The Semantics And Grammatics Of Intentionality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 478):

To the extent that intentionality enters into the semantic system of a language, it could in principle be construed ideationally as some aspect of the overall system of figures or be enacted interpersonally as a modality of inclination. If it is construed ideationally, it could in principle be a global property of a figure as a whole or a local property of the process or a participant.

In English, intentionality can be enacted within the interpersonal system of imperative modality (modulation) in the form of inclination, as in he won't be ordered around ('refuses to be'). It is independent of ideational agency; inclination is oriented towards the Subject, i.e. the modally responsible element of the clause, rather than (say) the Actor or Agent (as our passive example illustrates).

Intentionality can be construed in the clause as circumstances of Manner ('according to plan', e.g. he found the book by chance; he turned left by mistake; he turned left intentionally) and as verbal group complexes of projection or enhancement realising the Process (e.g., she intended to leave at 4; she happened to be in the neighbourhood). It may also be a factor in certain lexical contrasts within delicate process types; but we have no evidence that intentionality is a primary variable in the semantic system of figures and its grammatical construal in transitivity. Rather, whether an example is read as construing something as intentional or non-intentional will depend on a variety of factors, such as the consciousness of the most active participant.

The Transitivity And Temporal Files Of The Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 468-9):

As we have seen, the two perspectives represent two different kinds of profile. One is the configuration of process, participants, and circumstances — the transitivity profile; and the other is the occurrence or unfolding of an event through time — the temporal profile.

The two perspectives are not unrelated, of course. As we shall see, the specification of an element of transitivity structure may determine the temporal profile: the created Goal that constitutes the completion of the performance of the process (as in Mr. Standings built a house), a Range that constitutes its finite scope (They sang two Hungarian folk songs), a destination that gives its spatio-temporal endpoint (He walked to the store), a resultative Attribute that constitutes the (qualitative) endstate (He was shot dead), and so on. But the mere presence of such an element is not sufficient to determine the temporal profile; it is also influenced by the 'boundedness' of the elements: are they in infinite supply or not — a definite number of units, or an indefinite number? In general, then, the temporal profile is determined by other factors such as the presence, and the boundedness in quantity, of participants and circumstances.

The Temporal Instantiation Perspective On The Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 468):

In the temporal instantiation perspective, the issue is the occurrence of the process as an event located in time: how does it unfold through time, and what is its temporal profile? Here the relevant variables are such as the following:

1. Is the process homogeneous during its occurrence or does it decompose into a sequence of distinct phases (stages); is it a mini-tableau or a mini-drama?

2. Is the period of occurrence a relatively short interval, or is it an extended interval?

3. Is the whole period of occurrence in view or only a phase of it (e.g. beginning or end)?

4. Does the process tend to occur once or repeatedly?

These questions lead to typologies that include terms like stative, dynamic, perfective, imperfective, punctiliar, iterative, durative, and so on.

The distinction most commonly drawn here is based on change. Is there change over time or not; i.e. is there a change in the course of the occurrence of the process? The most common dichotomy is state vs. non-state (with terminological oppositions such as stative/ dynamic); this has been favoured both by philosophers (see e.g. Nordenfelt, 1977, and his references) and by linguists (see e.g. Quirk et al, 1985 and their references). States and non-states have different temporal profiles. States are homogeneous; any time we check a process whose occurrence is a state, it will be the same. Non-states, or changes, are not homogeneous; during the course of the occurrence of a process something will have changed, for example the spatial location of a participant (as with processes of movement) or parts of a participant, or some other attribute of a participant (e.g. possession or location in a 'quality space' such as colour or temperature).

The Participant-Organising Perspective On The Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 467-8):

In the participant-organising perspective, it is the nature of the participants involved in the process that determines the different process types. Relevant variables include the following:

1. Is some participant created, brought into existence, by the process?

2. Is some participant restricted to conscious being?

3. Can some participant be a metathing as well as a thing?

4. Is the process directed towards some participant?

5. Does the process benefit some participant?

6. Does the process occur spontaneously or does it need an input of energy?

7. Does the process affect some participant materially or does it impinge on its consciousness?

8. Is the process symmetric?

9. Is the process reflexive?

Questions such as these lead to typologies with terms like action, transaction, happening, sensing, saying, relation, existential, ambient, and so on. In the typology presented here as part of the ideation base, there are two very general considerations:

1. process type: what kind of reality does the figure or process configuration pertain to (the material world, the world of consciousness, the world of symbolisation, the world of abstract relations)?

2. agency: is the occurrence of the process (in conjunction with the medium) caused by an entity that is external to it (an agent)?

How Formal Syntax Obscures The Different Perspectives On The Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 466-7):

The difference between the two perspectives has been obscured for two reasons. In the first place, syntacticians have continued to tend to fail to recognise the unity of the verbal group, favouring instead a Predicate-based constituent, the Verb Phrase, with the Auxiliary then detached within it or located outside it altogether; furthermore, parts of the verbal group complex have been exported to a higher node (e.g. seem, continue). In the second place, the preference for immediate constituency rather than rank-based models of constituency effectively masks the generalisations that can be made about any one rank.

Two Perspectives On A Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 466, 467):

… a process is both an organiser of participants and an event that is instantiable in time. These two perspectives lead to different criteria for establishing process typologies. For example, will have left is the Process part of they will have left the house by now, where it organises the participants they and the house; but it also has internal organisation as an event will —> have —> left: see Figure 12-1.

The two perspectives are associated with different grammatical units, the clause (for the participant organising perspective) and the verbal group (for the temporal instantiation).

Syndromes Of Features That Occupy A Region Of Semantic Space

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 466):

For example, if we recognise figures of saying (usually overlooked as a distinct type), this goes together with certain other features: with the distinction between phenomena and metaphenomena, and between ideas and sayings, with the organisation of projections as sequences rather than as figures, with the identification of symbol sources as a kind of participant, and with the recognition of circumstances of matter. In other words, we have to consider syndromes of features that occupy a region of semantic space.

The Semantics Of Attributive Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 450):

More generally, the Medium is related as a member of a set, which is defined either by a quality or by a class. The relation is a composite of the participants (the Carrier and the Attribute) and the nuclear relation. The nuclear relation is not necessarily a state; it can be either a being or a becoming, both of which are located in time, as are processes in general.

But its participants are static things; the Carrier is an individual or class, and the Attribute is a lasting quality or a wider class. The Attribute of the relation of becoming applies to the Carrier in the final state of the becoming; it is a resultative Attribute.

