"Identification Resources Within Nominal Groups"

Martin & Rose (2007: 184):

We introduced the grammatical perspective on participants in Chapter 3, in the structure of nominal groups that realise things and people. Each of the resources for identifying that we have discussed above are realised by one or another function in the nominal group. Deictic and Thing functions identify participants with a determiner or noun. Numerative and Epithet functions compare participants by their order (numbers) or qualities (adverbs). The Qualifier compares or locates the participant it qualifies. (The Classifier function is not involved in identifying.) These resources are set out in Table 5.8.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, nominal groups realising things and people is reference in the sense of ideational denotation, not reference in the textual sense of a reference item presuming information to be recovered elsewhere in the text or without. These two senses of reference have been confused throughout this chapter.

[2] To be clear, Halliday & Hasan's (1976) reference, which Martin (1992) relabelled as his system of identification, has two grammatical domains: the nominal group and the adverbial group (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 626).

[3] To be clear, determiners have two distinct functions. Structurally, within the nominal group, a determiner functions as a Deictic whose function is to sub-classify the Thing of the nominal group. Non-structurally, a determiner can serve as a reference item that presumes information to be recovered elsewhere. These two functions of determiners have been confused throughout this chapter.

[4] To be clear, the realisation of a Thing as a noun is reference in the sense of ideational denotation, not reference in the textual sense of a reference item presuming information to be recovered elsewhere in the text or without.

[5] Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 633) identify the comparative reference items as follows:

[6] To be clear, the locating of a Thing by a Qualifier is an ideational function of a Qualifier. Qualifiers do not serve as reference items, though any nominal or adverbial groups serving functions within a Qualifier may include reference items.

[7] Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 626) locate the types of reference item as follows: