Linguistica inglese 1, Appunti di Linguistica Inglese

Scarica Linguistica inglese 1 e più Appunti in PDF di Linguistica Inglese solo su Docsity! LINGUA E LINGUISTICA INGLESE (ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 1) - 29.09 Syntax (how things get together, combination) is a branch of grammar → that mainly focuses on structure ↪ Structural grammar looks at language in terms of hierarchies of meaning/structure (what is more important) ↪ Tree shaped hierarchical structure → the basis of Structural grammar Functional grammar aims to go beyond this hierarchical tree based structure and it does so because it wants to bring the context into the picture. It wants to bring use of language into the picture. The main focus is not how elements get together (the syntax), but how elements are how used and how they make meaning in their context → pragmatics 1. The main preoccupation of structural grammar is syntax 2. The main preoccupation of functional grammar is pragmatics use ↪ not giving out a set of rules, but explaining how certain lexico-grammatical fenomena work in practice Slide 1 → Why Systemic Functional Grammar - Focus on contextual meaning, language in use. - Functional, semiotic, semantic, descriptive. - Functional grammar is “a descriptive grammar based on empirical research, not a prescriptive one which tells you what you can and cannot say, including rules for correcting what are often referred to as grammatical errors. A functional grammar, in other words, is not a grammar of etiquette or linguistic table manners” By contrast with structural grammar, functional grammar does not work in terms of rules but it works in terms of description of the meaning (the meaning in use → crucially semantic). + Semantic = meaning based, based on From a functional perspective, the ultimate aim of grammar is to explain meaning. → Structural grammar is interested IN the respect of an abstract of rules (governing the hierarchical structures of languages) and NOT in meaning. What is the difference with traditional grammar? The basic philosophy of traditional grammar The basic philosophy of SFL 1. Grammar is an abstract set of rules. 2. The primary concern is with the forms of grammatical structures and their relationship to one another. 3. Grammarians use made up sentences to illustrate rules. 1. Grammar is a system of human communication (to exchange meaning) and allows speakers (and writers) to make and exchange meanings. 2. The primary concern is with the functions of grammatical choices and with their meanings in their context. 3. Grammarians use real world sources, authentic pieces of linguistic evidence. The most important linguist still alive : Noam Chomsky (he is a sworn structuralist) ➔ In 1957 he founded Generative grammar and he believes in it ➔ He doesn’t believe that meaning is related to grammar, to the point that when asked why he thought that context/meaning had nothing to do with grammar, he replied with what is now a world famous example : “green colourless ideas sleep furiously” → this is to prove that you can have a perfectly grammatical well planned sentence, that respects all the rules of English, all the correct hierarchies, but it doesn’t make any sense. This is a made-up sentence that is grammatical in the sense that it respects the abstract rules of grammar, but it doesn’t mean anything and there’s no context in which it could work. It isn't even a metaphor or an idiomatic phrase, it’s just a sentence that has a : a NOUN group, a VERB, an ADVERB. ↪This for structural grammar is enough because the structure is respected, there is the correct agreement with the plural noun group. All the abstract rules have been respected. ➔ For functional grammar, grammar is not an abstract set of rules. It is a system of human communication to exchange meanings. So if there is no meaning, it is not enough for the rules of the structure to have been respected, because there is no context in which that sentence could make sense. ➔ Now let's take another sentence that seems not to make sense at least literally, but in actual fact you can give it meaning = “it’s raining cats and dogs” → from the point of view of the semantic values, it’s not real nor possibles (it’s just as nonsensical as “green colourless ideas sleep furiously”, if you take it literally/at face value). But we can make meaning of it thanks to the context of culture. In fact if we bring in the context of culture we know that this is an idiomatic phrase especially in british english. ➔ So in functional grammar you can have some sentences that don’t make sense (not true from the semantic value, view point), but we can make meaning and exchange that meaning, because we can bring in the context of culture. So “it’s raining cats and dogs” is a sentence in Functional grammar, while “green colourless ideas sleep furiously” is a non sentence in Functional grammar, because despite its perfect structure it doesn't make meaning. MEANING is paramount, central in functional grammar ↪ the main preoccupation / primary concern is the meaning The primary concern of Structural grammar is the form, the structure and the relationship of those structures. The primary concern of a structuralist is that you can put the elements of a certain clause in the right slots → so that you can slot each word and expression into one of the categories that structural grammar uses. Categories → parts of speech = verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, articles, conjunctions, interjections → the preoccupation of a structuralist is to slot each word into these categories. - So structural grammatical traditions that are indebted to Latin don’t stop at the parts of speech but they have a second layer that they typically call logical analysis. So besides slotting words into parts of speech, they also slot expressions into : subject, object, complements, ... But it is not the main focus of FG. The main topic of investigation of systemic functional grammar is the context of situation. 2. Context of situation → easier to pin down/analyze (you can provide a set of denitions for it). It is easily analyzable into meaningful grammatical categories that you can break down (slide). IT IS THE MAIN FOCUS OF FG. It is broken down into three units of analysis (Field, tenor, mode). A table that we should read lengthwise (cutting across the screen - in obliquo). Field = a grammatical category and it’s in the same circle as Tenor and Mode (rst category of the three lengthwise sequences). They’re the single most important triplet that we need to keep in mind (in FG → they’re the foundation of FG). They’re the three metafunctions of language so that the overarching, complete function of language is to communicate/to make meaning. The paramount concept in FG is meaning. We can break down this overarching function of language (meaning - making) into 3 sub-functions also known as metafunctions. The big function of language is to communicate and you can do so in 3 subways, with 3 metafunctions. Metafunction = subfunction Function = what something is for Field is a term, a specialized word, that in the domain of FG has this meaning = ideational. 1. Field is the metafunction of language that is responsible for the making of ideational meaning. 2. Tenor is the metafunction responsible for interpersonal meaning 3. Mode is the metafunction responsible for textual meaning ↪ At the center of the diagram we see what the meaning of the function is. It is not as if I can take a clause or a text and decide that that is to be analysed ideationally, whereas for example another text is analyzed interpersonally and another text is analyzed textually. NO all clauses, all texts, all pieces of language in FG have to be analysed in three ways → so all clauses have an ideational analysis + plus an interpersonal analysis + plus a textual analysis. ➔ FIELD, TENOR AND MODE ARE THE METAFUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE ➔ IDEATIONAL, INTERPERSONAL AND TEXTUAL ARE THE NAMES OF THESE FUNCTIONS. 1. Field is to make ideational meaning, 2. Tenor is to make interpersonal meaning, 3. Mode is to make textual meaning. Ideational meaning = it is what we mean by meaning when we don’t make it more precise in any other way. It is the description of the action → what is going on in a given situation? It has at its center a process that is “going on”. The center of the ideational analysis, eld, what is going on is the VERB, the process ➢ One aim (and the most important one) of this kind of analysis is to identify what kind of process is going on. So as to be able to see the dierence in meaning, in going on, in ideation between you will want and you will switch off. They’re both verbs, they are both processes but one you can do with your hand (phone, switch o) but you can’t do the same with want. ➢ It's a dierent kind of action and process. ➢ This is the aim, nature of a kind of system that is called transitivity. This grammar is also systemic, instead of working like SG through a set of hierarchies that are used to constitute dependency “trees” in SG. ➢ Instead of this, FG works through systems which in many cases look like circles and they try to encompass the functional reality of communication by representing reality in circles or networks ➢ Linguistics has known for many years that language acquisition and use doesn't work hierarchically but reticularly. FG works in networks, not with hierarchies (but systems such as transitivity). Transitivity is the system that expresses ideational meaning within the metafunction of language that is called eld and is responsible for what is going on. The textual function is an advertisement and it is to convince people to buy a tourist oer. Because of our background knowledge we know. This is the overarching consideration but if we break down the etx into clauses there are a lot of phenomena. There are some grammatical phenomena that make it a convincing ad (obsessive repetition of you, the variety of processes is important here to make the meaning convincing). Repetition of the process to want = it’s a mental process though (not a real action) → wanting is something that is inside the individual that wants. The dierence between a mental process and a material process is so big that even the names of those that do these kinds of actions change in FG. When the process changes, the names of those doing the action or undergoing the action change. So there is a crucial dierence with the subject and direct object that you have in SG that did not change depending on the process, because the subject in SG is not only the one that does the action but it’s also the one that is in agreement with the verb. STRUCTURAL GRAMMAR FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR For SG the subject is 3 things at the same time = 1. it is the doer of the action 2. it is the element that is in agreement with the verb 3. it is the focus of the message In FG each metafunction (eld, mode, tenor) has its own subject. In FG there are 3 subjects, one for each metafunction. So Field has a subject, Mode has a subject and Tenor has a subject. Each of them correspond to the ideational, interpersonal and textual functions of language. So you could say = “You’ll want to switch off your phone” = material clause - The ideational subject will be You = actor → does an action, a material process. You is the ideational subject of a material process. The doer of the action will change name when the process changes. When the process is not material, and is mental, emotional, cognitive, the doer of the action takes another name = Senser . - The name of the doer of the action changes according to the kind of process (what is being done), because of the meaning of the eld, of the going on of the event that is happening. 1. material process / event (switch) = the subject / doer of the process is called actor 2. mental, emotional, cognitive process / event (want, think) = doer of the process is called senser 3. if it is someone that speaks it is called a sayer 4. if it is a behavior that a person has it is called a behaver ➢ The names of the other participants also change = “your phone” → goal (in traditional SG is the direct object) ➢ In the mental clause “You’ll want to dive into the ocean”, to dive is a phenomenon (is not the direct object in SG). In SG “to dive is” a dependent clause. In FG it is still a clause but its function is to be the complement of the mental process. It is not called goal because this is not material (“want”), but “to dive” is called a phenomenon. ↓ A phenomenon is the direct object of a mental process and it doesn’t matter if it is a verb, because FG is not interested in structure, but rather in meaning. The circumstance (“into the ocean”) is less important to a transitivity analysis, because it’s hardly ever necessary to the meaning of the clause. A circumstance is an additional element (it makes meaning but it’s typically meaning that we could without). From the pov of ideational, interpersonal meaning it makes the clause clearer. It’s what it ↪ It’s responsible for textual meaning KEYWORDS = Mode - textual - cohesion Cohesion = the system that corresponds to the variable of meaning “mode” and makes textual meaning. There are various types of cohesion. In FG it’s very streamlined/slimmer. The types of cohesion are two = 1. structural → face of cohesion that depends on the order of the elements 2. non - structural → face that doesn't depend on the order but on the quality of the elements Structural cohesion = The units of meaning here are broken down in a very dierent way. You is the rst meaning making element. In textual analysis, Once you have your rst meaning making element, you’re ne with the textual analysis of structural cohesion. In mode, structural cohesion, we want to identify the theme. Everything else is rheme. Theme is the topic of the clause, the main focus. The rheme is what is being said about the topic, what is being introduced. to broach an issue = just mentioned In Functional Grammar = - meaning > structure - use > hierarchy - context > rules to be followed When we have a clause in Functional Grammar, we analyse it simultaneously in 3 ways (eld - tenor - mode) How to identify the units of meaning for each analysis? LEZIONE 3 We saw the metafunctions of language (= Field, Tenor and Mode), also the three fundamental “pillars” of Functional Grammar → this means that every time we have a clause, a text or any unit of meaning to analyze functionally, we have to make three searate analyses : 1. One for Field, which is responsible for Ideational meaning. ↪ It becomes concrete in the system of TRANSITIVITY, which looks at the center, the PROCESS. The process in FG is the VERB. The first element that we have to look for in a transitivity analysis is the verb (like switch off). Switch off is a material process (because you can do it with your hands, practical action). EX: You will switch off your phone. Switch off is the verb. Transitivity first looks at the Verb and then at the Participants, so who does the action and who undergoes the action ( = or is affected by it). The participants are the Actor + Goal. The ACTOR is the doer of the action, while the GOAL is affected by it. - In the same example, you is the Actor (doing the action); while your phone is the Goal (being affected by the action). Field (the first metafunction of language) answers the question “What is going on?” and it covers Ideational meaning, which is composed of two strands: experiential and logical. 