The Fundamental Problem With The View That Language Distorts

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 447-8):

In rejecting both these views of language as distortion, we are not propounding an alternative version according to which language is a perfect match. What is wrong with all such conceptions is that they misconstrue the nature of a semiotic system — the fundamental relation of realisation to which we are always having to return. A semiotic system is not some kind of outer garment which may either reveal or conceal what is beneath. Rather, it is a transformation of experience into meanings, and each stratum within the system is construed by, and construes, all the rest. A "language", in this sense, may be artificially constructed or engineered, like a scientific theory or a logic; but all such semiotics are ultimately related to natural language, and natural language is still an accomplice in their overall construction of reality.

But whether or not it is engineered in this way, natural language will continue to evolve. The artificial languages of the 17th century were never actually used; but this did not mean that the forms of natural language persisted without change. On the contrary, new registers were always evolving, some of them as part of the ongoing reconstruction of experience in the form of systematic knowledge and experimental science.

Blogger Comments:

It was Samuel Johnson who said 'Language is the dress of thought', but he also said 'Words are but the signs of ideas', that is: the realisations of meanings. 

The View That Syntax Distorts Semantics: Universalist Arguments

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 447, 447n):

Such analyses ['surface x is really deep y'] were often supported by universalist arguments such as "negation is a verb in certain languages, so it is reasonable to claim that it is really a verb in all". … they tended to make deep structure, the 'real' structure, look like predicate logic. Surface structure came out looking like a (transformationally) twisted version of logical structures. But predicate logic had been derived from one particular area of the grammar, a simplified version of the experiential aspect of the clause; it could be used as an idealised model of certain types of figure, for the purpose of explicit rule-based reasoning, but it was not intended to be a tool for analysing the entire semantic structure of a natural language.² This view has largely been abandoned and the notion of a semantically irresponsible surface structure is no longer generally held.

 

² In terms of our model of a stratified metalanguage, we can see that taking the categories of predicate logic (or any other logical systems) to be linguistic ones constitutes a strata! slippage: categories from the level of representation in the metalanguage are imported into the theoretical account of the object language.

Blogger Comments:

In Chomskyan linguistics, this is the relocation of the universals of Platonic realism — which are said to exist outside and independently of human minds — into the res cogitans of Cartesian dualism.

The View That Syntax Distorts Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 446):

The view that syntax distorts semantics implies that the relation of grammar to meaning is indirect and arbitrary. This view became tenable in modern linguistics, where meaning was either excluded from its scope altogether, as among structuralist linguists in the U.S., or, with Chomsky, kept at a distance by the metaphor of deep and surface structure in the syntax, only the former being semantically responsible. This paved the way for a number of analyses on the model of 'surface x is really deep y'. We find suggestions such as the following: adjectives are really verbs (e.g. Chafe, 1970), nouns are really verbs (cf. Bach, 1968), pronouns are really articles (Postal, 1966), negation is really a [higher] verb, tense is really a [higher] verb (cf. Huddleston, 1969), auxiliaries are really full verbs, verbal group complexes are really reductions of embedded clauses, moods are really separate clauses of saying, and so on.

Language Defined In Communicational Terms

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 446):

The same view of language as distortion is frequently to be met with when language is contained within a model of communication, where a common motif is that language is a vehicle for lying, or at least for concealing the truth. One might surmise that, if language is defined in communicational terms, as a means of transmitting information — especially if this is combined with a semantics based on considerations of truth — then this is how it is likely to appear.

Origins Of The View That Language Distorts The Picture Of Reality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 445):

This belief in the distorting effect of language was propounded by the early European humanists, who held that mediæval scholars had focussed too strongly on language, whereas the real task of the scientist was to see through the verbal disguise and penetrate to the reality underneath (for example, Francis Bacon's well-known warnings against the seductive power of natural language). Natural languages were considered to be inadequate vehicles for the new scientific knowledge; hence it was necessary to construct artificial languages to record, transmit and extend it. These artificial languages would, it was thought, be more in harmony with the objective world of experience. This same attitude continues to prevail in the ways people talk about language in our own time.

Whorf's Critique Of The View That Language Distorts The Picture Of Reality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 445):

After characterising the position of 'natural logic' in this way, Whorf (op cit.: 211) goes on to identify two problems with it:

Natural logic contains two fallacies: First, it does not see that the phenomena of a language are to its own speakers largely of a background character and so are outside the critical consciousness and control of the speaker who is expounding natural logic. Hence, when anyone, as a natural logician, is talking about reason, logic, and the laws of correct thinking, he is apt to be simply marching in step with purely grammatical facts that have somewhat of a background character in his own language or family of languages but are by no means universal in all languages and in no sense a common substratum of reason.

Second, natural logic confuses agreement about subject matter, attained through use of language, with knowledge of the linguistic processes by which agreement is attained: i.e., with the province of the despised (and to its notion superfluous) grammarian.

Whorf's Exposition Of The View That Language Distorts The Picture Of Reality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 444-5):

The view that language distorts the picture of reality, and that there is a mismatch between language and thought … was discussed many years ago by Whorf, in terms which are still relevant today; Whorf refers to it as the "natural logic" view:

According to natural logic, the fact that every person has talked fluently since infancy makes every man his own authority on the process by which he formulates and communicates. He has merely to consult a common substratum of logic or reason which he and everyone else are supposed to possess. Natural logic says that talking is merely an incidental process concerned with communication, not with formulation of ideas. Talking, or the use of language, is supposed only to "express" what is essentially already formulated nonlinguistically. Formulation is an independent process, called thought or thinking, and is supposed to be largely indifferent to the nature of particular languages. Languages have grammars, which are assumed to be merely norms of conventional and social correctness, but the use of language is supposed to be guided not so much by them as by correct, rational, or intelligent THINKING.

Thought, in this view, does not depend on grammar but on laws of logic or reason which are supposed to be the same for all observers of the universe — to represent a rationale in the universe that can be "found" independently by all intelligent observers, whether they speak Chinese or Choctaw. In our own culture, the formulations of mathematics and of formal logic have acquired the reputation of dealing with this order of things: i.e., with the realm and laws of pure thought. Natural logic holds that different languages are essentially parallel methods for expressing this one-and-the-same rationale of thought and, hence, differ really in but minor ways which may seem important only because they are seen at close range. It holds that mathematics, symbolic logic, philosophy, and so on are systems contrasted with language which deal directly with this realm of thought, not that they are themselves specialised extensions of language. (Whorf, 1956: 207-8)

The Notion Of Language Distorting Reality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 444):

Attempts to create an ontology without reference to language in general, or without reference to lexicogrammar in particular, seem to derive from the belief, familiar in the history of Western thinking, that language comes between us and a 'real' or scientific understanding of the world, that it somehow distorts our awareness of reality. There are two somewhat distinct versions of this belief.  

The first is the notion that language distorts reality — or, as a variant of this, that language distorts our thinking (which includes our thinking about reality). This is extra-linguistic deception: language is deceiving us by the way it represents something else.  

