Comparative Reference and Possessive Reference

Martin & Rose (2007: 161): 

However, comparative reference and possessive reference are a little different, because they can be used in nominal groups which both present and presume. So another policeman and someone else both present a new person, at the same time as they presume the person they are compared with. The ‘an’ part of another presents a new person, but the ‘other’ part compares him with someone we already know. Likewise someone presents a new person, but else compares him with someone we already know. With possessive reference, my first love presumes someone we already know. However, all my girlfriends presents new people, even though my refers to someone we already know: the narrator, Helena.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in comparative and personal ("possessive") reference, it is the reference item — not the nominal group — that presumes a recoverable identity. Moreover, in comparative reference, the domain in which reference items occur also includes the adverbial group — see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 626) — which is unaccounted for in this rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's (1976) grammatical reference as Martin's discourse semantic identification.

[2] To be clear, this misconstrues the deictic function of determiners (an, some) in nominal groups as a referential function. Moreover, since these are non-specific determiners, they do not reference a specific identity to be recovered.

[3] To be clear, the people said to be presumed and presented here are the participants realised by the nominal groups my first love and all my girlfriends, respectively. That is, this is not textual reference, but reference in the sense of ideational denotation. This contrasts with the textual reference of my, which, as acknowledged, refers to the speaker, Helena, and as such, does not function cohesively (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 628).