Manifestations Of Rhetorical Functions

Halliday (1994: 363-5):

Tone Expressing Logical Relations Between Information Units

Halliday (1994: 306):

Syntagmatic vs Paradigmatic Grammars

Halliday (1994: xxviii):

Systemic vs Structural Grammars

Halliday (1994: xxvii):

The Line Between Semantics And Lexicogrammar

Halliday (1994: xix):

Formal Semantics As Syntagmatically Organised

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 422):

In its relation to syntax, the formal approach to semantics is compositional, being formulated in terms of syntagmatic organisation: the meaning of larger syntagmatic units such as sentences is built up as functions of smaller units such as nouns and verbs. This semantic composition is in tandem with the syntax, so what becomes important is the nature of the syntactic rules themselves, not just the result of their application. Montague used a form of categorial grammar in formalising the rules of syntax for this purpose.

The Semantic Focus Of The Logico-Philosophical vs Rhetorical-Ethnographic Orientations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 417-8):

…we can note that the two orientations differ in what kind of semantic organisation they focus on. 

In the logico-philosophical orientation scholars have focussed on syntagmatic organisation: they have been concerned with semantic structure — including principles relating to structure such as those of compositionality and semantic decomposition. For example, in their analysis of the senses of "words", they have tended to analyse these as being composed of semantic components, semantic markers, semantic primitives or the like (following Katz & Fodor, 1963, in the generative tradition). 

In the rhetorical-ethnographic orientation scholars have focussed on both paradigmatic and syntagmatic organisation, often foregrounding the paradigmatic: they have been concerned with the semantic system, with the meaning potential — including principles of taxonomy and the metafunctional simultaneity of systems. For example, scholars in "ethnoscience" have studied folk taxonomies of animals, plants, diseases and the like; and systemic-functional scholars have tried to map out semantic systems such as those of speech function and conjunction. Another example is our own work on the ideation base presented here.

Elemental Metaphor Syndrome: Figure With Process ==> Figure With Process As Thing

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 254-5):

(III) Figure With Process ==> Figure With Process As Thing

They surveyed the property ==> (They) did a survey of the property

They started to survey the property ==> (They) started a survey of the property

They discussed in the early afternoon ==> Their discussion took place (in the early afternoon)

Elemental Metaphor Syndrome: Sequence ==> Figure

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 252-4):

(II) Sequence ==> Figure

Here the syndrome occurs in a more general environment, that of construing a sequence on the model of a figure — grammatically, the sequence is construed not as a clause complex but as a clause.

They shredded the documents before they departed for the airport ==> (They shredded the documents) before their departure for the airport

They shredded the documents before they departed for the airport ==> Their shredding of the documents preceded their departure for the airport

These examples of a 'sequence ==> figure' metaphor both involved a sequence of the expansion type. However, this type of metaphoric shift also occurs with projection sequences; for example:

The colonel declared his innocence.

— where the congruent form would be a projection, either hypotactic or paratactic:

The colonel declared that he was innocent.

The colonel declared, "I am innocent".

Elemental Metaphor Syndrome: Figure ==> Element

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 250-2):

(I) Figure ==> Element

Here a figure is being construed metaphorically on the model of a participant: grammatically, the figure is construed not as a clause but as a nominal group. There is a shift in rank from figure to element, and concomitantly a shift in status among the elements making up the construction.

he was arrested by the police ==> his arrest by the police

(...) bond rapidly ==> rapid bonding occurs

the group decided yesterday ==> yesterday's decision by the group

the accused appeared to be innocent ==> the apparent innocence of the accused

he argues cogently ==> the cogency of his argument

Types Of Elemental Metaphor Syndromes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 250):

These syndromes of elemental metaphors fall into three general types, not very sharply distinct but worth using as a conceptual framework. The distinction relates to the rank where the metaphoric reconstrual takes place: 

(I) from figure to element, 

(II) from sequence to figure, 

(III) from figure with process to figure with process as thing.

Syntagmatic And Paradigmatic Dimensions Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 249):

… we identified individual types of grammatical metaphor, such as "process => thing". For analytic purposes we treated these as isolates having just the two values "congruent/ metaphorical". We now need to consider two respects in which this is an idealised, oversimplified account of what actually happens. We need to add a dimension of complexity on both syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes.

Syntagmatically, instances of grammatical metaphor typically occur not in isolation but in organic clusters or "syndromes". Paradigmatically, there will typically be other wordings intermediate between an instance of grammatical metaphor and its "most congruent" agnate variant.

Strategies For Assigning Qualities To Things

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 201-2):

It will be clear that both these strategies, the expansion of word to group and the accumulation of contrasting words, are strategies for assigning qualities to things: we can gloss a slipper, for example, as a soft supporting garment worn by either sex at the lower extremities of the body. In general the qualities involved will come from the same semantic domains in either case; and there is often fluctuation between the two strategies within the language — we sometimes talk of slippers and sometimes of soft shoes. …

And although we have presented the two strategies as discrete, there are of course intermediate modes of construing that form a continuum between the two: noun-compounding (more syntagmatic) and morphological derivation (more paradigmatic). So we find compounds such as pushbike, motorbike; and derivational series like cycle : bicycle, monocycle, tricycle. It is not difficult to invent new categories if we need them such as bikelet or megabike. Note also the morphological strategy for deriving casual terms from formal ones: bicycle > bike (cf. omnibus > bus). 