The second is the notion that syntax distorts semantics. This is intra-lingiiistic deception: language is deceiving us by the way one part of it represents another part.

Language As The Primary Semiotic System For Transforming Experience Into Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 444):

Here let us just reiterate our view that all of experience is construed as meaning. Language is the primary semiotic system for transforming experience into meaning; and it is the only semiotic system whose meaning base can serve to transform meanings construed in other systems (including perceptual ones) and thus integrate our experience from all its various sources. 

It might be objected that this view leaves no room for scientific or metaphysical models — for example, that we do not allow for the possibility that science has advanced our understanding of the world. This objection would be misplaced: such models are construed in the ideation base as domain models within the overall meaning potential.

The Interstratal Accountability Of A Theory Of Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 441-2):

Throughout our discussion of the organisation of the meaning base, we have made reference both to intra-stratal considerations (such as patterns of agnation and the transphenomenal types that emerged in the course of our exploration) and to inter-stratal considerations. With respect to the latter, we have foregrounded considerations 'from below', from the stratum of lexicogrammar. 

There were two main reasons for this: on the one hand, the meaning base has to be realised in worded texts and the statements of realisation will be simpler if the resources of wording are part of the picture from the start; on the other hand, the relationship between meaning and wording, between the system of semantics and that of lexicogrammar, is a natural one: they are both strata of the content. 

Although it has not been part of the central argument about particular distinctions in the meaning base, we have also referred to the relationship between semantics and context. Just as the meaning base has to be accountable lexicogrammatically, it also has to be accountable contextually. In our discussion, we emphasised register or functional variation as one of the keys to the relationship between semantics and context.

Autonomous Syntax vs A Natural Relation Between Lexicogrammar And Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 437-8):

In the logical-philosophical approach, within generative linguistics, interpretive semantics has focussed on the question of how semantic representations can be derived from below, from syntactic ones; and an important aspect of the debate in the late 60s and early 70s was precisely concerned with the directionality of interstratal mappings and the nature of the inter-stratal boundary.  

One key question that emerged, particularly in the 1970s and early 1980s, was whether syntax is autonomous or not. In the standard Chomskyan theory it was; but this was rejected by Montague and those who were influenced by his idea of building syntactic and semantic specifications "in tandem" (as in the successive developments of GPSG and HPSG).  

Within the rhetorical-ethnographic approach, we have taken the position that not only is lexicogrammar not autonomous, but it is natural in relation to semantics: our approach to the ideation base rests on this theoretical assumption. This is what explains the further possibility of grammatical metaphor, opened up at the interface between semantics and lexicogrammar.

Fawcett's Cognitive Model Of An Interactive Mind vs SFL Theory

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 429):

… in our model there are two system-structure cycles, one in the semantics and one in the lexicogrammar. Terms in semantic systems are realised in semantic structures; and semantic systems and structures are in turn realised in lexicogrammatical ones. As we saw in Chapter 6 in particular, grammatical metaphor is a central reason in our account for treating axis and stratification as independent dimensions, so that we have both semantic systems and structures and lexicogrammatical systems and structures. Since we allow for a stratification of content systems into semantics and lexicogrammar, we are in a stronger position to construe knowledge in terms of meaning. That is, the semantics can become more powerful and extensive if the lexicogrammar includes systems. 

It follows then … that for us "knowledge of the universe" is construed as meaning rather than as knowledge. This meaning is in the first instance created in language; but we have noted that meaning is created in other semiotic systems as well, both other social-semiotic systems and other semiotic systems such as perception. Our account gives language more of a central integrative role in the overall system. It is the one semiotic system which is able to construe meanings from semiotic systems in general.

Fawcett's model, although in certain ways closer to mainstream cognitive science than ours, is also a systemic-functional model. In other words it is within the same general theoretical framework as that within which our own work is located.

Blogger Comments:

Fawcett's model is actually a development of Halliday's first theory, Scale and Category Grammar, not Systemic Functional Grammar, as Fawcett (2010) readily admits, and, as a model of syntax, its focus is on structure and form, not system and function. See the close examination of Fawcett's model here.

Fawcett's view of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999) is less than complimentary, and writing on Sysfling on 29 June 2011, he unwittingly disclosed his inability to understand its content:

Indeed, if Michael Halliday and Christian Matthiessen had formed a clear view of the way in which the choices described in their Construing Experience through Meaning determine the choices in the major system networks of the lexicogrammar, they would surely have said so in that book. I have looked hard for a section that makes this connection, but I have yet to find it. This suggests that the model proposed there is simply one possible, half-complete hypothesis that needs to be subject to the normal process in science of development, testing, evaluation, revision (or rejection), retesting, re-evaluation, and so on.

Fawcett's Cognitive Model Of An Interactive Mind

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 428-9):

Within systemic-functional linguistics, Fawcett (e.g. 1980) has pioneered a "cognitive model of an interactive mind". There are many fundamental similarities with the approach we are taking here, e.g. in construing an experiential system of process configuration within the content plane. However, there are two related differences of particular interest in the context of our present discussion:

(i) in Fawcett's model, there is only one system-structure cycle within the content plane: systems are interpreted as the semantics, linked through a "realisation component" to [content] form, which includes items and syntax, the latter being modelled structurally but not systemically;

(ii) in Fawcett's model, the semantics is separate from the "knowledge of the universe", with the latter as a "component" outside the linguistic system including "long term memory" and "short term sort of knowledge".

Blogger Comments:

This is misleading, because 'form' in Fawcett's model also includes expression. Fawcett (2010: 35n, 39):

I take a different view, as this book shows, in that I regard the level of meanings within the 'lexicogrammar' as the key level of linguistically-realised meaning, such that it is realised in any one of (1) syntax, (2) intonation or punctuation (depending on the medium of discourse) and (3) items. …

The term "form" is used here in a wider sense than that in "Categories" (or indeed any of Halliday's later writings) because it includes, as well as syntax and grammatical and lexical items, components for intonation or punctuation (depending on whether the medium is speech or writing).

Lakoff's Cognitive Semantics vs A Social Semiotic Perspective

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 428):

Thus while our view that the ideational semantic system construes human experience is similar to what Lakoff (1987; 1988) calls the position of "experientialist cognition" (the position he has himself espoused, in contrast with what he calls "objectivist cognition"), it differs in that for us construing experience is an intersubjective process. It is at once both semiotic (the construction of meaning) and social (as in Peter Berger's "social construction of reality": cf. Berger & Luckmann, 1966, Wuthnow et al, 1984). It is the intersection of these two perspectives that characterises the social semiotic we are attempting to present in this book (cf. Lemke, 1995; Thibault, 1993).

