Mistaking A Verbal Process For A Reference Relation

Martin & Rose (2007: 166-7):

Another important aspect of the Act’s specialised tracking resources is its elaborate naming system:

• sections 1, 2, 3…49
• sub-section (1), (2), (3)
• paragraphs (a), (b), (c)
• sub-paragraphs (i), (ii), (iii)
• sub-sub-paragraphs (aa), (bb), (cc).

This allows the authors to refer exactly to certain paragraphs later (or earlier) in the document. So for example, section 3, subsection (3), paragraph (d) of Chapter 2 refers to sections 5(d) and 28(4)(a):

3 (3) (d) the investigating unit referred to in section 5(d) shall perform the investigations contemplated in section 28(4)(a)

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the system of IDENTIFICATION (Martin 1992: 93ff) is presented as 'reference as semantic choice', and in this chapter, IDENTIFICATION is said to be 'concerned with tracking participants (p155ff). In these examples, no references are made, since there are no reference items that presume identities recoverable elsewhere in the text, and no participants are tracked, since there are no processes to be participated in.

[2] To be clear, 'naming' is reference in the sense of ideational denotation: the assigning of wordings to meanings.

[3] To be clear, here Martin & Rose confuse a verbal Process (referred) in the experiential structure of an embedded clause with the textually cohesive relation between reference item and referent.