The sort of strict taxonomy that is typically associated with related series of nominal groups is often a feature of special registers of the language. The limiting cases of such taxonomies are those found in the specialised technical registers of science and technology; these include some which are partially or even wholly designed in a conscious exploitation of the grammatical resources involved. The "things" that are construed in this way include the more abstracts concepts of a scientific theory, the virtual objects that are postulated to explain the more arcane phenomena that impinge on human experience.

Construing Things Into Strict Taxonomies

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 197):

This syntagmatic resource serves prototypically to construe things into strict taxonomies, based on the principle of hyponymy. Thus a touring bike is a kind of bike, a reinforced touring bike is a kind of touring bike, and so on. Since touring is a Classifier, this means that it is one of a defined set: perhaps touring/racing/mountain/exercise/trail. Epithets do not assign classes, but they specify a particular dimension of taxonomic space: e.g. source European/American/Japanese...'.

One type of classification is meronymic (part-whole), where the thing is classified by the whole of which it forms a part, e.g. bicycle wheel 'wheel (that forms part) of a bicycle'. These are often indeterminate in meaning: if definite, they tend to be strictly meronymic (somebody stole my bicycle wheel), whereas if indefinite, they are often classifying by type (the kids were playing with a bicycle wheel 'wheel for/ from a bicycle').

The Network Of Selection Is Inter-Axial

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 94-5, 96):

The network of selection is inter-axial in that it relates syntagmatic specifications to paradigmatic ones; it 'cuts across' the paradigmatic organisation of the ideation base, establishing correspondences between paradigmatic types through the syntagmatic functions associated with them, as we have just illustrated by reference to Figures 1-12 and 2-6. We can trace one further example from sequence via figure to element: see Figure 2-17.

Selections Are Bidirectional

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 94, 44):

Selections are bidirectional. We have already seen that functions associated with paradigmatic types constitute 'structural properties' by which these types are distinguished and that selections provide further information about these 'properties'.

Thus Figure 1-12 above illustrates how a figure of spearing is characterised by reference to the function of Means, which selects for the thing 'spear'. Conversely, semantic types which are selected are characterised by the functional environment within which they are selected. Thus the weapon 'spear' is characterised by its potential for serving as Means in a figure of spearing. Similarly, part of the meaning of a 'conscious being' is that it has the potential for serving in the Senser role of a figure of sensing.

Eco-functional Selection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 94, 58):

Taxonomic elaboration and meronymic extension form complementary networks of relations that together make up the paradigmatic organisation of the ideation base. They define, as we have noted, options in delicacy of categorisation and in delicacy of focus. The third type of network involved in the organisation of the ideation base which we identified above serves to relate paradigmatic organisation and syntagmatic organisation. Specifically, it relates syntagmatic functions or roles associated with paradigmatic types to the paradigmatic types that can serve in these functions. For example, the syntagmatic function 'Senser' is associated with the paradigmatic type 'sensing', and it is related to the paradigmatic type 'conscious being', since only participants of this subtype can serve as Sensers.

Figure 2-6 above shows this relation, together with a set of other such relations. We shall refer to such network relations as eco-functional selection in order to indicate that they specify the syntagmatic environment of semantic types by showing them as selections for syntagmatic functions. Such selections have been referred to as "pre-selections", but in order to avoid any connotations of temporal sequence, we prefer the term "selection" for such relations in the ideation base.

Representation Stratum Of SFL Metalanguage: The Realisation Statement

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 42-3):

If we use systemic representation to encode information in the ideation base, we factor out the logic of subsumption and alternatives from the syntagmatic realisation: this logic is represented in the system network. If each feature is interpreted as a type, this gives us a lattice of types. In European structuralist terms, the network is a representation of the paradigmatic organisation of a linguistic system. However, it is also necessary to show how feature choices are realised structurally; i.e., what are the structural properties of the types. This is the province of the realisation statement.

A realisation statement is a minimal specification of a piece of structure or configuration of roles presented in a paradigmatic context; it is always associated with a particular systemic feature. For instance, the realisation statement '+ Senser' occurs in the context of 'sensing' in the system of figures; it is the syntagmatic realisation of that feature: a figure of sensing is a configuration of roles one of which is Senser.

The Global Organisation Of The Ideation Base

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 14):

The distinction between paradigmatic organisation and syntagmatic organisation opens up one dimension of the ideation base. As we have said, syntagmatic specifications occur in paradigmatic environments, as realisations of paradigmatic types. But the global organisation of the ideation base is paradigmatic; the paradigmatic network is ordered in delicacy (subsumption, classification, specialisation), from the least delicate (most general) to the most delicate (most specific types).

The Relation Of Paradigmatic To Syntagmatic Modes Of Construal

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 13):

We have said that the ideation base is a resource for construing our experience of the world. Such construal is both paradigmatic and syntagmatic. (i) In paradigmatic construal, we construe a phenomenon as being of some particular type — some selection from a set of potential types. The ideation base is in fact organised as a network of inter-related types of phenomena, (ii) In syntagmatic construal, we construe a phenomenon as having some particular composition — as consisting of parts in some structural configuration.

For example, if some phenomenon is construed as belonging to the type 'creative doing', it will configure as an Actor, a Process, and a Goal which is brought into existence through the actualisation of the Process, These two modes of construal are related: on the one hand, syntagmatic organisation realises paradigmatic organisation; on the other hand, types in the network of paradigmatic organisation correspond to fragments of syntagmatic specification — this is one way in which such types are differentiated.