Jackendoff's Conceptual Semantics vs A Socio-Semiotic Perspective

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 428):

Returning to Barwise's contrast between the mind-oriented view of meaning and the world-oriented view, we can note Barwise's general argument against the mind-oriented view:

... representational mental states have meaning in exactly the same way that sentences and texts have meaning, and saying what one means is a complicated matter. This makes attempts to explicate linguistic meaning in terms of mental representations an evasion of the main issue: How do meaningful representations of all kinds, sentences and states, mean what they do? (Barwise, 1988: 38)

We acknowledge this problem, but we believe the solution lies in a socio-semiotic view of meaning such as the one we are presenting here. Jackendoff views information about the projected world in conceptual terms; hence reality construction is seen as a process taking place within the consciousness of the individual. 

Our own view, that the projected world is a semantic construction, foregrounds the interpersonal perspective: meaning is construed in collaboration. Meanings are exchanged; and the "projected world" is constantly calibrated against the interpersonal negotiation of meaning. This means that consensus and conflict take over much of the domain that is usually conceptualised in terms of truth and falsehood (cf. Eggins, 1990). The semantic system (as part of the linguistic system) is shared; it is part of our social being.

Some Limitations Of Jackendoff's Ontology

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 427-8):

Jackendoff contrasts his ontology with that of "standard first-order logic", and makes the important point that the ontological classes of logic are vastly under-differentiated from a linguistic point of view — that this type of logic is not an adequate theory of the semantic structure of natural language. Compared to this type of logic, Jackendoffs ontology is much more highly differentiated However, it is not very rich compared to what we believe is needed in an account of the ideation base.

The classes recognised are roughly a list of semantic correlates of word classes at primary or secondary delicacy (such as one finds in traditional grammars). The list is not exhaustive, it does not include any significant paradigmatic organisation (i.e., it contains no organisation showing how types are arranged into a subsumption lattice) and some of the most revealing distinctions of the ideational semantics of English are absent — e.g. the distinction between phenomena and metaphenomena, the recognition of the role played by projection, and the expansion of the system through grammatical metaphor.

These are general observations. Since Jackendoff relies on reference as a source of evidence for the ontological distinctions, he might in fact have taken note of the semantically crucial phenomena of 'extended reference' (the move to 'macro') and reference to fact (the move to 'meta') discussed in Halliday & Hasan (1976).

Jackendoff's Ontology

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 427):

Jackendoff takes seriously the relation between conceptual organisation and syntactic organisation; this might be challenged from a classical formalist point of view, but from a functional point of view it is quite natural. In particular, he identifies correspondences between syntactic classes (i.e., categories in generative terms) and conceptual ones. Such correspondence is in fact a major source of evidence for the conceptual ontology. 

In particular, Jackendoff uses wh-items and non-interrogative reference items to support the ontology; he recognises things, amounts, places, directions, manners, events and actions. For instance, both things and places have to be recognised because English has both the forms what did you buy? and where is my coat? 

The ontology is tabulated in Table 10(1) below together with the grammatical evidence for each type. The left-most column provides a rough translation into our ideation base ontology.

The Transcendent Orientation Of Conceptual And Cognitive Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 426):

Jackendoff and a number of others now prefer the second position [semantic structures as subset of conceptual structures]. It is also shared by e.g. Langacker (1987), representing cognitive semantics from the other US coastline:

Meaning is a mental phenomenon that must eventually be described with reference to cognitive processing. I therefore side with Chafe (1970, p. 74-76) by adopting a "conceptual" or "ideational" view of meaning ... I assume it is possible at least in theory (if not yet in practice) to describe in a principled, coherent, and explicit manner the internal structure of such phenomena as thoughts, concepts, perceptions, images and mental experience in general. The term conceptual structure will be applied indiscriminately to any such entity, whether linguistic or nonlinguistic. A semantic structure is then defined as a conceptual structure that functions as the semantic pole of a linguistic expression. Hence semantic structures are regarded as conceptualisations shaped for symbolic purposes according to the dictates of linguistic convention, (pp. 97-8)

From our standpoint, this appears as a transcendent interpretation of meaning: we on the other hand prefer an immanent approach to meaning, where "conceptual organisation" is interpreted as meaning that is created by various semiotic systems, among which language is the primary one.

The Relation Of Conceptual To Semantic Organisation In Conceptual Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 425-6):

Jackendoff (1983) presents a major study of semantics and cognition from a generativist point of view. As part of that study, he presents an ontology of conceptual types that are linguistically motivated. While his purpose is theoretical rather than descriptive, and the ontology is not very extensive, it has become a frame of reference for work in this area.

Jackendoff sees semantic organisation as part of conceptual organisation — that part which can be verbalised; this is a position that distinguishes him from a number of other generativists. He identifies two possible positions on the relationship between semantic organisation and conceptual organisation (1983: Section 1.7; interpreted by us in Figure 10-3):

(1) "conceptual structure could be a further level beyond semantic structure, related to it by a rule component, often called pragmatics, that specifies the relation of linguistic meaning to discourse and to extralinguistic setting."

(2) "semantic structures could be simply a subset of conceptual structures — just those conceptual structures that happen to be verbally expressible".

Cognitive Semantics: Lakoff, Langacker, Johnson, Chafe, Talmy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 425):

On the West Coast, a number of linguists have developed a "cognitive" alternative to generative linguistics. Some of them (e.g., Lakoff, Langacker) come from a generative background (Lakoff s starting point was generative semantics), but have made a radical departure from this tradition. They have widened the scope of study relative to the generativist research agenda so as to include metaphor as a prominent feature (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, and other subsequent writings, such as Lakoff, 1987, 1988) and a detailed theoretical model of the relationship of language to cognition and perception (Langacker, 1987). A few have also oriented their work towards discourse (notably Chafe, e.g. 1979; 1987; cf. also Tomlin's, 1987a, discussion of the linguistic reflection of cognitive events). 

This version of cognitive semantics is arguably more closely associated with the rhetorical and ethnographic tradition (perhaps not so much in terms of its roots, but in terms of where it is headed); cognitive anthropology, with its interest in folk taxonomy and more recently in cultural models, provides a meeting point between the two.

Various aspects of the West Coast work in cognitive semantics are relevant to the organisation of the ideation base; for example, the work on metaphorical systems already mentioned, Talmy's (e.g. 1985) work on lexicalisation, and Chafe's (1970) early work on the organisation of meaning.

Conceptual Semantics: Jackendoff

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 424-5, 424n):

On the East Coast, Jackendoff (e.g., 1983), drawing on his earlier work on interpretive semantics (Jackendoff, 1972), has developed a generativist type of cognitive semantics,⁴ which he calls conceptual semantics. This is integrated with a number of aspects of modem generative theory, e.g. the X-bar syntactic subtheory. Jackendoff puts forward a conceptual ontology and suggestions for conceptual structure that we shall return to below. This version of cognitive semantics is arguably the more closely associated with the logical and philosophical tradition (cf. Jackendoff, 1988: 81-2).

 

⁴ Jackendoff calls his approach conceptual semantics and Lakoff calls his cognitive semantics. We use the term cognitive semantics as the generic term for cognitively oriented approaches to semantics.

(Mind-Oriented) Cognitive Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 424):

Cognitive semantics has emerged out of the generative tradition in the last ten to fifteen years. It is a natural development of the general cognitivist research program that began in the 1950s with the birth of cognitive science, Artificial Intelligence, and Chomsky's cognitively oriented linguistics.

Those adopting the cognitive approach to semantics share certain assumptions about semantic organisation as part of conceptual organisation, and tend to reject formal, Montague-style semantics, as indicated by the passages from Jackendoff and Lakoff quoted above. However, they seem to fall into two groupings, which can be conveniently described in terms of the US coastline [east vs west].

The Constructivist View Of Reality In SFL Theory

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 423-4):

We also have emphasised that reality is not something that is given to us; we have to construct an interpretation of it — or, as we prefer to put it, we have to construe our experience. Interpretation is a semiotic process, and our interpretation takes into account not only the concrete natural world but also the socio-cultural realm that is brought into existence as a semiotic construct (see Hasan, 1984a, for discussion, with reference to Whorf).

Blogger Comments:

Strictly speaking, in this view, 'reality' is the interpretation, not what is interpreted, and the 'concrete natural world' is also a semiotic construct: a construal of experience as meaning: perceptual and linguistic.

(World-Oriented) Formal Semantics Viewed From (Mind-Oriented) Cognitive Semantics: Lakoff

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 423):

Writing from a different orientation within cognitive semantics, Lakoff (e.g. 1988) is also very critical of what he calls "objectivist metaphysics" (metaphysical realism). He presents a detailed critique of this position, also noting the problem that arises if meanings are located in the world:

To view meaning as residing only in the relationship between symbols and external reality is to make the implicit claim that neither colour categories, nor any other secondary category, should exist as meaningful cognitive categories. Yet colour categories are real categories of the mind. They are meaningful, they are used in reason, and their meaning must be accounted for. But the mechanism of objectivist cognition cannot be changed to accommodate them without giving up on the symbolic category of meaning. But to do that is to abandon the heart of the objectivist program, (p. 132)

(World-Oriented) Formal Semantics Viewed From (Mind-Oriented) Cognitive Semantics: Jackendoff

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 423):

Jackendoff (1983: Ch. 2), working within cognitive semantics, argues that the account of 'aboutness' in formal semantics is simplistic:

... I will take issue with the naive (and nearly universally accepted) answer that the information language conveys is about the real world, (p. 24) ... If indeed the world as experienced owes so much to mental processes of organisation, it is crucial for a psychological theory to distinguish carefully between the source of environmental input and the world as experienced. For convenience, I will call the former the real world and the latter the projected world (experience world or phenomenal world would also be appropriate), (p. 28) ...  

It should now be clear why we must take issue with the naive position that the information conveyed by language is about the real world. We have conscious access only to the projected world — the world as unconsciously organised by the mind; and we can talk about things only insofar as they have achieved mental representation through these processes of organisation. Hence the information conveyed by language must be about the projected world. We must explain the naive position as a consequence of our being constituted to treat the projected world as reality.

According to this view, the real world plays only an indirect role in language: it serves as one kind of fodder for the organising processes that give rise to the projected world. If this is the case, we must question the centrality to natural language semantics of the notions of truth and reference as traditionally conceived. Truth is generally regarded as a relationship between a certain subset of sentences (the true ones) and the real world; reference is regarded as a relationship between expressions in a language and things in the real world that these expressions refer to. Having rejected the direct connection of the real world to language, we should not take these notions as starting points for a theory of meaning. Thus an approach such as that of Davidson (1970), which attempts to explicate natural language semantics in terms of Tarskian recursive theory of truth, is antithetical to our own inquiry, (pp. 29-30)

The projected world in Jackendoff's account is the result of creative acts of perception: it is constructed as a model of sensory input, but with the significant addition of information from the perceptual system itself.

(World-Oriented) Formal Semantics Viewed From (Mind-Oriented) Cognitive Science

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 422-3):

It would seem that formal semantics is quite far from the concerns of cognitive science; but formal semantics is often carried out within the broad program that cognitive scientists adopt. Writing from a cognitive standpoint, Johnson-Laird (1983) assesses model-theoretic semantics as follows:

The power of model-theoretic semantics resides in its explicit and rigorous approach to the composition of meanings. ... Some idealisations definitely complicate the 'ecumenical' use of model-theoretic semantics as a guide to psychological semantics. One such idealisation is the mapping of language to model without any reference to the human mind, and this omission gives rise to certain intractable difficulties with the semantics of sentences about beliefs and other such prepositional attitudes. These difficulties are readily resolved within the framework of mental models, (p. 180)

... model-theoretic semantics should specify what is computed in understanding a sentence, and psychological semantics should specify how it is computed, (p. 167)

Johnson-Laird's own psychological approach is one based on mental models.

Formal Semantics: The Model Theoretic Approach To Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 422):

The model theoretic approach to meaning is a transcendent one: meanings are located in the world outside of language. This is seen as a strength by the proponents of the model theoretic approach. Dowty et al (1981) criticise various other theories of meaning for ignoring the "inherent aboutness of language", its relationship to the real world:

Any theory which ignores this central property, it is argued, cannot be an adequate theory of natural language. Examples would be theories which, in effect, give the meaning of a sentence by translating it into another language, such as a system of semantic markers or some son of formal logic, where this language is not further interpreted by specifying its connection to the world. The approach of Katz and his coworkers seems to be of this sort (Katz and Fodor, 1963; Katz & Postal, 1964), as is that of Jackendoff (1972) and of the framework of Generative Semantics (Lakoff, 1972; McCawley, 1973; Postal, 1970).

Formal Semantics: Meaning As Extensional And Intensional

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 422):

In modelling meaning, formal semantics models it as both extensional and intensional: extensional meaning is cast in terms of sets of entities in a model of some world, and intensional meaning is the relation between a linguistic expression and its extension in any possible world. Formal semantics has thus been concerned with how semantic representations can be related to some extra-linguistic world model. Dowty et al (1981: 5) emphasise the relationship between language and the world in their introductory characterisation of truth conditional semantics:

"... truth conditional semantics, in contrast to other approaches mentioned [including Katz & Fodor, Jackendoff, and generative semantics, MAKH & CM], is based squarely on the assumption that the proper business of semantics is to specify how language connects with the world — in other words, to explicate the inherent "aboutness" of language."

