Misrepresenting The Analytical Utility Of Nuclear Relations

Martin & Rose (2007: 99):

On the other hand, for texts and text phases that are focused on entities rather than activities, nuclear relations can help to inform analyses of taxonomic relations between things and qualities. This is illustrated with the following descriptive report from school biology, describing the Australian class of reptiles known as goannas:

Australia is home to 25 of the world's 30 monitor lizard species, In Australia, monitor lizards are called goannas. Goannas have flattish bodies, long tails and strong jaws. They are the only lizards with forked tongues, like a snake. Their necks are long and may have loose folds of skin beneath them. Their legs are long and strong, with sharp claws on their feet. Many goannas have stripes, spots and other markings that help to camouflage them. The largest species can grow to more than two metres in length. All goannas are daytime hunters, They run, climb and swim well. Goannas hunt small mammals, birds and other reptiles, They also eat dead animals. Smaller goannas eat insects, spiders and worms. Male goannas fight with each other in the breeding season. Females lay between two and twelve eggs. (Silkstone 1994)

The appearance phase of the report describes each part of the goanna in turn, with the sequence expected by the field of its anatomy, beginning with the body, tail and jaws, followed by the tongue, the neck, the legs, skin markings, and finally size. However the parts and their qualities are dispersed across various grammatical categories at clause and group rank. For example the part-whole relation is expressed as a process (have flattish bodies), or a preposition (with forked tongues), or a possessive (their necks). A nuclear relations analysis allows us to group these relations according to discourse semantic criteria.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue.  Nuclear relations provide no 'help to inform analyses of taxonomic relations' because clause nuclear relations are only concerned with relations between elements within grammatical units.  See also the following post.

[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue.  The field of 'goanna anatomy' does not "predict" this sequence of instantiation over any other potential sequence.

[3] To be clear, it is the logico-semantic relation of extension that is manifested across these three different grammatical environments:

• Process of possessive attributive clause (have)
• Qualifier of nominal group (with forked tongues)
• Deictic of nominal group (their)

[4] This is misleading, because it is untrue.  A nuclear relations analysis does not "allow us to group these part-whole relations" by any criteria.  Firstly, in the case of the attributive clause Goannas have flattish bodies, long tails and strong jaws, all that a nuclear relations uncovers is:

• the Process have and the possessed Attribute flattish bodies… are central (=)
• the Carrier goannas is nuclear (+)

Secondly, in the case of the Qualifier with forked tongues, a nuclear relations analysis has nothing at all to say about the preposition with, and merely labels the Qualifier as peripheral and the Thing lizards as central in the nominal group the only lizards with forked tongues.

Thirdly, in the case of the nominal group their necks, a nuclear relations analysis has nothing at all to say about the Deictic their, since the Deictic is not included in the model of nominal group nuclearity.

[5] This is misleading, because it is untrue.  Martin & Rose have provided no discourse semantic criteria for their nuclear relations.  As demonstrated by previous posts, their criteria for degree of nuclearity, in grammatical units, have either been absent, or inconsistent.