Misapplying Their Own Model Of Nuclear Relations [1]

Martin & Rose (2007: 104-5):

To prepare this text for analysis, we will:

• lexicalise pronouns and implicit participants,
• re-order the elements of clauses into consistent columns.

The central column in Table 3.4 includes Process and Quality, the left-hand nuclear column includes Agent of effective and Medium of non-effective clauses, the righthand nuclear column includes Medium of effective and Range of non-effective clauses, and the peripheral column is for Circumstances.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, by inserting participants that the speaker deliberately omitted, Martin & Rose are analysing a misrepresentation of the speaker's text.

[2] This is inconsistent with the authors' own model (p98), which treats Quality as peripheral, not central, to the verbal group, not clause.

[3] This is inconsistent with the authors' own model (p95), which treats Agent as marginal, not nuclear.

[4] To be clear, the agency of the clause, middle or effective, was not presented by the authors as the criterion for Range as nuclear.  On their model, Range: process is central, and Range: entity is nuclear.

[5] The ergative analysis below highlights the major errors in the authors' application of their own model, the most frequent being the misinterpretation of Receiver as Medium (nuclear) instead of Beneficiary (marginal).

On	arriving	back at Sandton Police Station, at what they call the Security Branch
	Process	Location

the whole situation	changed
Medium	Process

I	was screamed at
Location* = peripheral	Process

verbally	abused
Manner	Process

I	was slapped around
Medium	Process

I	was punched
Medium	Process

I	was told
Beneficiary  = marginal	Process

to	shut up
	Process

sit	in a chair
Process	Location

then	I	was questioned
	Beneficiary  = marginal	Process

When	I	answered	the questions
	Medium	Process	Range

I	was told
Beneficiary  = marginal	Process

that	I	was lying
	Medium	Process

I	was smacked	again
Medium	Process	Extent

And	this	carried on
	Medium	Process

to an extent where	I	actually	jumped	up	off the chair
	Medium		Process	Location	Location

and	started fighting back
	Process

Four, maybe five policemen	viciously	knocked	me	down
Agent  = marginal	Manner	Process	Medium	Location

and	they	put	me	back	on the chair
	Agent  = marginal	Process	Medium	Location	Location

and	handcuffed	my hands	through the chair
	Process	Medium	Location

which resulting that	I	could not get up
	Medium	Process

I	was	then	continuously	smacked and punched
Medium	Pro-		Manner	-cess

* See Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 351) on medio-receptive clauses.