This is, of course, an ideational orientation: the focus here is on representational meaning only. One central method has been to build models of the world in set theoretic terms, and to relate these to linguistic expressions — the model theoretic approach.

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 World-Oriented Tradition: The Origin Of Formal Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 419):

The development of logic is of interest in itself in the present context as a tradition of 'semiotic design' whereby logical systems were developed out of the resources that have evolved in language. This design of logical systems was earned out to meet certain restricted purposes having to do with reasoning; but once such systems had been developed, philosophers and linguists turned them back on language and used them as systems for representing and theorising meaning. In the present century, when formal semantics was developed for underpinning logical systems, this was then taken as a model for work on the semantics of natural languages.

Important Developments In The Logico-Philosophical Tradition

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 419, 420):

Here we are merely noting some particularly important developments. These are charted in Figure 10-2.

The Logico-Philosophical vs Rhetorical-Ethnographic Orientations To Meaning Summarised

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 418):

The two different orientations are summarised with the internal differences we have just reviewed in Figure 10-1.

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.

The Metafunctional Scope Of The Logico-Philosophical vs Rhetorical-Ethnographic Orientations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 417):

The two orientations differ in the metafunctional scope of their models of semantics. 

In the logico-philosophical orientation, meaning is closely associated with representation, reference, denotation, extension or 'aboutness', so the metafunctional scope is restricted to the ideational metafunction: semantics means ideational semantics. 

In the rhetorical-ethnographic orientation, meaning is closely associated with rhetorical concerns, so the metafunctional scope involves all three metafunctions: semantics means ideational, interpersonal and textual semantics; it is multifunctional. 

If interpersonal and textual meanings are dealt with by logico-philosophical accounts (they are often outside their scope), they are handled under the heading of pragmatics rather than the heading of semantics. 

For example, speech act theory was developed as a logico-philosophical interpretation of speech function (or rather of its ideational construal) and has come to be included within pragmatics.

The Basic Unit Of Meaning In The Logico-Philosophical vs Rhetorical-Ethnographic Orientations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 417):

The approaches differ with respect to what they take as the basic unit of meaning. 

In the logico-philosophical orientation, the basic unit tends to be determined "from below", from grammar: since sentences are seen as encoding propositions, the basic unit of semantics is the proposition (as in propositional calculus).

In contrast, in the rhetorical-ethnographic orientation, the basic unit tends to be determined "from above", from context: since language is seen as functioning in context, the basic unit of semantic is the text (see Halliday & Hasan, 1976; Halliday, 1978a). 

So in the logico-philosophical orientation, semantics means in the first instance propositional semantics, whereas in the other orientation it means text semantics.

The Transcendent View Of Meaning: World-Oriented vs Mind-Oriented

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 416-7):

The modern split within the "transcendent" view is between what Barwise (1988: 23) calls the world-oriented tradition and the mind-oriented tradition, which he interprets as public vs. private accounts of meaning:

The world oriented tradition in semantics, from Tarski on, has focussed on the public aspect of meaning by trying to identify the meaning of a sentence or text with its truth conditions, the conditions on the actual world that are needed to insure its truth (Davidson 1967 and Montague 1974).  

The psychological tradition, by contrast, has focussed on the private aspect by trying to identify meaning with an intrinsically meaningful mental representation (Fodor 1975 or Jackendoff 1983 e.g.).

The world-oriented tradition interprets meaning by reference to (models of) the world; for example, the meaning of a proper noun would be an individual in the world, whereas the meaning of an intransitive verb such as run would be a set of individuals (e.g. the set of individuals engaged in the act of running). 

The mind-oriented tradition interprets meaning by reference to the mind; typically semantics is interpreted as that part of the cognitive system that can be "verbalised".

Meaning Seen As Transcendent

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 416):

Many traditional notions of meaning are of the second kind — meaning as reference, meaning as idea or concept, meaning as image. These notions have in common that they are 'external' conceptions of meaning; instead of accounting for meaning in terms of a stratum within language, they interpret it in terms of some system outside of language, either the 'real world' or another semiotic system such as that of imagery.

The Location Of Meaning In The Logico-Philosophical vs Rhetorical-Ethnographic Traditions

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 416):

The two orientations towards meaning thus differ externally in what disciplines they recognise as models. These external differences are associated with internal differences as well.

First, the orientations differ with respect to where they locate meaning in relation to the stratal interpretation of language:

(a) intra-stratal: meaning is seen as immanent — something that is constructed in, and so is part of, language itself. The immanent interpretation of meaning is characteristic of the rhetorical-ethnographic orientation, including our own approach.

(b) extra-stratal: meaning is seen as transcendent — something that lies outside the limits of language. The transcendent interpretation of meaning is characteristic of the logico-philosophical orientation.

The Logico-Philosophical vs Rhetorical-Ethnographic Orientations in Western Thinking About Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 415-6):

We can identify two main traditions in Western thinking about meaning (see Halliday, 1977):

(i) one oriented towards logic and philosophy, with language seen as a system of rules;

(ii) one oriented towards rhetoric and ethnography, with language seen as resource.

It is typically the logical-philosophical tradition that provides the background for work on knowledge representation and proposals for the knowledge base. Since the 50s, a link has been forged between this tradition and cognitivism under the general rubric of cognitive science. 

However, although it is less often referred to, the rhetorical-ethnographic tradition is equally relevant to work on the modelling and representation of knowledge — for example, in recent times, the work on folk taxonomy carried out by anthropologists and anthropological linguists (often in the framework of ethnoscience) and the work on intellectualisation in the Prague School framework are central to understanding the organisation of the ideation base. 

Our own work here falls mainly within the second tradition — but we have taken account of the first tradition, and the general intellectual environment in which versions of our meaning base are being used also derives primarily from the first tradition. Indeed, the two traditions can in many respects be seen as complementary, as contributing different aspects of the overall picture. Our own foundation, however, is functional.

Mainstream work in psycholinguistics, e.g. Miller & Johnson-Laird (1976), is in general located within the logico-philosophical tradition. Two other distinctive contributions to the study of meaning within linguistics, those of Lamb (1964, 1992) and of Wierzbicka (1980, 1988), derive in more or less equal measure from both the major intellectual movements we have referred to.

The two orientations towards meaning thus differ externally in what disciplines they recognise as models.