2. We also have to analyze Tenor (second pillar), responsible for Interpersonal meaning. There are a number of systems that are all within Tenor, but we look at MOOD for now. - In SG Mood (modo) is a category that only applies to verbs, to express the relation between the verb and the reality that the verb describes (whether it is a fact, a command, a condition). Mood is in SG indicative, subjunctive (for example). - In FG the Mood is analyzed in terms of the mood block, a kind of “brick” on which the interpersonal meaning of a clause is built. EX. You will switch off your phone You is the Tenor Here we don’t start from the process, but you start from the GRAMMATICAL SUBJECT (FG has 3 subjects because it sees the Actor as the subject of Field), in terms of the element that is in agreement with the verb. ↓ Mood analysis looks at the Grammatical subject, and at the FINITE element of the verb (it looks at will, because it is what makes this verbale group a kind of tense), the element of the group noun that is responsible for tense/ modality → you will is the mood block ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------- 3. The last analysis we have to do is Mode, which is responsible for textual meaning and it is connected with the system of COHESION. Cohesion is divided into structural and non-structural; structural cohesion is related to the order of the elements (what comes first, ..). EX. You will switch off your phone → the structural cohesion analysis for the system of theme stops at You You is the THEME, the focus of the clause and the first element that makes sense. Example 2 = “More to explore” - This is not a clause because it’s missing the finite element (there’s a non-finite verb). What dominites here is ellipsis, it’s not a clause because most of the elements are elliptical. We can make sense of it but it’s not a clause because we are used to filling in the gaps (non structural cohesion). Ellipsis = the omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or able to be understood from contextual clues. Example 3 = “Like war and peace but tastier” Satisfyingly long lasting - Now this is another one that is dominated by ellipsis. What is ellipted/missing here? the subject. - “What is it that they are trying to sell us?” they’re breath mints (well known in Britain). If you're not British you probably don't know. So it catches your attention because of the contradiction between the name “Fox’s” and the animal on the packaging. - “like War and Peace?” → It’s a very long novel and there are lots of different events that get intertwined. Here it's trying to be ironic and it's taking war and peace to be an eponym (it’s a proper name that is associated with its typical characteristic). So war and peace is taken to be the eponym of length, because it's such a long novel. But tastier because of the length and - It's all played out on ellipsis and on homophoric (culture-specific elements) reference even though culture is very difficult to pin down. However there are some references that are called homophoric which are culture specific elements and this advertisement is full of homophoric references. - So in terms of functional grammar you would have to explain “war and peace”, but also all of this story of the bear being actually a fox in terms of the cultural expectations of the people that see the advertisement and may want to consume the breath mints. Example 4 : “nly” → only. That is also designed to seize your attention. It’s not really ellipsis in this case, because you know you can't simply ellipt at a letter, but it's an expedient to catch your attention with only at the centre, and then we have this very lengthy explanation which tries to catch your interest by using some scientific words (like, okay vitamin? Or iodine?). IT'S PLAYING ON REGISTERS. The three metafunctions are sometimes also called variables of register. ↪ Where register is not only formal and informal, but it’s all the uses of language. ↪ the register is the context of usage of language. So that, for example, if in an advertisement like the one for the eggs “only” and you use scientific language, you are using the scientific register, so that context of use to catch the attention of the reader and make yourself more credible. So here (only) you can make this kind of textual analysis and then you have enough facts to be able to also do the clause analysis that we have seen with “you will switch off your phone”. "Vitamin D / helps / your immune system / stay strong” ➔ To learn how to set the boundaries. So where to put that line? Between the different units we want to analyse. What we want to do today learning about constituency is where to put those words in the various slots that are used to make functional analysis. What is the first element you would set up a set off? - Vitamin D. Why vitamin D and not just vitamin? Because it's a specific vitamin and technically this is called post modification. So the noun Vitamin here is post modified by D. ↪ This is a noun group constituted by a head (noun) and by a modifier that follows it. - The structure of this noun group, the setup = noun + postmodifier ↪ They have to stay together because they're just one unit of meaning and it tells you what vitamin it is. Otherwise, it means all vitamins and so the meaning changes. What's another united meaning? “Helps” is a verb (we have a conflation of the finite and predicator in one word) →the grip in tense is provided in the words helps but the lexical meaning is also provided by helps. It’s different from “will Example = “switch off your phone”. All the dictionaries will tell you that “off” in theory can be an adverb or a preposition. How am I supposed to know if it's an adverb or preposition? - There is a rule here and you need to have the broader context (the clause). → you will switch off your phone What happens if I take “off” and erase it? <You will switch your phone>. Does it still make sense? - The meaning has changed. So the rule is this: if, by removing the item, the sense changes/ is lost, then the item is a preposition. - So “off” is a preposition because you need it for the sense of the verb to be preserved. Let’s try to have an example where it’s the opposite. - “I’d like to try these shoes on”. If we erase “on” the sentence still makes sense so it’s an adverb. So this is the difference between prepositions and adverbs. 1. Prepositions are necessary to the clause (or the group) in which they’re found, 2. adverbs are optional elements, so that morphematic rule of English where by – ly identifies adverbs it’s okay, but you have to take it with a pinch of salt for 2 reasons: - 1) some -ly words are adjectives like (elderly), - 2) some adverbs look like prepositions and them being adverbs is demonstrable by looking at the broader context and seeing if you can or cannot remove them. So let’s have an example = Why a recipe? Because a recipe is a procedural text. What it is for? It is here to give you instructions on what to do. We want to break the clauses into different groups,words (the part of speech). So the first thing is: “first of all, sift the flour into a bowl and rub the butter into it rapidly”. - This is not just one clause, because we can see that there are two verbs. So we already have the material on our hands to see that the clause (first and most important unit of meaning for us) is defined as a unit of meaning that has a verb at its centre. - So if we have something like this we have in fact two clauses united by a conjunction that form a complex, a clause complex (or a complex of two clauses). Both of the clauses are imperative because this is a procedural text (giving you instructions) → its purpose, function is to teach you how to make scones. So it’s full of imperatives. - The imperatives ‘sift’ and ‘rub’ are typically non-finite. The imperative is a non-finite mood, because it has a system of person, but it is a very defective system of person. First of all→ why don’t I stop after first, after all first can work as an adverb like when I say : ‘First meaning firstly’, yeah I can, but what’s the meaning? - First of all→ it’s just one unit of meaning, it means firstly; so you analyze it all together. - Always think what’s the meaning, is it the meaning ‘first’ and then ‘of all’ separately, or it’s ’first of all’ just one unit of meaning? In functional grammar you keep them together because they have their own meaning. ➔ So we have ‘the flour’, we have the noun-head, so we stop ➔ we have a preposition that introduces another noun group, and it’s a prepositional phrase ➔ A verb ‘rub’, ➔ another noun group ‘the butter’ that looks exactly like ’the flour’, ➔ ‘into it’ that looks like ‘into a bowl’ → don’t forget that the pronoun does the same structural work as the noun. So in functional grammar it is like a noun, it does all the things that the noun does ➔ ‘rapidly’ as an adjective. (the sentence is: First of all sift the flour into a bowl and rub the butter into it rapidly.) So to conclude this is the break down into words, so we have ’first’ which is an adjective, ‘off’ which is a preposition, ‘all’ an indefinite pronoun, ‘sift’ an a verb, ‘the’ a definite article, ‘flour’ a noun, ‘into’ a preposition, ‘a’ an indefinite article, ‘bowl’ a noun, ‘and’a conjunction, ‘rub’ a verb, ‘the’ a definite article, ‘butter’ a noun, ‘into’ a preposition, ‘it’ a pronoun, ‘rapidly’ an adverb. LEZIONE 4 In the last slides we saw, where we had a clause complex, so a complex of two closes united by a conjunction, that was taken from a recipe. This is a diagram that’s intended to see how units of meaning can be broken down for functional grammatical analysis → the units of meaning are the same that we know from our knowledge of grammar. 1. The clause is the unit of meaning that has a verb at its center : in one case “sift” and in the other case rub. 2. A group with a variety of groups. 3. The word and here we don’t have any dubious cases, cases of compound + like a compound that is anglo-indian = a compound, a word that’s still undergoing a process of lexicalization + Lexicalization: (lexicology) process of word creation and standardization ↪ how to spell Anglo-indian → Anglo-indian/angloindian the dash is gone + Hyphen/dash: separate two words 4. The Morpheme, a group that is not often present in English in comparison with other languages. English has a variety of morphemes that’s less wide, so here for example you have all words that are just one morpheme each except for “rapidly” which has two morphemes. - It would be pedantic to consider “In+to” to be 2 morphemes because historically into is the result of the union on in and to, who merged together in a process similar to lexicalization (this is not a lexical word, but a grammatical one). - So there are only one morpheme words except for rapidly. The rank scale = a scale of units of meaning which isn’t hierarchic (it isn’t as if the clause is more important than the morpheme)→ one is contained into the other. A fundamental difference between Functional and Structural grammar is that SG will see the rank scale (units of meaning ) as hierarchic, as being placed on a hierarchy. Instead Functional grammar sees the rank scale as a relation of A contains B contains C contains D (the morpheme is contained into the word and so on): a matter of stratification - not a matter of importance or hierarchy between these layers of meaning The topic of today is groups: We will concentrate on the noun group, which is not the most important but it has something special because it is the one that in functional grammar is the only one that has its own experiential structure→ the structure isn’t the priority for functional grammar and by experiential structure we don’t mean the same as structure in syntax The noun group differs from other groups because it is the only group that has an experiential structure. FIELD → IDEATIONAL MEANING (experiential + logical) Experiential meaning: the side of ideational meaning (metafunction of field: ideational) that describes our/human experience of the world → The systems that correspond to experiential meaning are 1. the experiential structure of the noun group and 2. transitivity at the clause level. The other side of ideational meaning is logical meaning, which looks at dependency and logical semantic relations. In English the noun group has one special aspect: there’s a lot of premodification. - You typically have a noun and the set of modifiers that come before it - ↪ Modifier + Modifier + Modifier + Modifier + Noun (the number of modifiers is not necessary 4, because FG counts 4 types of premodifiers, slots but we don’t have to have them all) - This is a typical structure of a noun group in English, since English is a Germanic language (its siblings are Danish, Dutch, German). These are languages that prioritize premodification over postmodification, the opposite of Italian. Italian is a language that has a lot of free order, so the order of elements in Italian is relatively free. MODIFIER+ MODIFIER+ MODIFIER+ MODIFIER+ NOUN = TYPICAL STRUCTURE OF THE NOUN GROUP. Other differences between Italian and English: ➢ Italian prioritizes postmodification, English prioritizes premodification; ➢ Italian has a free order of the words, English has a bound order. English has rules for what kind of modifiers should come in position 1, 2, 3 or 4. ➢ Bound order (technical word) a “ordine vincolato”. ➢ English = it’s a strictly bound language since it does not have as much grammar as other languages have (such as Italian and Russian who have declensions), so it has to make up in some ways. To make up for this lack of grammar, it has a bound word order. Where do we start from to analyze a noun group? E.g.= “whipped untreated Jersey cream” (Thing) → To analyse a noun group grammatically, we start from the last noun, a noun head called “the thing”. In functional grammar the “thing” is the most important noun in the noun group. Cream is the head of the noun group and FG calls it “the thing” ➢ We proceed analysing from the right to the left = Premodification = “costruzione a sinistra”. Key questions in FG: “What do they do functionally?” “What do these words mean?” 1. Jersey = tells us where the cream is from → gives us geographical information. 