Rebranding Lexicogrammar As Discourse Semantics

Martin & Rose (2007: 19):

Conjunction (inter-connections between processes)

Later in the narrative Helena comments on her understanding of the struggle against apartheid, outlining the conditions under which she herself would have joined the struggle:

I finally understand what the struggle was really about. I would have done the same had I been denied everything. If my life, that of my children and my parents was strangled with legislation, if I had to watch how white people became dissatisfied with the best and still wanted better and got it.

To demonstrate her understanding she places herself in victims’ shoes, outlining the conditions under which she would have done the same. The key resources here for establishing conditions are conditional conjunctions If…, If…, and the Subject-verb inversion had I… . These realisations serve to link Helena’s intended action I would have done the same, with the conditions under which she would have done so, had I been…, If my life…, If I had to watch:

I would have done the same
	discourse function	wording (grammar)
had I been denied everything	condition	Subject-verb inversion
If my life … was strangled with legislation.	condition	conjunction
If I had to watch how white people became dissatisfied …	condition	conjunction

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously explained, relations between processes are also modelled by sequences, in the experiential discourse semantic system of ideation.

[2] This is misleading, since it ascribes the conditional relation that obtains in both the semantics and lexicogrammar to the discourse semantic stratum only.

[3] This reductive account of the grammatical realisation of condition mixes grammatical function at clause rank (Subject) with classes of grammatical form at word rank (verb, conjunction).