Example Of The Discourse Function Of Ideational Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 402-3):

In the second type [of ideational metaphor] to be exemplified, a clause or clause complex is nominalised as a Medium participant in a clause whose Process simply means 'happen' (i.e., existence of a process: happen, occur, take place; begin, continue, stop). The Medium constitutes a thematic quantum of information, as in the following example:

However, Einstein realised that if an observer was travelling alongside a light wave at the same speed as the light wave, the wave would essentially disappear, as no wave peaks or troughs would pass by the observer. But the disappearance of light waves because of the motion of an observer should not happen according to Maxwell, so Einstein concluded that either Maxwell's equations were wrong or that no observer could move at the speed of light.

Here the metaphorical clause makes it possible to summarise the preceding clause complex the wave would essentially disappear, as no wave peaks or troughs would pass by the observer as a thematic nominalised participant, the disappearance of light waves because of the motion of an observer.

The Textual Motivation Of Metaphorical Mental Clauses Of Perception

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 401-2):

Metaphorical mental clauses of perception, such as the fifth day saw them at the summit (cf. Halliday, 1985: 324-5), may serve to create two quanta of information, Senser (Theme) + Phenomenon (New); consider the following example:

Summer finds campers and hikers descending on the mountains in throngs

Here the metaphorical clause summer finds campers and hikers descending on the mountains in throngs is textually motivated in terms of both THEME and INFORMATION. From the point of view of THEME, it provides summer as the unmarked Theme of the clause — one instalment in the method of development. From the point of view of INFORMATION, it groups campers and hikers descending on the mountains in throngs as one quantum of information (the Phenomenon of the metaphorical mental clause); contrast the congruent version, which has the same Theme (marked) but a different culmination of the New: 

In summer, campers and hikers descend on the mountains in throngs.

The Discourse Function Of Ideational Grammatical Metaphors

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 401):

These two clause systems, THEME IDENTIFICATION and THEME PREDICATION, are components of the overall system of THEME in English grammar. They produce structures in which identifying relational processes are used to reconstrue figures as equations (the two together are referred to as "thematic equatives" in Halliday, 1985: 41-4). But ideational grammatical metaphors typically have a discourse function of this kind; they are as it were pressed into service by the textual metafunction, to provide alternative groupings of quanta of information.

The Different Assigned Prominences Of Theme Identification vs Predication

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 400n):

Both these systems, THEME IDENTIFICATION and THEME PREDICATION, assign exclusive identity to the identified term of the equation. They differ, however, in the kind of prominence this identity carries with it: 

in THEME IDENTIFICATION, in which the original figure is restructured, the effect is one of second-order (semiotic) prominence, whereas  

in THEME PREDICATION, where the figure is not restructured, but one element within it is explicitly predicated, the effect is that of assigning first-order (natural or inter-subjective) prominence to the predicated element.

Theme Predication

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 400-1):

A related textual system is that of THEME PREDICATION (the so-called "cleft construction" of formal grammar), which similarly employs the identifying type of clause to achieve a particular balance of meaning in the discourse. …

A: It's the grammar where the fun is.

B: Yes it's the grammar which is interesting.

Here 'the thing which is interesting' is identified as grammar rather than lexis; the relationship between the grammar is interesting and it's the grammar which is interesting is shown in Figure 9-16.

Experiential Metaphor Creates A 'Carrier' Of Textual Meanings

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 399-400):

What is significant here [in theme predication] is that the textual organisation is realised by the second-order resource of grammatical metaphor. That is, the grammar is as it were turned back on itself: it reconstrues itself with a particular effect in the discourse, as diagrammed in Figure 9-15.

We can see, then that experiential grammatical metaphor is a strategy for creating a 'carrier' of textual meanings.

Theme Identification And The Textual Motivation Behind Grammatical Metaphor

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 399):

For instance, an identifying clause may be used to represent a non-identifying one, thereby providing an alternative construal of that other clause as a configuration of Identified + Process + Identifier. Thus, the clause you want this may be reconfigured as an identifying clause by nominalising 'the thing that you want', what you want, and identifying it with this, either as what you want is this or as this is what you want … The two versions of the clause are related in Figure 9-14.

The motivation behind the identifying metaphor is actually textual: the alternative configuration in the identifying clause constitutes a textual alternative for distributing information in the clause, in which the message is structured as an equation between two terms. This system is known as THEME IDENTIFICATION.

Grammatical Metaphor As A 'Second-Order' Use Of The Grammatical Resources

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 398-9):

One manifestation of the second-order nature of the textual metafunction … is grammatical metaphor. Grammatical metaphor is a 'second-order' use of the grammatical resources: one grammatical feature or set of features is used as a metaphor for another feature or set of features; and, since features are realised by structures, one grammatical structure comes to stand for another — with the semantic effects discussed.

The Second-Order, Enabling Nature Of The Textual Metafunction: Context and Content Planes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 398):

This second-order, enabling nature of the textual metafunction is seen both at the level of context, where mode (the functions assigned to language in the situation) is second-order in relation to field and tenor (the ongoing social processes and interactant roles), and at the levels of content — the semantics and the lexicogrammar, where the systems of THEME and INFORMATION, and the various types of cohesion, are second-order in relation to ideational and interpersonal systems of TRANSITIVITY, MOOD, and the rest.

The Textual Metafunction As Enabling

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 398):

The function of the textual metafunction is thus an enabling one with respect to the rest; it takes over the semiotic resources brought into being by the other two metafunctions and as it were operationalises them:

All the categories under this third heading [mode] are second-order categories, in that they are defined by reference to language and depend for their existence on the prior phenomenon of text. It is in this sense that the textual component in the semantic system was said to have an 'enabling' function vis-à-vis the other two: it is only through the encoding of semiotic interaction as text that the ideational and interpersonal components of meaning can become operational in an environment. (Halliday, 1978b: 145)

The Second-Order Nature Of The Textual Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 398):

The textual metafunction differs from the ideational one in a number of fundamental respects — 

its mode of syntagmatic progression is wave-like, with periodic prominence; 

it is inherently dynamic in that it organises text as process; and 

it is a second-order mode of meaning. …

The textual metafunction is second-order in the sense that it is concerned with semiotic reality: that is, reality in the form of meaning. This dimension of reality is itself constructed by other two metafunctions: the ideational which construes a natural reality, and the interpersonal, which enacts an intersubjective reality.

Instantial System

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384-5):

If we look at logogenesis from the point of view of the system (rather than from the point of view of each instance), we can see that logogenesis builds up a version of the system that is particular to the text being generated: the speaker/writer uses this changing system as a resource in creating the text; and the listener/reader has to reconstruct something like that system in the process of interpreting the text — with the changing system as a resource for the process of interpretation. We can call this an instantial system (see Matthiessen, 1993c). 

For example, in the course of logogenesis, a recipe is built up as a series of ordered loops through the system of sequences, whereas an encyclopaedic entry may be built up as a systemic taxonomy, developed step by step in delicacy. 