2. Untreated = raw/organic food (“biologico”) → information about the kind/class of food. 3. Whipped = past participle, but it acts as if it was an adjective → it gives us information about the type of cream, how you have to prepare it for the recipe. ↓ These three words have something in common (not the part of speech, because one is a noun (Jersey, a proper noun) the other two past participles acting as adjectives). They all have the function of adjectives, even Jersey which is a noun acts as an adjective. - Like in other grammatical contexts, you can have a few scones or many scones and there’s a difference with two. It's a way to quantify the thing but it's imprecise, ↓ In “these two tasty plain scones” we have Deictic + Numerative + Epithet + Classifier + Thing. What is “A little bit more”? = 1. We consider it a numerative → the numerative being a premodifier that counts the thing at face value (literally), then this expression counts the thing (not very precise). 2. The other possibility is to consider them as non-specific deictics: ↓ So all these approximate expressions of quantification (the most typical of all being some and many) can count either as numeratives or as non-specific deictics. Is “a little bit more” considered one element? Yes, because it is a unit of meaning. So it doesn't matter if there are multi word expressions like “a few'' (few → meaning: not as many as you would like it to be) or “a little extra” it is just one element, because their function is to quantify. ➢ Few and a few are different but you count them just as one element, even if there are two words because the unit of meaning is one. This slide summarizes the bound order of the elements on the noun group in EN including all premodification. The most important things happen before the noun (in premodification), but post modification is important because it coincides with embedding. Deictic = tells us which thing or things are being referred to, and whether it is a specific thing or no-specific thing → So those is specific just like these, and the definite article “the” and that. ➢ The nonspecific ones are like “a lot” so the approximate expression of quantification, “some”, “few'', “a few”, “a little more” could count as deictics or numerative. ➢ The non-specific deictic for sure is the indefinite article “a” or “an”. So deictic followed by numerative (how many things?) , followed by one epithet or epithets (if we have more than one adjective that is in the classic role of talking about the quality or expressing a judgment about the thing) → gives us descriptive qualities of the thing or things (classic role of the adj). In the part of the speech role of adjective, we also have electric which is an adjective but it doesn’t talk about the quality of the thing but about its type, so what kind of energy it uses to run, it tells us what type or class or thing, so the order is bound→ even the order of these two elements despite of being both epithets is bound (the order of the qualifying adjectives). “THOSE TWO SPLENDID OLD ELECTRIC TRAINS” = ➢ The order of the adjectives that function as adjectives (quality) depends on how objective the information is. As splendid is more your opinion than old, than it’s further than the noun. ➢ The key reason for this order is the continuum of subjectivity that adjectives express → the more subjective they are, the further they are from the noun. As a rule of thumb (empirical principle) in epithet the more subjective the adjective is, the further it is from the noun→ so the order is also bound despite the fact that functionally they are both epithets. Why does functional grammar call the head of a noun, thing, when we could have a living being as the main noun? It does so because it considers it as the object of all modifications that come before. The epithet used in these 2 noun groups doesn’t change, what changes is the classifier but look at the massive difference. The epithet has had an impact just on the internal subjective values that the writer attaches to the thing, but the classifier has changed the thing. Its meaning potential is greater. Classifier > epithet When a verb is multi word “will have turned..”→ it’s just one verb group Recap of the previous lesson ➢ In the last lesson we saw that premodification is a phenomenon that applies to a specific part of speech that is the noun (most modiffication in English occurs to the left of the noun). ➢ Functional grammar doesn’t approach modification hierarchically (in terms of what is more important or less important), so it doesn’t work in terms of “dependency trees” like structural grammar. Functional grammar works in terms of stratification, in the sense that one concept is included in the other. In this sense it’s a matter of what the elements mean and their meanings are complementary. ➢ However, the members of the noun group follow a specific order. Especially in English the order of the elements is bound, so the elements that pre-modify a noun have to follow a certain order. ➢ The main noun of the noun group is called Thing (even if the thing is an inanimate object) ➢ In English premodification is the preponderant tool of noun modification, and the elements that can precede the thing have to follow a specific order, and this is a construction to the left of the thing. (costruzione a sinistra). ↓ The element that is closer and in contact with the thing is the classifier, then we have the epithet, then the numerative and lastly we have the deictic. Deictic + Numerative + Epithet + Classifier + Thing ↪ we don’t have to have all four slots. ↪ A perfectly acceptable noun group is : this microphone→ specific deictic (demonstrative) + thing ↪ We can also have 5 slots to the left of the thing (two epithets) ↪ SO the number of the slots depends on what is being said but the order is this, bound 1. Deictic tells us which thing/things are being referred to, and whether is a specific thing or not. 2. Numerative tells us how many things there are 3. Epithet gives us descriptive qualities of the thing/things 4. Classifier tells us what type or class of thing/things we are talking about (obviously the number of elements can change, it depends on what is being said.) POST MODIFICATION - EMBEDDING Post modification is called embedding in functional grammar. It’s a logico-semantic connection; this means that it’s still part of the structure of the noun group, so it’s still experiential analysis, “field” and “ideational meaning”. It occurs at the level of the (noun) group (but also at the level of the clause) and it occurs when two concepts are so closely connected, they are enclosed into one another. + The post modifier is so firmly attached to the thing that they are like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. + If you remove the post-modifier you can’t understand what you’re talking about or the full meaning of the thing → There’s a big loss of meaning if the embedded element or postmodifier is eliminated E.g : “A dab of butter” = un panetto di burro → it’s a embedded prepositional phrase (PP) ↪ If you just say “a dab” (is a noun group composed by a non-specific deictic “a” and a thing “dab”) BUT if we don’t have a postmodifier of butter we don’t know what it is → it doesn’t mean anything. - This does also work with “a stick of butter, a drizzle of honey, a pinch/sprinkle of salt”. - For quantities the post modification is a very clear case. If we remove the embedded PP we don't know what material is being talked about. - But it’s not limited to quantities, it can also be some other noun that gets modified. E.g : “Talking [to yourself] is a funny habit” (parlare da soli) - “to yourself” = postmodifier of talking. If you eliminate [to yourself] it loses sense, it has to be there as a post modifier of “talking”, so this also is an embedded prepositional phrase. E.g : “The scones [I make] have sultanas in the dough” - Obviously not all the scones have sultanas in the dough, so you have to specify that you're talking about the scones you made. However this is a different case because “I make” is a clause, so we are talking about an embedded clause (not a PP). There are two elements that can post modify a noun = 1. PP → prepositional phrase Which means: the difference between a Prepositional Phrase that is part of the Noun Group because it’s a qualifier, therefore a post modifier, and the Prepositional Phrase that stands alone as a Circumstance in the clause. Here there’s another test we can make and it consists not specifically in removing the PP (as we can see here in these two examples it can be removed in either cases), but the test it’s to try and move the PPs written in red to another position in the clause: ● ‘In my boot there was a stone’ → it still works ● ‘With the black tail that dog belongs to my uncle’ or ‘That dog belong to my uncle with the black tail’ → what’s wrong here is that ‘with the black tail’ is a post modifier of ‘that dog’ and you can’t move it elsewhere, otherwise it will modify ‘your uncle’. ↓ So the circumstance can be moved, the embedded preposition phrase or postmodifier or qualifier can’t be moved from its position. Examples with clauses, obviously with clauses you have more difficulty using the moving text because you can’t move them 1. First example: “Children who ate chocolate are uncommon”, removing the highlighted clause doesn’t make sense, if we leave it out ‘children’ remains unqualified. So “who ate chocolate”, is a postmodifier, because it qualifies what children we are talking about. 2. Second example “They live in a house whose roof is full of holes”, you need the relative clause to complete the information 3. Third example: “Let’s go to a country where the sun always shines”, but not just any country but the one where the sun always shines 4. Fourth example: “There is something (that) you should know”→ the postmodifier is necessary otherwise it’s incomplete 5. Fifth example: “People not intended to pay may leave now” ↓ IF YOU REMOVE THE RELATIVE CLAUSE, THE PRECEDING NOUN REMAINS UNQUALIFIED All postmodifiers, all qualifiers, all embedded elements in order to be such (to be qualifiers) they have to be in direct contact with a noun. ‘Something’ is an indefinite pronoun but pronouns from the functional point of view do the same job as nouns, so as they can be the thing, pronouns can also be post-modified just as nouns. An embedded clause is always a defining relative clause (a post-modifier). WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO DISTINGUISH A CIRCUMSTANCE FROM A POST-MODIFIER GENERATIVE GRAMMAR Generative grammar = structural cognitive grammar Generative grammar gets to a point where it tells you that in the noun group, there may be a type of syntactic ambiguity that cannot be solved Example: “I saw a man with binoculars”→ it tells you that here there is a syntactic ambiguity that can’t be solved because you have no way of knowing who is holding the binoculars, whether it is I ,looking at this man, or it is this man i am looking at that holds them. - Generative grammar doesn’t believe in the importance of context, so it doesn’t believe that context is a grammatical phenomenon that can solve grammatical problems because it believes that there are language universals that are like this, regardless of the context, the society, ecc. - For functional grammar context is vital because meaning is function in a context→ if “with binoculars” is a circumstance then I am the one holding binoculars, if “with binoculars” is embedded the man is the one holding the binoculars. So for functional grammar “i saw a man with binoculars” isn’t one clause, it’s 2 possible clauses depending on how the context disambiguates the role of the binoculars Example: “I bought some food for lunch with my friends” ↪ This is another example of syntactic ambiguity in the noun group that N. Chomsky’s provides in the book “Syntactic Structures” (1957), this type of ambiguity can’t be solved because we don’t know if the subject went shopping together with his friends or if he had lunch with them. - If I go food shopping with my friends, then “my friend” is a circumstance of accompaniment, so it’s not part of the noun group “lunch”. - If you had lunch with your friend then “with your friends” is a postmodifier, so it’s embedded and a qualifier of “lunch” and it’s part of the same noun group. One element that the noun and the pronoun have in common is that: - The pronoun has the same functional role of the noun, so it acts as a noun in the noun group. It can be the thing. - It can be pre modified and post modified Difference between defining and non-defining clauses 1. Remember that the restrictive relative clause is the same as a defining relative clause, and it gives you necessary, qualifying information for the preceding noun. It also needs to be in direct contact with it (the noun). 2. The one that just gives extra meaning and information instead is called non-defining relative clause or non-restrictive, you can even skip that part and the clause would still make sense, for this reason it doesn’t have to be in contact with the noun. First example: “This lesson will be recorded, which means it will be published in Virtuale.” It’s a non-defining relative clause for three reasons: 1. It has a comma, defining relative clauses usually doesn't have a comma (if it has a comma before it then it’s not embedded). 2. The element that precedes the relative pronoun (which) is not a noun (recorded). For this reason it can’t be embedded; it’s not possible for the past participle in a passive verb (recorded) to be post modified. The element “recorded” can’t be used as a noun so it can’t be post modified. The only elements that are post modifiable are nouns, pronouns and nominalized infinitives. 