexical chain in a text is very likely to show some systematic pattern in relation to textual status. … Texts also vary in how lexical chains relate to textual status, but this variation usually reflects systematic strategies associated with the registers that the texts belong to. … Lexical chains may thus be foregrounded either as Theme or as New.

The Textual Resources Of The Lexicogrammar Of English

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 579):

(A) structural:

1. thematic structure: Theme and Rheme
2. information structure and focus: Given and New

(B) cohesive:

1. conjunction
2. reference
3. ellipsis (ie ellipsis and substitution)
4. lexical cohesion

Looked at 'from below', these textual resources fall into two categories — those that engender grammatical structure (theme and information) and those that do not (conjunction, reference, ellipsis, lexical cohesion).  Looked at 'from above', these textual resources are concerned either with textual transitions between messages or with textual statuses of components (elements) of these messages.

	structural	cohesive
textual transitions [‘organic’]	(clause complex => logical)	conjunction
textual statuses [‘componential’]	theme; information	reference; ellipsis

Enhancing Lexical Cohesive Relations: Collocation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 576-7, 578):

At the same time there are other instances of lexical cohesion which do not depend on any general semantic relationship of the types just discussed, but rather on a particular association between the items in question — a tendency to co-occur. This ‘co-occurrence tendency’ is known as collocation. … In general, the semantic basis of many instances of collocation is the relation of enhancement …

… collocation is one of the factors on which we build our expectations of what is to come next. … collocations are often fairly specifically associated with one or other particular register, or functional variety of the language. This is true, of course, of individual lexical items, many of which we regard as ‘technical’ because they appear exclusively, or almost exclusively, in one kind of text. But it is also noteworthy that perfectly ordinary lexical items often appear in different collocations according to the text variety.

Extending Lexical Cohesive Relations: Meronymy

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 575, 576):

The general sense of hyponymy ia ‘be a kind of’ … There is a similar relation in the extending domain. This is meronymy — ‘be a part of’ … There is no very clear line between meronymy and hyponymy, especially with abstract terms; and a given set of items may be co-hyponyms of one term, but co-meronyms of another … But since either relationship is a source of lexical cohesion it is not necessary to insist on deciding between them.

Elaborating Lexical Cohesive Relations: Hyponymy

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 574):

Repetition and synonymy are both elaborating relations based on identity; one lexical item restates another. There is a second kind of elaborating relationship — attribution. This is based on classification (specific to general): the first lexical item represents a class of thing and the second either (i) a superclass or subclass or (ii) another class at the same level of classification.

Elaborating Lexical Cohesive Relations: Synonymy With Identity Of Reference & Antonymy

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 573, 574):

Here the range of potentially cohesive items includes synonyms of the same or higher level generality: synonyms in the narrower sense, and superordinates. …

A special case of synonymy is its opposite, antonymy. Lexical items that are opposite in meaning, namely antonyms, also function with cohesive effect in a text.

Elaborating Lexical Cohesive Relations: Repetition

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 571, 572):

The most direct form of lexical cohesion is the repetition of a lexical item; … in order for a lexical item to be recognised as repeated it need not be in the same morphological shape. … Inflexional variants always belong together as one item; derivational variants usually do, when they are based on a living derivational process, although these are less predictable.

Primary Types Of Lexical Relations

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 571):

They derive from either the paradigmatic or syntagmatic organisation of lexis.

• The paradigmatic relations are inherent in the organisation of lexis as a resource … . They can be interpreted in terms of elaboration and extension …

• The syntagmatic relations hold between lexical items in a syntagm that tend to occur together, or collocate with one another. …

Since syntagmatic organisation and paradigmatic organisation represent two different dimensions of patterning, any pair of lexical items can involve both.

Ellipsis Vs Substitution: Polarity And Modality

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 570):

… and there is a slight tendency for ellipsis to be associated with change of polarity and substitution with change of modality. This tendency is more clearly marked with the clause, where ellipsis adds certainty (yes or no, or a missing identity), whereas substitution adds uncertainty (if, maybe, or someone said so); this is why, in a clause where everything is ellipsed except the modality, it is quite usual to a substitute (possibly so, perhaps so) unless the modality is one of certainty — here we say certainly (elliptical) rather than certainly so.

Ellipsis Vs Reference

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 570):

But the most important distinction … is that in ellipsis the typical meaning is not one of co-reference. There is always some significant difference between the second instance and the first (between presuming item and presumed). … Thus reference signals ‘the same member’ (unless marked as different by the use of comparison); ellipsis signals ‘another member of the same class’ (unless marked as identical by same etc).