An instantial system may fall entirely within the registerial system it instantiates; in other words, the meanings created within it may all have been created before. However, it may also create new meanings — new to the speaker and/or listener. In either case, the instantial system is built up successively by the generation process; but as it is developed, it in turn becomes a resource for further instantiation.

Logogenesis

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384, 385):

A text is generated within the logogenetic time-frame. In fact, generation is a logogenetic process: it creates meaning in the course of instantiation as the text unfolds — see Figure 9-5.

Stratification x Instantiation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 381, 384):

Table 9(2) represents the intersection of instantiation and stratification, providing a schematic map of the overall semiotic space (the table has been adapted from a fuller version presented in Halliday, 1995). We have shown the ideational 'slice' of the overall picture in bold italics. (We have left the phonological cells unspecified … but the cline of instantiation is equally important at this lowest stratum of language.)

Stratification, Metafunction And The Cline Of Instantiation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 381, 383):

Figure 9-4 represents the stratal organisation of the resources, diversified into field, tenor and mode (within context) and into ideational, interpersonal and textual (within the content strata of language). As we have noted, these resources are extended along the cline of instantiation from potential (language in context of culture) via subpotentials (registers in situation types) to instances (texts in contexts of situation). Figure 9-4 shows the stratified resources as being extendable along the cline of instantiation.

Syntax And Morphology

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 380n):

Grammar comprises syntax and morphology; there is no strata! boundary between the two, but merely a move down the rank scale: "syntax" is simply the grammar of clauses and groups/phrases and morphology is the grammar of words and morphemes.

Textual Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 378):

The text base is oriented towards the ideation base and the interaction base. It provides the resources for constructing meanings from these two bases as information of a kind that can be shared as text. An ideational figure and an interpersonal move are constructed as information in the form of a message. Such a message is related to the preceding discourse and differentiates informational statuses in terms of thematicity and newsworthiness. From the speaker's point of view, the text base is a resource for developing a text, message by message, and for guiding the listener in his/her interpretation of the text; and from the listener's point of view, it is a resource for constructing such an interpretation.

The Ideational And Interpersonal Aspects Of A Register

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 378):

A particular domain model within the ideation base correlates with a particular exchange relationship within the interaction base and together they form the ideational and interpersonal aspects of a register. 

An exchange relationship thus has ideational implications: it involves the exchange of some ideational meanings rather than others and it embodies a division of labour between the interactants in the exchange relationship. 

For example, in a service encounter in a local shop (cf. Halliday & Hasan, 1985; Ventola, 1987), the customer may demand goods and information about goods within the relevant domain and the server supplies these on demand and demands goods (payment) in return; and this involves the general domain of business transaction and the particular domain of the business (e.g. hardware). 

An exchange relationship thus gives interpersonal values to meanings within the domain model it is associated with. 

For example, as we have seen, the ideation base embodies both congruent and metaphorical construals of experience; and these variants will be selected partly according to differences in interpersonal distance along dimensions such as age and expertise.

Interpersonal Semantics: Exchange Relationship

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 377-8):

Midway between potential and instance, sets of such strategies cluster within ranges of tenor values. Such a cluster is the interpersonal analogue of a domain in the ideation base: it is a region within the overall interpersonal space of meaning, selected according to tenor, just as a domain is a region within the overall ideational space of meaning, selected according to field. 

The options in interpersonal meaning that make up the cluster together enact a tenor relationship, 

such as that between a client and a server (unequal in power, low in familiarity, neutral in affect) where the client initiates demands for goods-&-services and information about them and the server responds, 

such as that between two friends (equal in power, high in familiarity, positive in affect) where the interpersonal options are wide-ranging, or 

such as that between the writer of a weather report and the readers (unequal in expertise, no familiarity, neutral in affect) where the writer gives information and the readers accept. 

We might call such a cluster an exchange relationship to foreground that it is semantic (i.e. constituted in meaning through exchanges of meaning) and that it is interpersonal (rather than one-sidedly personal). 

To indicate that it is analogous to a domain model, we might have called it an exchange or interaction "model"; but we have avoided that term because it suggests a construal of something and construal is the ideational mode of meaning — it is more like a protocol than like a model.

Interpersonal Semantics: System

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 377):

The interaction base extends along the cline of instantiation. At the potential end of the cline of instantiation, the interpersonal strategies that have the move as their domain are defined by all the options persons have in exchanging meanings with one another, adopting speech roles of giving/demanding information or goods-&-services and assigning complementary roles of accepting or giving on demand to the addressee. These constitute all the patterns of interaction within a culture.

Interpersonal Semantics: Move

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 376-7):

The interaction base provides the resources for enacting social roles and relations as meaning, (prototypically) in dialogue. The interaction base includes the strategies for adopting and assigning speech roles, for giving and demanding assessments, and the like. The locus of these strategies is a unit of interaction or move. A move is typically mapped onto a figure from the ideation base: a speaker construes a quantum of experience as a figure and enacts this figure as a move in dialogue, either as a proposition or as a proposal. This mapping between figure and move is a central feature of the way we jointly construct and negotiate experience.

The Semantic System Or "Meaning Base"

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 376, 377):

The semantic system, or "meaning base", thus consists of the three familiar metafunctional contributions: the ideation base, the part of the meaning base that we have focussed on, but also the other two bases, the interaction base and the text base. All three bases are extended along the cline of instantiation from potential to instance. … Table 9(1) summarises those aspects of the three bases to be discussed.

The Realisation Of Context In Registers Of The Semantic System

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 376):

Such contextual regions evolve together with special functional varieties of the language or "registers". These are, in the first instance, registerial subsystems of the semantic system. A register is a semantic region within the overall semantic space. It is made up of contributions from all three metafunctions: a domain within the ideation base and similar regions within the interpersonal and textual parts of the overall semantic space. Our specifications of the meteorological and culinary domains constitute the ideational aspects of the registers of weather forecasting and recipes.

A given contextual specification of field, tenor and mode is thus realised by "preselecting" a register within the semantic system … . This contextual preselection within the semantics narrows down the overall potential to a registerial subpotential;

Blogger Comments:

Be aware that Martin and his students mistake register for context. That is, they mistake a functional variety of language — a subpotential of the semantic system — for the semiotic environment of language.

Context: The 'Semiotic Environment' Of Sociosemiotic Systems

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 375):

Context is the 'semiotic environment' of language (and other sociosemiotic systems such as image systems [maps, diagrams, etc.]); its systems specify what demands may be placed on language and what role it may play in responding to those demands. There are three sets of contextual systems — field, tenor and mode; … Recurrent combinations of (ranges of) field, tenor and mode values define regions within the overall system of the context of culture.