3. It offers extra information and clarification, it explains what kind of event the recording of the lesson triggers → it gives elaborating information. Second example: “This is an English lesson that takes place both in class and in MT.” Despite the presence of “that” and despite the fact that you can’t put a comma between “lesson” and “that” it’s a NON DEFINING-RELATIVE CLAUSE. In fact, “that takes place both in class and in MT” is not vital for the meaning of the clause, you could even say : “This is an English lesson. It takes place both in class and in MT” → the first phrase still maintains its meaning (circumstantial information). EMBEDDED PROJECTION There are some cases in which the qualifier is not a relative clause, but it is a projected clause. In functional grammar, projection corresponds to direct and indirect speech (reported and quoted speech). The embedded clause in this case it’s not a relative, it’s a false relative whose real status is that of a projected clause. Embedded Projections were left as a borderline case (this is not something we ask people at the exam), it’s a case where the embedded clause is not a relative, so it’s a false relative whose real actual grammatical status is the projective clause. It is the functional grammatical version of reported and clauses speech, so direct and indirect speech. E.G. The argument that English pronunciation has undergone change is common knowledge What structural grammar labels are declarative clauses? preposizioni dichiarative Why is this or are these embedded? The argument, the thought, the belief, the knowledge, the idea that English has undergone change is common knowledge… because despite the fact that this is not technically speaking a relative clause, it tells you what argument are talking about, so it qualifies the argument. If you remove that orange passage You wouldn’t know what argument we are talking about, just as before if you remove a dab of butter you don't know what material, what ingredient you are eating and the same happens for that English pronunciation has undergone change. E.G : “The thought of getting up at 6 o’clock doesn’t upset me”. The same reason, if you remove “of getting up at 6 o’clock” nobody knows what thought doesn’t upset you. And so on … these are the clauses that Structural grammar calls declaratives. In the exam we only look at proper typical cases, the most frequent cases of post-modification, so the prepositional phrase and the defining relative clause. THE LITTLE PRINCE ANALYSIS The first element, the title is a noun group “THE LITTLE PRINCE” Can we analyze it together? The first question is “what is the thing?” 1. The PRINCE, because it’s the last noun and the entity that is being referred to. 2. What is LITTLE? This is an in-between case. It would be analyzed certainly by most people as an epithet, because being little or being big always includes a little shade of judgement value, because what 's big for me may not be so big for you. (Like you remember the old trains in the examples: the splendid old electric trains. For the speaker the trains could be old but for me they could be new, so there could be a subjective judgement). It is a little in-between case because it could be considered the classifier as identifies a type of person, a child, but we don’t know yet so the epithet is perfect. LITTLE is the epithet 3. THE is the specific deictic. So let's look for other nouns. “TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY KATHERIN WOODS” We have two prepositional phrases here 1. From the French 2. By Katherine Woods Are they embedded prepositional phrases or are they circumstance phrases? They are circumstances : ➢ From the French precedes a verb and it’s not possible to post modify a verb (the post modification is something that applies to the nouns and to the pronouns because the pronouns functionally act as a noun, the verb is a different thing , so we can’t post – modify it). ➢ French is a noun but by Katherine Woods does not qualify the French language, so it’s again referred to “Transaled” and it is another circumstance of the translation. ➢ Here the circumstance acts as an actor or it’s the one that does the action and this happens in passive clauses. So in passive clauses you have what used to be called “complemento d’agente”, the agency complement or circumstance. ➢ “by Katherine Woods” is a circumstance in Functional grammar, but it is also the actor of the passive verb (translated). The entity that you call “complemento d’agente” (agency complement) in passive clauses is recognized as the role of actor , it can’t be embedded because it does a very fundamental work, which it’s the action, the process. “TO LÉON WERTH, I ask the indulgence of the children who may read this book for dedicating it to a grown-up”→ a (defining) relative clause. Who may read this book? Let’s try also to see if it is embedded, so if it is a post-modifier of children and if that it is a qualifier or if it is a non-defining relative clause, so independent. This is a defining relative clause. Why? Because the author is not asking for the indulgence of all children, he is asking for the indulgence of the reader (see that there is no comma). In the prepositional phrases technically there are noun groups that are introduced by a preposition. Processes in functional grammar are broken down in a system that is not hierarchical, but because it is a system (the system of transitivity) it follows a kind of network kind of structure and specifically it is a kind of circular structure that is like the wheel of a bicycle: ‘hub and spoke’ (= hub at the center and the spokes reaching to the wheel). Let’s see it in action: We have a circle with a center (that is the hub) and the spokes which are kinds of processes. The hub is the different representation of the world, so what do processes (i.e. verbs) represent of the world. They may represent the world of abstract relations, as we have seen in “I am a fox” and all the usages of the verb ‘to be’ that were in the colour coding. There’s a circle where the different colours blend, fuse and mix into one another on a continuum (no clear cut). Starting from the center you have the three basic areas of experience that these six processes can represent. 1. The world of abstract relations = most important process being construed by the verb ‘to be’, ; 2. The physical world, so practical actions, with ‘doing’ as in the paramount example; 3. The world of consciousness, with ‘sensing’ (which isn’t the paramount example but it makes sense to mention it here for an important reason we will see now). Let’s start from ‘mental’, most people tend to want to start from material because they have this view of the one that does the action/the actor (the one that changes the physical world with their deeds) → material processes are the most frequent and most verbs express material action. We will start from ‘mental’ because we want to understand what, here, ‘sensing’ means. ➢ To sense = to perceive - it’s a more specific way because it is perception with your five senses. ➢ It is taken as the paramount example, not because it’s predominant or the most frequently used out of mental processes, but because the participant that does the mental action is called a ‘Sensor’. Perception with your five senses is one kind of mental activity, most specifically the one represented by the example verb ‘seeing’ (in the mental section of the wheel). ↪ so perception is one area of mental activity. We see mental activity includes crucially the use of your senses, but it’s not only that, maybe not even predominantly that, if you think about it, the most typical example of mental activity is thinking, believing, pondering, reflecting, considering, a lot of verbs, this is just one example, it’s not intended to be exhaustive, it wouldn’t make sense to associate each and every verb with one of these categories, and it doesn’t make sense because in all things as in all things functional in grammar there is no or very little form-function correlation. Form-function = it means when one category can be, and is, just one thing: in functional grammar we have no or very little form-function correlation → you have several interpretations depending on the context. There is some form-function correlation, think about parts of speech = an article is an article you can’t change that, there are form-function correlations in parts of speech in functional grammar as well, but in the identificational process things tend to become less clear cut. The opposite of Conflation (when an element plays more than one grammatical role). ↪ So it’s not as if there was no form-function correlation, but in processes it doesn’t make sense to take a notebook and begin to record verbs, according to them being material, behavioural, verbal, mental, relational. Even if you take the verb “to make”, out of context, it’s material, what else can “to make” be? - It depends, in certain usages, you can have a situation that makes it more blurred, let’s take for example “to make up”: It can be a material process, just think about most women use makeup to apply to their faces, so that is a material action, you take a substance and you put it on your face, that’s material. - Is “to make up” always material? No, when is it that “to make up” is not material? To make up a story, what does it mean? it’s similar to “deceiving” people, a fake story/ to come up with something. “To make a story”, depending on the context, can actually construe a “mental process” or a “verbal process”, depending on whether you are talking when you make up the story, so you use your voice to perform the process, or it’s just something that occurs in you mind, in which in that case is a mental process. - “To make out with someone” to flirt with someone… - “To make up your mind”: to decide → it’s mental. - “To make up” in the sense of ending an argument, it depends, if you use your voice, it can be verbal, it can be material, the boundaries are not clear, they are not as clear-cut as to allow you to write down a taxonomy of verbs and say, “this verb corresponds to this process”, you have to look at the context all the time. - That’s why it doesn’t make sense to find form-function correlation, it depends on the context. There is no, or very little, form-function correlation (so in the case of “to think” there’s a form-function correlation) but it is incorrect to say: “Verb x is Process y” The correct way of putting it in functional grammar is: “Verb X construes process Y (in this context)” because the main point is not drawing a taxonomy, the point is understanding how meaning is built. ↓ For some terminological reason functional grammar doesn’t say “Verb X builds process Y”, and this is the whole point of transitivity analysis. MENTAL PROCESSES = “hub and spoke”: mental processes include verbs that represent the use of the five senses (including sight) → the first that occurs to you when you think of mental activity is thinking, pondering, considering and so on...Sometimes we tend to, especially in non-grammatical context (so in real life context), think of feeling as something you do with your heart, as opposed to something that you do with your head, this is the result of a “Cartesian View” of the philosophy ➢ Idea that you have “head that reasons, and the heart that errs” (isn't rational), we have this dichotomy: this view in western thought deriving from Descartes and so we have this division. In functional grammar you don’t have this. Despite being invented by an Anglo-Saxon so Michael Holiday, a brit who spent most of his life in Australia, Functional Grammar was originally developed for Chinese, so for a language that is not western and doesn’t have this kind of background assumptions on your head and heart. Most functional grammar is theorized about English, but its origin is rooted in Chinese mandarin; so basically, there’s no head heart distinction, ➢ The world of your emotions (heart) is viewed under the same heading as your mental activity, so the world of consciousness also includes the world of emotions (feeling, loving, hating...). So, to streamline everything and see what we have under the label of mental processes we can summarize in this way: 1. mental processes crucially include cognition because if you think of mental, you think of something you do with your mind, you think, so cognitive activity. 2. In functional grammar processes that express emotions are also mental: cognition, emotion, we’ve also seen perception (“to sense” means to perceive, so we have the use of the five senses) → when we have a verb that represents the five senses it is mental, 3. Finally desideration. These areas of meaning: cognitive, emotive, perceptive and wanting (desiderative), they are all considered mental, considered done with your “inner life”, things that occur in your personal world. The identification of mental processes on the other hand is required. DIFFERENT MENTAL PROCESSES = Cognition (your mind is very clearly involved). think, ponder, reason, consider, understand, believe (believe has a slightly different phraseology from think/penso/credo in Italian → we have these dyads, pairs). Emotive With your heart you can: love, hate, suffer, rejoice, loathe, but BE CAREFUL, you cannot cry with your heart!!!!! ↪ You cry with your eyes, so let’s keep it “to cry” is not properly mental. Perceptive You do with all our senses. All actions related to the use of sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell go under the heading of perception: to see→ Be careful with “TO WATCH”, because “to see” is clearly perceptive (see something involuntarily) (“to watch” even if you do it with your eyes is NOT a mental process because you do it intentionally and is not specifically related to your senses but to the intention of “staying there” and looking at something). - Think about “watching a movie”, you cannot say “to see a movie”, it’s all a matter of intentionality behind to “watch” which makes it a material process and “to see” which prioritizes your capacity to use you sense of sight. If the sense of sight prevails, we have a mental process; if the intentionality prevails, we have either a material or another kind of mental process. Another verb = “to listen” - “To listen to” can be intentional, if it is intentional the same principle of “watching/seeing” holds. See how important it is not to rely on form-function correlation, because “to listen to” something could well be material if you were doing it on purpose. “To touch”, is it always mental? You can say “to feel a surface”, you can say it because it implies to feel the texture of a surface, for example if “I touch the desk” to feel the texture, and your purpose is to use your sense of touch to feel this texture, then it is mental, but if you touch something for some other reason, in other context,it could well be material,IT ALWAYS DEPENDS ON THE CONTEXT. “To smell” is perceptive, but think of some idiomatic usages of the verb “to smell”: the idiomatic phrase “to smell a rat”, you are not concretely smelling an animal, what does it mean? It means “to find a traitor”, it means that you feel that something isn’t right. This, of course, is NOT a perception because it - Same process, but in the case in which you can reverse the order, this process expresses an identification (a kind of equation) . + These (identifier) = their only interests. Their only interests (identified) = these ↪ their only interests = the full noun group If we wanted to reverse this identifying process and say “their only interests are these” the process would remain the same (relational), but the name of the participants would change because the one that gets identified here is this cataphoric that gets identified (these). The first participant (doer of the action even though relational processes are not done or