Sunday 10 November 2019

Problems With Examples Of External Addition


Martin & Rose (2007: 122-4):
We have seen that and can function to add clauses together in a paratactic sequence, one after another:
... white people became dissatisfied with the best
and still wanted better
and got it
 
Four, maybe five policemen viciously knocked me down,
and they put me back on the chair
and handcuffed my hands through the chair
… Other conjunctions that realise alternation include if not-then, alternatively:
dependent
If they don't want restorative justice,
then they could choose retribution.
 
cohesive
A witness may be terminally ill.
Alternatively she might be disabled.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, these are all grammatical relations, rebranded as discourse semantic relations, with no argument supporting the claim that these relations obtain at a higher level of symbolic abstraction.

[1] To be clear, the relation here is not addition (extension), but time (enhancement), since it relates two clauses in a nexus in terms of temporal sequence.  This error demonstrates the folly of taking form as the point of departure for ascribing function.  As Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 487) point out, the conjunction and can mark not only additive extension ('and also'), but also temporal enhancement ('and then') and causal enhancement ('and so').

[2] To be clear, the relation here is not alternative addition (extension), but condition (enhancement).  If the relation were one of alternation, the clause complex would be agnate to Either they don't want restorative justice or they could choose retribution.  A genuine example of alternation would be If it's not circular then it's elliptical (cf. Either it's circular or it's elliptical).  This again shows the folly of taking form as the point of departure for ascribing function.

[3] To be clear, in SFL theory, the function of the expansion relation here is textual, not logical (as well as being grammatical, not discourse semantic).  The relation here is non-structural, whereas logical relations obtain structurally between rank units in complexes.

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