The Absence Of Projection From Logical Discourse Semantics

Martin & Rose (2007: 48-9):

One thing we are able to do in discourse is quote or report what people say or think. Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) call this type of linguistic resource ‘projection’. Projection is the relation between he says in the example above, and what he said: He and three of our friends have been promoted. 'We’re moving to a special unit. Now, now my darling. We are real policemen now!

Blogger Comments:

[1] This highlights a serious deficiency in Martin's model of discourse semantics.  Although "one thing we are able to do in discourse is quote or report what people say or think" through projection, the logical relation of projection is not included in Martin's discourse semantic system of the logical metafunction, conjunction, either in this publication or the work on which it is based (Martin 1992).  The absence can be explained by the fact that Martin's system of conjunction is a rebranding, misunderstanding and relocation (stratally and metafunctionally) of Halliday's lexicogrammatical system of cohesive conjunction — a non-structural resource of the textual metafunction — in which only the resources of expansion are deployed.

[2] The cited example is:

Then he says: He and three of our friends have been promoted. 'We're moving to a special unit. Now, now my darling. We are real policemen now.'

Here Martin & Rose missed an opportunity to claim that the three quoted projections demonstrate "meaning beyond the clause", since none of the quotes are presented as structurally connected to the projecting clause Then he says in the preceding hypotactic clause nexus.