performed, they’re abstract), the doer is the Identifier and the second one is the Identified. Talking about form-function correlation (not very frequent in Functional grammar but sometimes it can be helpful). If we can find some regular phenomena that are repeated and help us identify a certain function as a certain structure, it doesn’t hurt to use this one function correlation. In relational processes we have something like this and it is the form that the second participant takes. - For example in attributive processes (ones that we cannot reverse, ones that have a carrier as the first participant and an attribute as the second participant), we will find that the attribute in English is characterised by the presence in the noun group of a non-specific deictic (in the noun group) or the attribute is an adjective. When we see a clause with the verb to be, and the argument of the verb to be is a noun group that begins with a non-specific deictic, we already know that that is an attributive relational process. Attributive Relational Processes = The Second Participant is either a noun beginning with a non-specific deictic or an adjective. Identifying Relational Process = In a consequential way, in identifying relational process → the second participant is a noun preceded by a specific deictic, so it can be an article, a demonstrative, a possessive and so on. ↪ This happens only with the verb “to be”. We also have relational processes with the verb “to have”, but they’re attributive. There’s an exception (which, however, we don’t do at the exam) which is the saxon genitive. The saxon genitive is considered identifying (“This diary is Sabrina’s”→ identifying). However, with “to have” you also have relational process, but here the first participant is always called carrier and the second participant is always called attribute. “I have no need of you” would be: 1. “I” = carrier, 2. “have” = relational process 3. “no need of you” = attribute. Now, why is “of you” also a part of the attribute and not a circumstance? Because it is embedded in “need”, it is a post modifier of “need”. In transitivity analysis do we separate, for example, “no need” and “of you”? It depends on the context. In this specific example “of you” is a post-modifier of “need” because if you stop at “need” you don’t know what we’re talking about. “I have no need” has a general meaning, instead here it means “I don’t need you”. In this case, due to the meaning, it is a post-modifier. “The wheat fields have nothing to say to me” 1. “the wheat fields” as carrier 2. “have” as the relational process 3. “nothing to say to me” as the attribute. This is one of those cases that you could interpret in 2 ways, so you could interpret it as “nothing to say” + “to me” as a circumstance addressing someone or everything embedded as a frasiology. Possibly 90% of functional grammarian would tell you that this is all embedded because it’s a frasiology, it’s like a fixed phrase, but embedding is something that happens in the noun or in the pronoun, so “to say” it’s okay because it’s preceded by nothing so it post-modifies “nothing”, but “to me” is not much an embedded structure preceded by “say”, so it’s up to you. In any case, as long as you know that “nothing” is the attribute, we’re okay. “You have hair that is the color of gold”; what interests us is “you have hair”, 1. “you” carrier, 2. “have” relational process, 3. “hair” is the attribute. Then, again, we have the usual issue: is “that is the color of gold” an embedded clause? If so, does it act like the post modifier of hair? If it isn’t a post-modifier of “hair” so it’s not embedded, then we would have to interpret it as a hypotactic clause. If you look at the context, we can realize that it’s actually a way to post-modify “have” because we’re in a fraction of the text in which there’s a comparison: it’s not phrased in the structure of a simile but does a clear comparison between “wheat” and “the blonde hair”, so for this reason (meaning based) “that is the color of gold” means “golden”; so, golden would be a modifier (it would probably be a classifier) and this is the post-modifying equivalent of “golden”, and for this reason it is embedded. “All the chickens are just alike”; here, we have a case in which the 2nd participant isn’t really a noun, it is more like an adverbial expression, but it acts as an attribute because you couldn’t say “just alike all the chickens” (unless you’re trying to achieve some kind of stylistic effect). “Wheat is of no use to me”; this case is very similar to “I have no need of you”, so we have 1. “Wheat” → carrier, 2. “of no use to me”→ we have a prepositional phrase as an attribute. The meaning is the same as this clause: “I have no need of wheat”, but the phrasing with a prepositional phrase as an attribute is also possible, that is why you see “relational circumstantial”. ATTRIBUTES CAN ALSO BE PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES “This is not on the Earth”; 1. “on the Earth” is the attribute. This also works for some identifying processes like: - “I am right here” - “Right here I am” So, these are relational processes: Attributive Relational Process Carrier Relational Process Attribute the order can’t be reversed Identifying Relational Process Identifier Relational Process Identified The order can be reversed You have these types of participants, carrier and attribute, for processes in which the order of the participants can’t be reversed, and identifier and identifying for processes in which the order of the participants can be reversed. MATERIAL PROCESSES an unmarked (typical) material process which follows the sequence Actor + Process + Goal + any circumstances that there might be. The Actor is conflated (the same word as the grammatical subject) with the subject (in agreement with the verb), first. The order changes because of the passive voice → this actor construed as if it was a circumstance, a complement of agency and it is often left out in real language. One of the aims of the passive is to ellipit the subject or Actor. To sum material processes = they’re all practical actions; actions that have a doer, someone that does something practical. You have these participants The actor (does the action) + material process + the goal (sometimes Range) In a few frasiologies, instead of the goal we have a Range, also called Internal Direct Object and it is when the so-called object or goal has a meaning that is already implicit in the process. Examples = “I sing a song” 1. I = the actor 2. sing = material process 3. a song = the range, a goal that we call a range (meaning implicit in the process) What happens if instead of a song, I mention the type of a song → Ex : I sing “all by myself” It’s a particular case we could interpret in 2 ways 1. The title as goal, because it’s not implicit that when you sing, you always sing by yourself 2. The interpretation of sing as a verbal process because you could interpret this to be a Verbiage A verbiage is another kind of participant that identifies something that is being said. It wouldn’t be a Range, because the title of the song is not implicit in the verb. Instead if we do I sing the song “all by myself”, then 1. the song = a Range 2. “all by myself” = a postmodifier. Examples = “He plays games with me” is an idiomatic phrase. To play games means to cheat on someone, not by having a lover but by not being honest. 1. He = actor 2. plays = material process 3. games = range 4. with me = circumstance (because it’s the affected person) Question = When there’s an internal direct object, then the goal is called Range? YES, so what would count as a goal in the Internal Direct Object clause (i sing a song, i play a game) you call it Range instead. Question = Is “I sing a song” a verbal process or can it still be considered a material process? No, “to sing a song” is considered a material process. To sing can be a verbal process, when you have the literal express of what was sung. For example : I sing “God save our gracious queen”→ this would be a quotation so for this reason it would not be a Range but because the purpose of a clause like this is to report the beginning of the text, the purpose is to report it so it’s not implicit in the verb. It is something new that is said and the emphasis is on the saying. VERBAL PROCESSES They are all processes that involve the use of your voice. So to perform a verbal process you need your voice. This is why “to sing” can be a verbal process, if what follows the verb is some kind of direct speech (the title of a song or the lyrics of the song). Two types of verbal processes (we know them because the two types of verbal activity are either reported or quoted like direct and indirect speech). What’s the difference between these two phrases? In the second example we have a sentence in inverted commas, which is reported exactly as it was said. So there’s no change in the sequence of tenses and also there’s no subordination. The doer of the action is the subject of Transitivity, the experiential subject, the subject of the metafunction of language that we call Field and it’s not necessarily the one in agreement with the verb. 1. The fox = Goal 2. Will be tamed = material process 3. By the little prince = actor (experiential subject) Now we have the second side of ideational meaning which is logical : LOGICAL MEANINGS The ideational metafunction can be broken down into two categories 1. Transitivity 2. Logical The logical area of Ideational meaning looks at relations of dependency and logical-semantic relations between different clauses. The purpose of “the ideational logical analysis” and their systems is to see how clauses connect to make meaning. It’s still the view of the clause as representation. FG sees the clause in 3 ways, one for each metafunction of language → the one corresponding to Field is the clause as representation (representing reality). But this time it’s representation centered around the combination of clauses. We have quite a few systems that relate to it, whereas for experiential analysis we only have the structure of the noun group and transitivity. Logical meaning systems: 1. Taxis → hypotaxis, parataxis ( = dependency) Then we have a Family of systems that account for the logico-semantic relations between clauses (not involved in the hierarchy/dependency but involved in the meaning relation between the clauses). So much this is the main/subordinate clause but this is a clause that means x and we have an association with another one that means y. 1. Elaboration→ to explain better, with a little contradiction (for example = in fact) 2. Extension → conjunctions = and, or, but, .. (it means plus) 3. Enhancement → a system that provides an attempt by FG to streamline hypotactic clauses that you can have. It’s most often associated with dependent clauses. It includes all complex semantic relations between clauses, almost always subordinate clauses (temporal clauses, causal clause, concessive clause, conditional clause). It doesn't matter if you have a temporal, clausal clause, in FG they’re all clauses of Enhancement. 4. Projection → with verbal and mental clauses (it includes both reported locutions and ideas and quoted locutions and ideas). There are things that are said either in direct/indirect speech. Verbal and mental clauses are the only ones that have this capacity to project. - To project = means that these two kinds of verbs (that construe verbal and mental clauses in Transitivity) can project the thought or the saying of someone else. So they can move to a different plan of reality and they're the only ones (you can’t have projection with material clauses). It’s the equivalent of direct and indirect speech. These are the 4 meaning-relations (not hierarchic) that can provide the link between two clauses. Taxis → is only dependency. The first system is the same in FG as we always had it in SG. It refers to the dependency status of the clauses in a clause complex. 1. When a clause is dependent on another it’s called “hypotaxis” → if one clause is hierarchically more important than the others 2. whereas when one clauses is followed by another on the same level we have “parataxis” → if we have two clauses on the same level In SG dependency is represented by greek letters (alpha is the main clause) → FG doesn’t use them. Logical-semantic relations We saw that when it comes to this second side of ideational meaning, which is logical meaning, you don’t have a choice whether you want to analyze or you have to analyze a clause in terms of dependency or in terms of logical-semantic relations. It’s always an analysis that is intertwined, that is complementary, 1. so you have an analysis for taxis, parataxis or hypotaxis 2. at the same time one for logical-semantic relations. So parataxis and hypotaxis, is exactly the same concept that structural grammar adopts, so whether two clauses that are in combination have : 1. PARATACTIC = the potential to stand alone, so to be independent of one another = John didn’t wait; he ran away. Paratactic means coordinated; in coordination, clauses are on the same level. 