Demetaphorising

Halliday (1994: 348):

Metaphor, Metonymy And Synecdoche As Lexical Variation By Expansion

Halliday (1994: 341):

Phrasal Verbs As Lexical Items

Halliday (1994: 208):

The Continuity Of Lexical And Grammatical Semantics

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 604n):

Thus semantics, as a field of study, is located within linguistics. We should therefore make it clear that it is not being used in the traditional sense that it has had within linguistics, of the study of the meanings of words. It is used in the sense it has always had in systemic theory, namely the total meaning-making system of a natural language. Semantics thus relates to the lexicogrammar as a whole. We can talk of "lexical semantics" if we want to foreground the meanings of words (lexical items functioning in open sets), and of "grammatical semantics" if we want to foreground the meanings of closed grammatical systems; but just as the lexicogrammar itself is a continuum, so — even more so, in fact — is there continuity between these two aspects of semantics, so we have not found it necessary, except in one or two instances, to make this terminological distinction.

Sensing As A Bounded Semantic Domain

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 585):

The grammar thus construes sensing as a bounded semantic domain within our total experience of change. This picture is further enriched through lexis, prominently through lexical metaphors. Metaphors relating to space, with the mind as a container (Reddy, 1979; cf, Lakoff & Kôvecses, 1987, on Anger), a finite space or a physical entity reinforce the grammar's construal of a bounded domain of sensing.

Word: Lexical Item vs Grammatical Rank

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 568-9):

Certain aspects of language are closer to conscious awareness than others (see Halliday, 1987): these are the more exposed parts of language, which are also the parts that tend to get studied first. In Western thinking about language, the most exposed aspect of language has been the "word": to talk is to "put things into words". 

The folk notion of the "word" is really a conflation of two different abstractions, one lexical and one grammatical. 

(i) Vocabulary (lexis): the word as lexical item, or "lexeme". This is construed as an isolate, a 'thing' that can be counted and sorted in (alphabetical) order. People "look for" words, they "put thoughts into" them, "put them into" or "take them out of another's mouth", and nowadays they keep collections of words on their shelves or in their computers in the form of dictionaries. Specialist knowledge is thought of as a matter of terminology. The taxonomic organisation of vocabulary is less exposed: it is made explicit in Roget's Thesaurus, but is only implicit in a standard dictionary. Lexical taxonomy was the first area of language to be systematically studied by anthropologists, when they began to explore cultural knowledge as it is embodied in folk taxonomies of plants, animals, diseases and the like. 

(ii) Grammar: the word as one of the ranks in the grammatical system. This is, not surprisingly, where Western linguistic theory as we know it today began in classical times, with the study of words varying in form according to their case, number, aspect, person etc.. Word-based systems such as these do provide a way in to studying grammatical semantics: but the meanings they construe are always more complex than the categories that appear as formal variants, and grammarians have had to become aware of covert patterns.

One Universal Property Of Language

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 299):

… one property of language which is universal is the stratal organisation of the content plane into semantics and lexicogrammar, with the lexicogrammatical stratum forming a continuum: at one pole are the most "grammatical" features, closed systems of just two or three terms, mutually defining along a single dimension and with very general meanings and contexts of use; at the other pole are the most lexical features, open sets of an indefinite number of items, taxonomically arranged along various dimensions and with highly specific meanings and contexts of use.

Lakoff On The Effect Of Metaphoric Syndromes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 273-4):

Just one instance, or a few instances, would have little or no effect; but when there is a rather massive frame of consistency whereby the same metaphor, or metaphoric syndrome, extends across a major region of semantic space this must play a significant part in our overall construction of reality. So, to cite another example from Lakoff s work, in his (1992) study of the metaphors "used to justify [the 1990] war in the [Persian] Gulf, he identifies a number of dominant motifs — he refers to these as "metaphoric systems" — such as state-as-person, fairy tale of the just war (with "self-defence" and "rescue" scenarios), ruler-for-state metonymy; war as, selectively, violent crime, competitive game or medicine — all of which he finds to have been applied in portraying Saddam Hussein as villain, Kuwait as victim, and in constructing the concept of "victory" ('the game is over'), of the "costs" of war and so on. Lakoff comments "What metaphor does is limit what we notice, highlight what we do see, and provide part of the inferential structure that we reason with".

Lexical Metaphor As Junctional Construct

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 273):

Since we are suggesting that grammatical metaphor is not simply an alternative realisation of the same meanings, but a distinct construing of experience in which there is junction of semantic features (have a bath, do a turn may be "dead metaphors", but in bring about a conclusion there is clearly a junction between the 'process' meaning of 'conclude' and the 'thing' meaning of noun), we could expect to find this same phenomenon in lexical metaphor: that the 'literal' meaning of the transferred term would remain, in junction with the features acquired in its metaphorical environment. Just as, in bring about a conclusion, conclusion combines the category (word class) meanings of verb and noun, so in get a handle on the concept, handle combines the item (word) meanings of handle and idea.

The Principle Of Lexis As Most Delicate Grammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 198-9):

This resource, the construal of systematically related lexico-semantic sets, illustrates well the principle of "lexis as most delicate grammar" (Halliday, 1961; Hasan, 1987; Matthiessen, 1991b; Cross, 1993). We have discussed above the principle that categories in the experiential grammar are ordered in delicacy, so that starting from the very general types of process that are construed into figures, we can differentiate both processes and participants into finer and finer subcategories, until we reach the degree of differentiation that is associated with the choice of words (lexical items). Note that it is not (usually) the lexical items themselves that figure as terms of the systems in the network. Rather, the systems are systems of features, and the lexical items come in as the synthetic realisation of particular feature combinations. Thus lexis (vocabulary) is part of a unified lexicogrammar; there is no need to postulate a separate "lexicon" as a pre-existing entity on which the grammar is made to operate.

Delicacy And Stratal Realisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 15):

The more general semantic potential is realised by selections in the grammar; but as we move towards the more delicate part of the ideation base, we come to types of phenomenon that are realised primarily by lexical means.

Lexicogrammar: The Complementarity Of Grammar And Lexis

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 5-6):

A word needs to be said here about the interpretation of the term "grammar" itself. As used in systemic theory, this term stands for lexicogrammar. The lexical region, or lexis, is not a separate component, but simply the most "delicate" end of the (unified) lexicogrammar. There is a complementarity here. Lexis and grammar are not two different phenomena; they are different ways looking at the same phenomenon. Some aspects of this phenomenon of "wording" in language are foregrounded by viewing it as grammar, others by viewing it as lexis.

The Two Complementarities Of Cohesive Resources

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 607-8):

…the different types of cohesion make distinct contributions to the creation and interpretation of text, contributions that complement one another. This complementarity can be described in terms of two distinctions, (i) one having to do with the extent of the elements that are linked cohesively and (ii) the other with the location of cohesive resources within lexicogrammar. 

(i) We can make a distinction between CONJUNCTION and the three other resources of cohesion. As we have seen, conjunction is concerned with rhetorical transitions — transitions between whole ‘messages’, or even message complexes. Conjunction indicates the relations through which such textual transitions are created. In contrast, the other cohesive resources are concerned with textual statuses — statuses having to do with how ‘components’ of messages are processed as information … 

(ii) At the same time, we can also recognise that the systems of cohesion operate within either the grammatical zone or the lexical zone of the lexicogrammatical continuum. CONJUNCTION, REFERENCE and ELLIPSIS are all grammatical systems, and are thus all manifestations of what we might call grammatical cohesion. The point of origin of each of these systems falls within one or more particular grammatical unit; and terms within these systems are realised either by grammatical items that have some particular place within the structure of that unit or (in the case of ellipsis) by the absence of elements of grammatical structure. … In contrast, LEXICAL COHESION operates within the lexical zone of the lexicogrammatical continuum; and it follows the general principle that lexical items are not defined in terms of particular grammatical environments.

Table 9-5 shows how (i) and (ii) intersect to define the overall space of cohesive systems in English.

Lexical Cohesion

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 606-7):

While conjunction, reference and substitution & ellipsis are cohesive resources within the grammatical zone of lexicogrammar, lexical cohesion operates within the lexical zone and is achieved through the choice of lexical items. Most typically, such cohesive relations hold between single lexical items, either words or larger units, e.g. locomotive (word), steam engine (group), in steam (phrase), steam up, get up steam (‘phrases’ in the dictionary sense); but also involving wordings having more than one lexical item in them, such as maintaining an express locomotive at full steam. … Lexical ties are independent of structure and may span long passages of intervening discourse …

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, lexical cohesion involves relations between single lexical items, whether single-worded, as in locomotive, or multi-worded, as in steam engine. It does not involve relations of hyponymy, meronymy etc. with multi-lexical item wordings such as maintaining an express locomotive at full steam.  Cf. Halliday (1985: 314; 1994: 335):

a

Pronominal Case Marking Is A Feature Of Mood, Not Transitivity

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 338n):

The account of lexical ergativity has sometimes been supported by reference to pronominal case marking in English. But this is also a mistake; pronominal case marking is not a feature of the experiential system of transitivity but rather of the interpersonal system of mood: the non-oblique (‘nominative’) case is used for Subjects in finite clauses and the oblique (‘accusative’) case in all other environments (including Subjects in non-finite clauses). It is thus related to arguability status, not the transitive model of transitivity.

Lexical Ergativity Is More Delicate Grammatical Ergativity

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 338n):

Some linguists have in fact thought that English is only lexically ergative. But this is not a tenable position once we realise that lexis and grammar are not separate modules or components, but merely zones within a continuum: ‘lexical ergativity’ in English is an extension in delicacy of ‘grammatical ergativity’ within the experiential clause grammar; and the explanation for the evolution of ergative patterning is grammatical in the first instance rather than lexical.

Ergativity & Delicacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 338):

But ergativity is not restricted to the lexical zone of lexicogrammar. Rather it is also a grammatical phenomenon, and the explanation can be stated in grammatical, rather than lexical, terms since it is the grammar that engenders the lexical patterns …

Expletives Vs Attitudinal Lexis With No Grammatical Function

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 160):

We should distinguish from Expletives the individual lexical items (‘swear words’) that may be sprinkled anywhere throughout the discourse and have no grammatical function in the clause (as with bloody in it’s a bloody taxation bloody policy, God).

Cf Halliday (1994: 85):

Note that individual lexical items expressing the speaker’s attitude, when incorporated into the structure of a group (usually a nominal group, like bloody in those bloody mosquitoes), have no grammatical function in the clause.

Lexical–Grammatical Complementarity

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 67):

… even in a general account of the grammar it is important to maintain a comprehensive picture that will show the relation between choice of words (lexical items) and choice of grammatical categories — especially in view of the complementarity between these two.

Why The Grammar Description Hasn’t Been Elaborated To Maximum Delicacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 67):

If we maintain the grammarian’s viewpoint all the way across the cline, lexis will be defined as grammar extended to the point of maximum delicacy.  It would take at least 100 volumes of the present size to extend the description of the grammar up to that point for any substantial portion of the vocabulary.