Ellipsis Vs Reference

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 569):

… ellipsis is a relationship at the lexicogrammatical level: the meaning is ‘go back and retrieve the missing words’. Hence the missing words must be grammatically appropriate; and they can be inserted in place. This is not the case with reference, where, since the relationship is a semantic one, there is no grammatical constraint (the class of the reference item need not match that of what it presumes), and one cannot normally insert the presumed element. Reference, for the same reason, can reach back a long way in the text and extend over a long passage, whereas ellipsis is largely limited to the immediately preceding clause.

Elliptical And Substitute Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 567):

The elliptical or substitute clause requires the listener to ‘supply the missing words’; and since they are to be supplied from what has gone before, the effect is cohesive. It is always possible to ‘reconstitute’ the ellipsed item so that it becomes fully explicit. Since ellipsis is a lexicogrammatical resource, what is taken over is the exact wording, subject only to the reversal of speaker–listener deixis (I for you and so on), and change of mood where appropriate.

Ellipsis And Substitution In The Clause: Two Types Related To Mood

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 563):

Specifically, it is related to the question–answer process in dialogue; and this determines that there are two kinds: (a) yes/no ellipsis, and (b) WH- ellipsis. Each of these allows for substitution, though not in all contexts.

Grammatical Domains Of Ellipsis And Substitution

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 563):

There are three main contexts for ellipsis and substitution in English. These are

1. the clause, 
2. the verbal group and 
3. the nominal group.

Ellipsis: Textual Status Of Continuous Information

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 563):

Ellipsis marks the textual status of continuous information within a certain grammatical structure. At the same time, the non-ellipsed elements of that structure are given the status of being contrastive in the environment of continuous information. Ellipsis thus assigns differential prominence to the elements of a structure: if they are non-prominent (continuous), they are ellipsed; if they are prominent (contrastive), they are present. The absence of elements through ellipsis is an iconic realisation of lack of prominence.

Ellipsis Vs Reference

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 561-2):

Another form of anaphoric cohesion in the text is achieved by ellipsis, where we presuppose something by means of what is left out. Like all cohesive agencies, ellipsis contributes to the semantic structure of the discourse. But unlike reference, which is itself a semantic relation, ellipsis sets up a relationship that is not semantic but lexicogrammatical — a relationship in wording rather than directly in the meaning.

Comparative Reference Items

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 560):

Comparative reference items function in nominal and adverbial groups; and the comparison is made with reference either to general features of identity, similarity and difference or to particular features of quality and quantity.

Comparative Reference

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 560):

In comparative reference, the reference item still signals ‘you know which’; not because the same entity is being referred to over again but rather because there is a frame of reference — something by reference to which what I am now talking about is the same or different, like or unlike, equal or unequal, more or less.

Unmarked Demonstrative Reference

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 558):

Like the personals and other demonstratives, the has a specifying function; it signals ‘you know which one(s) I mean’ … but … the merely anounces that the identity is specific; it does not specify it. The information is available elsewhere. It may be in the preceding text (anaphoric); in the following text (cataphoric); or in the air, so to speak … self-specifying; there is only one — or at least only one that makes sense in the context (homophoric).

Personal Reference: Anaphoric Strategies

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 554):

… there are two primary anaphoric strategies for tracking a referent as a text unfolds. The speaker or writer can use either (i) a personal reference item (personal pronoun or possessive determiner) or (ii) a specified noun. A ‘specified noun’ is either an inherently specific one — a proper noun — or else a common noun (serving as Thing) modified by a demonstrative determiner as Deictic.

Personal Reference Items & Theme

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 554):

… while reference items can occur anywhere, there is an unmarked relationship between referential identifiability and status as Given information, and between Given and Theme. There is therefore a strong tendency for reference items to be thematic.

Personal Reference Items

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 554):

They are either ‘determinative’ or ‘possessive’. If ‘determinative’, they are personal pronouns servingas Thing/Head in the nominal group. If ‘possessive’. they are determiners serving as Deictic in the nominal group and are conflated with either Head or Premodifier.

Co-Reference: Personal Vs Demonstrative

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 554):

… there are two types of co-reference: personal reference and demonstrative reference. They differ with respect to the category the referent — either person or proximity.

Co-Reference Vs Comparative Reference

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 553):

All such expressions have in common the fact that they presuppose referents; but they differ with repect to whether what is presupposed is the same referent (co-reference) or another referent of the same class (comparative reference).