2. HYPOTACTIC = or if there is one that leans on another = John ran away, which surprised everyone →Hypotactic means subordinated, so this means that there is a main clause and one or more that depend on it. These ones cannot stand alone. What is new is the vertical area of this table (Projection and Expansion), and especially the section of Expansion→ elaboration, extension, enhancement). ➢ Projection you already know under a different name (logical-semantic relation that follows verbal and mental processes), it covers the area of structural grammar of the direct (quoted) and indirect speech (reported locution). We have three categories of Expansion: 1. Elaboration, 2. Extension 3. Enhancement You need to know the names of the relations and how to identify them. So ELABORATION means to explain better, and it can be 1. either paratactic → represented in the table just by a sign of punctuation = ; 2. or hypotactic → it eventually gives a function and a place to non-defining relative clauses. When the relative clause is defining it isn’t a real hypotactic clause but it acts as a post-modifier to a noun (downranked→ it acts as something less than a clause = applies to defining relative clauses because it’s embedded, it acts as a postmodifier, qualifier) . - Non-defining relative clauses (those relative clauses that act optional, extra, elaborating information that isn’t vital to the preceding noun or they just don’t follow a noun. We can recognize them because they often follow a comma, and they’re certainly non-defining if what comes before them is not a noun). They are elaborating hypotactic clauses. They are the only hypotactic option that the logical-semantic relation of elaboration has = “John ran away, which surprised everyone”. HYPOTACTIC ELABORATION IS EXPRESSED THROUGH NON-DEFINING RELATIVE CLAUSES The defining relative clause (embedded clause) is NOT hypotactic → they are like false clauses. Their function is a post-modifier of a noun (Qualifier). So for FG the only really hypotactic relative clause is the non-defining one. EXTENSION = Extension is like adding something → its most typical conjunction is and. Extension is almost always paratactic but there are some exceptions. SO Extension is a logical-semantic relation of addition centered on “and”. It is the easiest relation from the logical-semantic point of view, because and is just “a plus”, (even But is an extending conjunction because logically it means and not). - Hypotactic extension = John ran away, whereas/while he stayed behind - Another Hypotactic extending conjunction would be the non-temporal while (doesn’t mean at the same time as, but and). Variation is also a subcategory of Extension (or, without). “Extension (Hallyday and Matthiessen)” This is a table that summarizes the conjunction that Projection is reported speech and quoted speech (FG highlights the difference). Let’s have a look at the “types of projecting process” → “column divided into mental and verbal. So projection is a logical-semantic relation that can only apply to mental and verbal processes. - You can’t have a projected clause after a material process, a relational process, or a behavioural process; it’s only with mental and verbal processes. If you have a mental process like “I think that...” , what will follow that is an idea, a projected idea; “she thought ‘I can’”(quote paratactic) becomes “she thought she could” in reported hypotactic. The difference between those two clauses is the taxis, that in quoted idea, when you have a mental process followed by something that was thought literally, you have parataxis. - Both “she thought” and “I can” have the potential to stand alone as independent clauses. - So this makes “she thought I can” a quoted idea→ this is a projected clause called quoted idea. It is an idea because it depends on a mental process (thought). Let’s see the verbal process: “she said ‘I can’” you see the structure is the same but the logical-semantics varies slightly because here we are in the domain of talking. It is quoted because both “she said” and “I can” could stand alone as independent clauses but the relation would be one of quoted locution (because the process is verbal). ↓ So quoted idea if a thought is reported literally, while we have a quoted locution if the saying is reported literally BUT both are projected clauses. We have seen paratactic projections that we can call quoted idea or quoted locution, so the corresponding hypotactic versions are reported locution and reported idea. - So “she said (that) she could” is the same as “she said ‘I can’ ” but what makes them different is the taxis, the fact that “she could” here can’t stand alone because there is an elliptical “that”. - In English it’s possible to skip a conjunction also called projecting “that” in functional grammar or complementizer, even if you skip it the clause is hypotactic. Paratactic projection is when you have something that is referred literally as it was told (verbal processes) or thought (mental processes), typically with quotation marks. We have a few more examples: 1. “the prince tells the fox (that) he’s very pretty” so even if you can skip that, it still remains hiding in the shadows which makes “he’s very pretty” a subordinate, so hypotactic clause/projection : reported locution (tell → verbal process). 2. “Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me!” - This is a case of parataxis in which you don’t have the help of the quotation marks. Generally you have quotation marks that help you distinguish between quoted idea/locution and reported idea/locution but there are some cases in which this does not happen. - So, how do you know that “think how wonderful that will be” is in a paratactic relation? - You know because you can imagine “think” to be its own clause, an imperative. When you have your own clause that is just an imperative, it’s called a bald on-record imperative, in the sense that it is very blunt to leave the imperative on record without anything, but it is an independent clause. The imperative has the capacity, when it is bald on-record, to be a clause. - “How wonderful that will be”, what would this be if we stopped at “be”? an exclamation. So, it is its own clause, and this makes it a paratactic projection, a quoted idea. - Then, of course, “when you have tamed me” is a dependent clause, a hypotactic clause, but it depends on the quoted idea. - Look at “when”. What kind of logical-semantic relation does it instantiate? It’s a temporal clause, so what would it qualify has? Enhancement, absolutely. So if you had to analyse this, you would have 1. “Think how wonderful that will be” = quoted idea 2. “when you have tamed me” = hypotactic enhancement. Example = “good morning”, said the fox → paratactic projection / quoted locution ➢ So when you have quotation marks there’s no mistaking it, it’s quoted, and whether it is an idea or locution, it depends on the nature of the process, which in this case is verbal, so you have quoted locution. Example = You wanted me to tame you→ hypotactic projection / quoted idea ➢ Here we have a mental process (desideration → “want” is a mental process) because this is a non-finite clause, with a “to” infinitive, it’s necessarily a hypotactic and it’s a quoted idea. ↓ TEST = 1. What is the experiential structure of the noun group “the British Hen Welfare Trust”? So the first option is à specific deictic/epithet /classifier/qualifier/thing. What is wrong about this answer? A Qualifier is the name of the only post modifier that exists in English. So in English, the qualifier, if it’s present, must always be after the thing. So A is automatically wrong, just as B is wrong (qualifier ^ classifier ^ epithet ^ specific deictic ^ thing). So we’re left with two answers: C (specific deictic ^ classifier ^ classifier ^ classifier ^ thing) and D (specific deictic ^ epithet ^ classifier ^ classifier ^ thing). What we need to ascertain is whether what follows the specific deictic “the”, is a classifier or an epithet. “British” is the name of a nationality. Yes, Classifier is right because a nationality isn’t a judgemental value, it isn’t an evaluation (it’s a class of citizens). So the right answer is C. 2. “What is the transitivity structure of the clause: The British Hen Welfare Trust was set up in 2005”? A (Goal, process, actor, circumstance), B (Actor, process, goal, circumstance), C (Goal, process, circumstance), D (Actor, process, goal). So the first feature of this clause is that it’s passive. For this reason, it will not follow the typical order of the participants in the transitivity structure, but it will be a structure that we defined as “marked” (untypical). So this automatically excludes B and D, because the actor is the one that does the action and is the one that comes first in the active voice. What we want to know is if the actor, so the doer of the action, is expressed/present in this clause. The answer is no. The doer of the action, in many passive clauses, is elliptical. The right answer is C. 3. Next one: in the clause “the cat is on the mat”, the Process is: A (Material), B (Verbal), C (Relational), D (Mental). The process is attributive relational, because it is one of those processes of being, and also processes of having, that expresses an abstract relation. It’s not a real action, the cat isn’t doing anything really, it’s just a state, there’s no action involved. 4. Next one: the experiential analysis of a clause is done by identifying its: A (Theme), B (Transitivity), C (Hypotaxis and parataxis), D (Mood block). Transitivity, yes. We’ve seen two types of experiential analysis, one involving a noun group (experiential structure of the noun group), and one involving the clause (which consists in identifying the process, the participants, and the circumstances) is called transitivity. Hypotaxis and Parataxis isn’t experiential but the other side of ideational meaning, logical. Experiential is Transitivity, while Logical is Hypotaxis, Paratix + logico-semantic relations. 5. Next one: The process in “Riga is the capital of Latvia” is relational. Which type is it?: A (Attributive), B (Identifying). Answer = identifying. If you decide to invert the order of the participants and say “the capital of Latvia is Riga”, then Riga would become the identified. 6. Next one: Field is the variable of context that corresponds to: A (What is the role of language? → cohesion), B (What is the structure of dependency? → covers one part of ideational meaning, Hypotaxis and Parataxis), C (Who is taking part? → interpersonal meaning), D (What is going on?). D, absolutely, because it is ideational meaning, it is the analysis of the clause as representation. 7. Next one: from the point of view of logico-semantic relations, projection can only be associated with: A (Relational and existential processes), B (Relational processes), C (Verbal and mental processes), D (Verbal processes). Answer = C, verbal and mental. 8. From the point of view of logico-semantic relations, ( here we have a case in which we have to see if there’s parataxis or hypotaxis or whatever…) the clause “harry: We did not walk away” in a London Evening Standard headline, what is it?. The London Evening Standard (the main local newspaper of London). What does it imply? In newspaper headlines there’s often the tendency to leave out words for economic reasons, especially in tabloid former newspapers (like the London Evening Standard is) because they don’t have enough room. They tend to skip words. What verbal process do you think they’ve skipped? “Said”, “Told us” a verbal process. ➢ So here despite the fact that we don’t have the quotation marks it’s a quoted locution because what the newspaper is trying to do is to attribute to Harry something that, allegedly, he has said literally. It’s a quoted locution, forget the fact that there aren’t any special quotation marks, it may happen especially in registers like the news one in which saving space is vital. So quoted locution because the first clause (elliptical) is “Harry said” and the second one is “We did not walk away”. So they’re in a paratactic relation with a verbal process. 9. Now : from the point of view of Transitivity, identify the Carrier in the relational clause “ The Swedish coastal city of Malmo is only 30 minutes away from Copenhagen.” So here it seems to have told you everything, it tells you that it is a relational clause, that there is a Carrier. Look at the options: 1) The Swedish coastal city of Malmo; 2) the Swedish coastal city; 3) The Swedish city; 4) Malmo. It wants to know what the first participant is, where it begins and where it stops. What is the Carrier? Remember that the participants must always include full noun groups, so with their premodifiers and also if there are any with their postmodifiers. The answer is “The Swedish coastal city of Malmo”. 10. The last question is: Identify the structure of the noun group “ The Swedish coastal city of Malmo” in the clause “The Swedish coastal city of Malmo is only 30 minutes away from Copenhagen”. So there is no doubt that “the” is a Specific Deictic; “Swedish” is like “British”so it tells us the nationality and for this reason it’s a Classifier; “Coastal” doesn’t give you any judgmental value so it’s not an Epithet, it tells us the type of city and so it’s a There are 2 cases in which the (interpersonal) subject of FG isn’t the grammatical subject: 1. The co-hortative imperative (“let’s”) 2. The existential “there” In Interpersonal analysis, Mood, when they are present in a clause, these co-hortative imperative “let’s” and the existential “there” are considered subjects. This is because it’s related to this view of the subject being the one in agreement with the verb, but also the one responsible for the validity of the statement : - Eg : “Let’s go”→ “let’s” is the subject - Eg :“There is a tree” → “there” is the subject A co-hortative imperative is an imperative that includes also the speaker, it is more an invitation and in English it is grammaticalized (it has its own grammatical form) in the form “let’s”, in Italian there is no marker of the co-hortative imperative (it borrows from the jussive one). - “Let’s hope”→ “Let’s” is the subject in mood → “Speriamo” (in italian) has no subject - JUSSIVE IMPERATIVE = italian has this one imperative; the imperative used to give orders, and it is the only imperative form that the Italian language has (Stop!). The existential “there”works in Italian the same way it works in English. - “There is a car” = “There” is the subject → “C’è una macchina” “Ci” is the subject So these 2 are the only 2 exceptions, in all other cases interpersonal subject (=grammatical subject), so it is the entity in agreement with the verb. CO-HORTATIVE IMPERATIVE = The cohortative imperative in English has an interesting grammar, because there are many theories in how you can negate it, in particular there are two ways: 1. “Let’s not”→ it is the contracted form. The uncontracted form would be ‘let us not’, so there’s a personal pronoun (us) but you use it only in written/formal registers. 2. “Don’t let’s” → used by Christian Matthiessen, who is a famous grammarian who was the closest collaborator of Michael Halliday, the founder of functional grammar. This negation is more Australian or more typical of English speakers, it’s more common in that area of the world. This is a difference with the jussive imperative, where you can only negate with ‘don’t’. The mood block The block is a part of the clause, the mood in the clause is in the mood block, which is a key difference with structural grammar = 1. in SG the mood is only in the verb. 2. In FG the mood is in the subject and in one part of the verb, the finite part of the verb. MOOD BLOCK = SUBJECT + FINITE + SOME ADVERBS Let’s concentrate on the subject and finite because they mark the speech function (the kind of exchange), they tell us if it is a statement, a question or command and the reason why the grammatical subject is interpersonal rather than textual. The rest of the clause that it’s not part of the mood block is called the ‘residue’ so it’s not like in transitivity where we analyzed each element of the clause, so if you have something after the second participant you have to decide if it is embedded or if it’s circumstance. ➔ In mood analysis you don’t have that, you only analyze the mood block, you find the subject, the finite and you check out if there are some modal adjunct and after analyzing the mood block the rest of the clause is considered a residue (left-over). Modal adjuncts = What kind of adverbs can have a modal sense? There’s another part of speech that can be modal, and it’s the verb such as ‘could, should, shall, would, ought to’→ these verbs that tell you about possibility or commitment (=the level of certainty about something) or duty, obligations, an offer. They are auxiliary verbs and take specific names = 1. The ones that communicate an idea of commitment (it might be true, it must be true) are called epistemic (related to the degree of knowledge). 2. The modal verbs that relate to physical Possibility (I can swim, I can’t swim) are called dynamic and they talk about the physical capacity of doing something. 3. Obligation (you must do your homework) → deontic. Although since the 1960s this use of “must” in a deontic sense has been decreasing ,because it’s considered to be too impolite and it is being replaced with “should”. The negation of deontic meaning is “mustn’t” and it’s really different from “don’t have/need to”, because the first one talks about a prohibition while the last one talks about lack of obligation. Thinking about Italians they haven’t grammaticalized this difference. For Italians negative deontic is ‘Non devi’ and can be both prohibition and lack of obligation. Modal meaning is the same, whether it is applied to verbs (which is the most classic view of modality) or whether it is applied to mood adjuncts and comment adjuncts. These listed are adverbs that go into the mood block, so they are part of the mood of the clause because their idea, their meaning it’s not circumstantial like it would be typical of adverbs to be, but their meaning is either epistemic, deontic or dynamic. For probably, “possibly, gladly, readily, absolutely, definitely” it's quite clear that their meaning is interpersonal because when I say probably I express my idea that something won’t happen → so my epistemic idea that something is likely. But if I say “often, seldom, rarely, just, once, yet” they are temporal. Why aren’t these circumstances of time? What’s the difference between = 1. I (only) rarely see my best friend 2. I saw my best friends two weeks ago. Both rarely and two weeks ago talk about time. So what’s the difference? Can I find rarely in my diary? No, but I can find two weeks ago in my diary. CIRCUMSTANTIAL TIME MODAL TIME When the expression of time can be found in a diary, on a clock/watch/calendar , when it’s time When time is an evaluation of time, it is Modal. So rarely contains my evaluation that I see her that can be measured and it is in a sense objective → it is Circumstantial Time. Instead to be a Circumstance it has to be at least partly identifiable in a kind of time setting device; we have to have a way to make it objective for a temporal expression to be circumstantial. less than I would like to and it implies in its meaning that I find the frequency of our meetings to be not enough for me; in that sense it is an evaluation. The same goes for Usually and Sometimes (it’s an evaluation of time). Also occasionally means very much as rarely, generally means very much as often, or always. ↪ Always is also an evaluation of time so for example : - I always see my best friend/I generally see my best friend/I occasionally see my best friend - “I always see my best friend” = 1. I always see = mood block → see conflates in just one word the finite and predicator 2. my best friend = residue Look at all these adverbs and see what they have in common, besides they are talking about time as an evaluation. They are all placed immediately after the subject and they break the continuity between the subject and the verb. Now let’s suppose that instead of see we have a multi-word verb, so a verb form that includes more than one verb: 1. I have rarely seen my friend. 2. I hadn’t seen my friend in/for a year. So let’s contrast “in a year” with “rarely”. Could I say that “I haven’t in a year seen my friend”? I would sound a little strange. Could I say that “I have seen my friend rarely”? → not the correct word order. The correct word order is with the adverb after the subject, so Mood Adjuncts are called Mood Adjuncts because of their position (English is very rigid when it comes to the word order). They break the continuity not really between the subject and the verb, but between the mood and the residue. “I have rarely seen my friend” 1. “I” is the subject 2. “Have” is the finite part of the verb 3. “rarely” is the mood adjunct 4. “Seen” is the predicator. The Mood block here is “I have rarely” including the subject (I), the finite (have) and the mood adjuncts (rarely) → Subject + Finite + Mood Adjuncts “I have rarely seen my friend” 1. “I have rarely” = mood block→ the mood adjuncts must be IN the mood block, not after; it can be the last word but it can also be a word in the middle. 2. “seen my friend” = residue. As I said, the analysis of the residue isn’t done to the level of detail that it’s done in transitivity with participants, circumstances, types of processes, but we should mention 2 elements that we both have here. So the elements of the residue here are “seen” and “my friends”. If you contrast “seen” with “have” what kind of information does it give you? “Have” tells you about the tense, so we have “have” + a past participle and we know that it’s a present perfect. HAVE is the one that gives anchorage in tense and it is the finite. I. SEEN tells us the lexical meaning of the verb, “Seen” is the predicator. Seen = the predicator is the lexical element of the verb , the lexical meaning, the dictionary entry, what you look up in the dictionary if you want to find the meaning of the verb “have seen”. II. “My friend” = Complement. Here it’s a complement (also in Structural Grammar = it would qualify as a direct object), but in FG complements also includes situations, for ex : You are beautiful → In FG “beautiful” is a complement. ↓ So the structure doesn’t have to be this (Subject+Finite+Interpersonal Adjunct), but it’s the most typical. Let’s see or see a few examples taken from the Little Prince. ‘You’ is the subject clearly because it’s the element that’s in agreement with the verb, now let’s see the difference between the Finite and the Predicator because if you look at this clause actually you’ll have a verb group that has as many as three verbs (are, going, cry) How do we know that ‘are’ is the Finite and ‘going to cry’, the whole thing, is Predicator? We know for two reasons, again 1. structural and 2. functional You know I always stress because it’s true and if you started reading “Introducing Functional Grammar” by Thompson, it says many times that function’s more important than structure, that there’s no form-function correlation, that meaning is the centre of things and not word order. That is all true, but of course structure still exists. Let’s see first of all the structural reason why ‘are’ is the Finite and not ‘are going’, why is it only ‘are’? ➔ The structural reason is very simply that it is the first verb, so structurally you can identify the finite because it is the first verb occuring in the verb group. The finite, we’re talking structure, not the meaning which is more important and which we will see second. I. the first Verb occuring in the Verb Group and II. if it is in a multiworld verb group (like ‘you are going to cry’) when you have more words that belong to the part of speech ‘verb’, it is what structural grammar used to call the auxiliary. So basically from a structural point of view a structuralist grammarian would tell you that in this example ‘You are going to cry’ the Finite is ‘are’ because it is an auxiliary verb So why is it that we don’t call it an auxiliary in functional grammar? Is it more practical to call it an auxiliary because everybody else does so? Well it might be, but then it is at this point that the meaning reason why a Finite is a Finite comes into the picture. ➔ From the point of view of meaning the Finite isn’t an auxiliary because of the meaning of the word auxiliary: what is an auxiliary in English generally or what is auxiliary if you take auxiliary to be an adjective? It’s somebody or something that helps. ➔ That is why functional grammar doesn’t call it an auxiliary, but it aims with its terminology to tell you what the Finite is functionally, what its function is in the clause and it argues that the function is to provide an anchorage so like a tie, a connection with tense Functional meaning reasons: I. It is the element of the verb group that provides it with anchorage in tense, which is the grammatical side of time. This is the main meaning reason, it is the element of the verb group that provides the verb group itself with anchorage in tense II. It is the element of the verb group that provides grammatical information. So the fact that a verb group begins with ‘are’ like we have here in ‘you are going to cry’ announces that this will be a present continuous. So one question : “going is also grammatical isn’t it?” Here ‘going’ is grammatical here it talks about an inevitable future, it’s a progressive form that has been grammaticalized in such a way to form a future tense in English : ‘to be going to’ is a tense, it’s grammaticalized in this sense, so it’s a present continuous in a sense but through repeated usage became grammaticalized in a future. So why isn’t ‘going’ also grammatical: because you can find it as its own separate dictionary entry and not as an auxiliary, ↓ So the difference between ‘are’ and ‘going’ is that ‘are’ is only grammatical whereas ‘going’ is grammatical here because it is the marker of a certain tense but you can find ‘to go’ in a dictionary as a separate entry, not auxiliary ↓ So in substance the verb group is in part in the Finite and in part in the Residue→ 1. So in the Mood Block you have the Subject and the Finite (=the first verb that is sometimes an auxiliary and sometimes not) 2. In the Residue the first element is often also a verb and it is called Predicator: what is the difference between a Finite and a Predicator and what makes a Predicator a Predicator? Again, there are structural and meaning reasons 1. The structural reason why a certain part of a verb group is Predicator is that it is all the verb group elements that follow the Finite. So the first is a Finite, all the others are Predicator, so that’s why here you have one verb Finite and all the other verbs are Predicator. So you can’t stop here (at ‘going’) and ask what ‘to cry’ is: it is as if this was a hypotactic verb group (we don’t do this so just take it as extra information) so the verb group is the same, the hypotaxis is in the verb group but we don’t care about that these are all components of the Predicator because they follow the one Finite → So this is the structural reason why a Predicator is a Predicator. - So structural reason: these verbs are not the firsts. 2. Meaning reason why a certain part of a verb group is Predicator: it is the element of the verb group that carries lexical meaning. So whereas the Finite carries grammatical meaning and its role is to anchor, so to attach the verb group to a tense, the role of the Predicator is to give it meaning in the lexical sense so to make you able to find that verb in a dictionary, so in the vocabulary of a language. (Question “In the Past Simple do we have to consider -ed as the finite since it expresses the tense?” Of course there’s a way to identify the Finite and the Predicator in the simple past but also in the simple present, when the verb is just one word. “What happens when I have a one word verb group, when the verb is one word, is it finite or is it predicator?”. It is both at the same time. “I never wished” = is a clause in which we have two extra things of the mood block besides the ones we’ve already seen in examples. 1. The first is the presence of a mood adjunct (adjunct of temporality, so those adverbs that talk about time but in a way that cannot be located on your watch, clock or calendar). It seems to be objective, but actually if we look at the context, we’ll see that it’s temporality, but meaning wise temporality isn’t the thing, the core of the meaning is something else. - “So, the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near “Ah” said the Fox, “I shall cry”. “it is your own fault”, “I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you...”, so this never of course means at no time, literally, but the scope of the meaning, so the extension of the meaning, includes crucially an interpersonal evaluation, it is a way to stress the fact that the little prince did not wish the fox any sort of harm, it is like an emphatic form of not→ “I would have never done this/I would never have said this, if I had known It would have hurt you”, typical clause that is used to show how complex verb groups can get. The meaning changes a little bit but regardless it’s a way to stress the word “not”, so this is the sense in which an adjunct of temporality, so and an adverb of time (that you can’t find in your watch) is not a circumstance, it’s an evaluation of time. This is the first new thing that we can see in this “I never wished”, but the other new thing is “wished”, “wished” is a simple past but the same rule applies to the simple present → it conflates in just one word, the finite and the predicator. + Conflation is something we’ve already seen (a phenomenon that cuts across the systems in FG), it can be found in ideation, interpersonal and textual meaning; it is the phenomenon whereby just one element plays more than one function at the same time, conflation is so important in functional grammar, you find it everywhere. + Conflation: when an element plays more than one role/function at the same time. This means that “I never wished”, in terms of MOOD BLOCK: 1. I = subject (element in agreement with the verb) 2. never = mood adjunct 3. wished = finite in its role as a simple past (because of the grammatical information that it conveys) Why isn’t the finite just -ed, why isn’t it just the morpheme instead of the whole word, which is also predicator, isn’t it more practical to say that the finite is the morpheme? - The reason why it isn’t so is that ENGLISH HAS REGULAR VERBS, like wished where you take the base form and add -ED, but it also has “strong forms” (like eat-ate-eaten, basically the paradigms) →How do you find the morpheme in there that you can call finite? - That’s why the whole word counts as finite, not just the morpheme that makes it a simple past. This is the mood block, it is the whole clause “I never wished”, what is the residue then, the residue is “wished” in its capacity to be predicator, so in its lexical meaning, the grammatical meaning of “wished” is finite and the lexical meaning of wished is residue → in any case “wished” is both RESIDUE (predicator) and MOOD BLOCK (finite). + Let’s see what else we can find in the residue, basically the residue is the predicator and the complement if the verb is in the old structural sense of the term, a transitive verb. Complement = the “Object” or “direct complement” of structural grammar; it is an element (a Noun Group) that has the potential to be the Subject but is not. 1. “No one has tamed you”/ “you have tamed no one”: there’s a direct object of grammatical-logical analysis 2. but then when we see “it has done me good”it sounds a bit strange →Would these count as direct objects in structural grammar? Good = in structural grammar it wouldn’t be a direct object. The “normal” imperative, so the JUSSIVE IMPERATIVE, the one that gives commands is a non-finite mood by definition. So when you see something like: We do have a one-word verb group, but we don’t have conflations because this is an imperative so it doesn’t have a finite by definition (non-finite). What can give the Jussive imperative a finite is emphasis like “do look at the roses” or a negation “don’t look at the roses” because in English the negation of a Jussive imperative requires the addition of a finite which is do + negation. !!! A Jussive imperative in its typical form will not have a mood block !!! EXCEPTIONS = The mood block exists only if there’s a finite verb , but the only exception is this = The co-hortative imperative (the subject is “let’s”) is still an imperative and so it is non-finite, so we have “Let’s just” as the mood block, but we don’t have a finite verb. TEST = In the case of a jussive imperative, we have no mood block because there’s no finite since it is a non-finite mood. It will only have a predicator. 