Resources For Identifying Things And People

Martin & Rose (2007: 168):

Let’s now sum up the resources we’ve seen for identifying things and people, and add a few more, in Table 5.4.

Blogger Comments:

As previously demonstrated:

1. 'Presenting reference' is not reference in the textual sense at all, since non-specific determiners do not specify a referent. This is reference only in the sense of ideational denotation: the realisation of ideational meaning in wording.
2. 'Presuming reference' is Martin's rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's co-reference, personal and demonstrative, with the following caveats. (a) The post-Deictic said does not serve as a reference item. (b) The non-specific Deictics each, both, neither, either do not serve as reference items. Even in terms of the authors' own model, these are be 'presenting' resources, not 'presuming'. (c) First and second person pronouns do not function cohesively, because they presume information that is exophoric (the speaker and addressee), not endophoric. (d) The wordings Helena and Section 5 do not presume recoverable information, they provide it. Again, this is reference only in the sense of ideational denotation.
3. 'Possessive reference' is Martin's rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's personal co-reference, with the following caveats. (a) First person my does not function cohesively, because it presumes information that is exophoric (the speaker), not endophoric. (b) The Deictic Helena's does not serve as a reference item, because instead of presuming recoverable information, it provides it. Again, this is reference only in the sense of ideational denotation.
4. 'Comparative reference' is Halliday & Hasan's comparative reference, with the following caveats. (a) Wordings like as inhumane as…  are instances of structural cataphora, and so do not function cohesively. (b) Ordinative numeratives (first, second, third, next, last, preceding, subsequent) and post-Deictics (former, latter) do not serve as reference items, because they do not presume information that can only recovered elsewhere in the text. (c) Superlatives (best, most) do not serve as comparative reference items, because (i) they are not comparatives, and (ii) they do not presume information that can only recovered elsewhere in the text.
5. 'Text reference' is a confusion of Halliday & Hasan's (1976: 52-3) text reference and extended reference, with a further caveat. Wordings like all my questions do not make either text or extended reference, since the only reference item is my, an instance of personal reference, which, unlike instances of text and extended reference, does not function cohesively, since its reference is exophoric to the speaker.