1. Choose the statement that is FALSE among the ones listed below. The imperative alone cannot instantiate a Process. In the imperative Mood, conflation between Finite and Predicator does not occur. In imperative clauses, the unmarked form has no Mood. The Subject of a command (the person responsible for carrying it out) is not specified, since it can only be the addressee (‘you’). In interpersonal terms, an imperative is presented as not open to negotiation (which does not mean that the command will actually be obeyed), and thus most of the functions of the Finite are irrelevant: a command is absolute (there are no imperative forms of the modal verbs), and there is no need to specify time relevance since there is no choice (an imperative can only refer to an action not yet carried out → it can only refer to future time). The Finite (of a special kind) may in fact appear in unmarked imperatives, but it has a restricted purpose: it is used only to signal negative polarity. 2. From the point of view of Interpersonal meanings, what is the Mood Block of the clause "The Swedish coastal city of Malmö is only 30 minutes away from Copenhagen"? The Swedish coastal city of Malmö is only 3. From the point of view of Mood, the Mood Block of the clause "We did not walk away" is: We did not 4. From the point of view of Mood, what is the Mood Block of the clause "Be kind to animals today and always"? There is no Mood Block 5. From the point of view of Mood, what is the role of "toast" in the clause "Are the other beans toast?" in the slogan of a Branston beans advertisement? Complement A Complement is an element in the Residue, typically realized by a nominal group, which could have been chosen as Subject, but was not. 1. She was brought pamphlets on the Middle East situation. 2. Pamphlets on the Middle East situation were brought. 1. Kate did not like this at all. 2. This did not please Kate at all. 1. The strongest shape is the triangle. 2. The triangle is the strongest shape There is, however, one kind of Complement that cannot become Subject. This is the Attribute in a relational process → Intensive Complement 1. Interviewing politicians is always entertaining. 6. How many Adjuncts are there in the clause "Be kind to animals today and always"? Three = kind (circumstantial adjunct), today e always (mood adjuncts) The clause may also contain one or more Adjuncts. It may even include quite a large number : 1. In an attempt to limit the potential damage, John Prescott yesterday met privately/with suspended party members/in Walsall/over allegations of intimidation. The role of Adjunct is typically performed by an adverbial group or a prepositional phrase – in the above example, ‘yesterday’ and ‘privately’ are adverbial groups, while the remaining four Adjuncts are prepositional phrases. Adjuncts cannot in themselves be chosen as Subject – that is the main difference between Adjuncts and Complements. 7. In Functional Grammar, the unmarked imperative Mood: has no Subject and no Finite 8. In Functional Grammar, the variable of register of Tenor refers to (choose the right option): interpersonal meaning 9. Mood is a System of Functional Grammar that falls within: Interpersonal meaning 10. Read the following clause complex and answer the question. "In this intensive Japanese course, you will gain a solid foundation of the Japanese language thanks to the techniques and materials used by the experienced teachers of Akamonkai Language School." What is the Mood Block of "you will gain a solid foundation of the Japanese language"? you will 2. Tenor is the analysis of the clause as exchange → mood : clause as exchange in relation to speech function (the order of the finite and subject changes the nature of the exchange) 3. Cohesion is the analysis of the clause as message, because when you write or speak a text/speech (in discourse analysis, so of language in use, texts can be either written or spoken). Cohesion is “what makes a text a text” → Cohesion is what gives a text texture The nature of cohesion as being the links that keep together a text is the reason why the third view of the clause in FG is the clause as message. It is the analysis of what makes a group of words a message (with cohesion and coherence) instead of just an “incoherent blabber”. So, the message is meaningful and “incoherent blabber'' can just be a series of words that don‘t cohere. I. DISCOURSE = (the study of) language in use both spoken or written (it’s uncountable → no pl) II. SPEECH = can be an instance of spoken text (i.e. Boris Johnson gave a speech). Speech is used to speak about spoken language in general. It is the abstract noun coming from “to speak”. Cohesion is the system of mode and is divided in structural and non-structural: mode is the metafunction that is responsible for the systems of cohesion (two). In mode, so in the third metafunction of language, the clause is seen as being coherent and cohesive; the aim of the analysis of a clause as message is to see what keeps the text together, so the links, the relations, which can be structural or non structural, depending on the role that word order plays in constructing a message. Theme in Declarative Clauses What is theme? Theme in English is the first element that also plays a role in Transitivity: it is, in this sense, the topic of the clause because it is the first one that also makes meaning also as representation (so it has an independent meaning), but it has a representational meaning of its own and for this reason it’s called “topical theme”, and everything else that follows the topical theme (TT) is the “rheme”. ➢ There can be, optionally, two other types of themes, but they’re not obligatory in a clause so we’ll start from the necessary things, such as the topical theme (the center of the message, jap -wa). Conflation is the phenomenon whereby one item plays two functions at the same time. It also occurs when one single item plays more than two, maybe three, functions at the same time, so when it is the subject, first participant and theme. So, when this occurs, when you have this total conflation of the three metafunctions (field/experiential subject, tenor/grammatical subject, mode/psychological subject) you have the most typical clause, the most linear (in structure). STRUCTURAL COHESION = SO we have complete conflation of the three subjects of FG in “I” = The carrier (the “doer” of a relational process), the grammatical subject (“I” is the one in agreement with the verb) and topical theme (because it is the first element that also has a role in transitivity) 1. “I” = Carrier → the first element that has a representational meaning (= a role in the clause as representation); because it is the first participant in the process. It is also the topical theme (TT), because it is the first in order of occurrence. 2. “Am” = Relational process of the attributive kind, because it is a clause of being that you cannot reverse 3. “A fox” = Attribute → second participant in the process - Everything else (“am a fox”) is the Rheme (the new) - “I” is the shared knowledge, the given element 1. No one = actor (transitivity) - subject (mood) - theme (TT) → if the first element in transitivity include two or three words than they all will be topical theme 2. has (tamed) = material process (in transitivity it counts all as one element) - has: finite/tamed: predicator (in mood it counts as two elements) - part of the rheme. 3. you = goal (transitivity) - complement (mood) - “has tamed you” = rheme (it’s whatever follows the TT and it is not analyzed by constituence) The difference between : 1. The residue = what is left after you’ve identified the mood block. It is analyzed, not to a high level of detail but it’s analyzed. In Tenor/mood/interpersonal, it may consist of a Predicator + complement + circumstances. We can look for these three elements in the residue. 2. The rheme = what is left after you’ve identified the theme (so Mode, so system of theme, so textual). The rheme isn’t analyzed in any way and it is what is being said about the theme (the new information and it is left unanalyzed). The rheme doesn’t have any finer analysis (NO sub-elements). ↓ The analysis we do with cohesion (both structural and non-structural) is textual. Sample question = In the analysis of a clause. Taxis is textual. Is this True or False? FALSE Taxis. which is dependency, does have an impact on text because it is involved in how you write and how complex your text is (connected with the level of hypotaxis and parataxis that you use). BUT in functional terms it isn’t textual. It is ideational logical. So this question is false because in FG Taxis falls within Field, so it is ideational logical meaning. It’s a matter of taxonomy (where you place certain elements in the theory). By textual FG means ONLY cohesion (only elements falling within mode will be textual). What is TEXTUAL in FG = Theme, rheme (structural cohesion) and all the other elements that are part of non-structural cohesion : - Reference - Substitution - Ellipsis - Conjunction = - Lexical Cohesion TOPICAL THEME : MARKED (1) What happens when the order of the elements is not conflated = 1. On the earth = cannot be the subject (a subject must be a noun group unless the two exceptions of the co-hortative imperative and the existential there). Already we know that we don’t have conflation here → the topical theme, the concern of the message, is “On the earth” (the first element that has its own value). Topical theme that in Transitivity is a circumstance. - It is marked because it isn’t the typical order of the elements in English. ↓ WHEN THE THEME IS A CIRCUMSTANCE, IT IS ALWAYS A MARKED THEME 2. one = senser, subject 3. sees = mental process (field), finite+predicator (tenor), rheme (structural cohesion) 4. all sorts of things = phenomenon (field), complement (tenor, sees what?), rheme (s. cohesion) If we change the word order and say instead = “One sees all sorts of things on the earth” ↪ transitivity is the same, the clause as representation is the same (means the same thing representationally) ↪ this would be the unmarked word order in English = Subject + Verb + Object + Circumstances → SVO ↪ ideationally there’s no difference between these two clauses But here it says = “On the earth, one sees all sorts of things”→ there is a choice from the writer to place the focus on the circumstance. Sample question = A theme that is a circumstance can be defined as : interpersonal (A), textual (B), full (C), marked (D). !!The answer is marked (D)!! Why? = Because a circumstance WILL NEVER be able to be a subject, the doer of the action so CONFLATION is not possible. If we change the clause to = “One sees all sorts of things on the earth”→MARKED VERSION (conflation) Here theme and rheme don’t change BUT the difference is fundamental, in the sense that we do have CONFLATION (of the three subjects). Now we have an element that plays all the subject roles at the same time. But the topical theme is ALWAYS the first element. 1. If we write the UNMARKED VERSION (with conflation), the topical theme remains the first element. 2. If we write the MARKED VERSION (there’s no conflation) and the TT is still the first element, BUT it is not the Subject, nor the first Participant. The Topical Theme (in “On the earth, one sees all sorts of things”) is a Circumstance. A marked Topical Theme can even be a Process, or second Participant. THE OTHER CASE OF TOPICAL THEME MARKEDNESS = two exceptions 1. the theme as circumstance 2. the second is passive → why is passive unmarked or untypical? Because there is NO complete conflation (Conflation is something that we want to apply to the subject). also plays a meaning role → intonation also plays a role in the meaning that you want to convey and this applies specifically to questions. We have to pay attention to two elements 1. Where is the main stress in the clause (=the clause stress) 2. If the clause ends in a rising or falling intonation (=this makes a lot of difference in English even though it’s not a stress-based language, but in English we also have clause stress). These patterns of sound (specifically phonology → the study of sounds in combination) make meaning and correspond to the notion of Topical Theme. If we use intonation in a standard way then the Topical Theme has the main stress. THE THEME IS STRESSED→ this happens specifically in polar questions. ↓ THEME IN ENGLISH IS ALWAYS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE CLAUSE AND IT ALWAYS BEGINS WITH THE FIRST WORD. The first word doesn’t have to be THE TOPICAL THEME but it has to be part of the Theme. “Can I interest you in anything?” “Do you feel like you could help them?” “Are you motivated by the company’s mission?” ↪ “You” = Topical Theme since it is the first element (it would be the first participant in transitivity). ↪ “Can I/ Are you” = full theme ↪ “Can/Do/Are” = interpersonal themes We have to include “are” in theme → can/are/do are finites in mood analysis and since they are finites, they don’t have a representational value of their own = they don’t have their own function in Transitivity (they are not enough to be topical) → “CAN” and “ARE” play the role of the INTERPERSONAL THEME ↪ Taken on their own from the ideational pov they don't mean anything ↪ They have a role in interpersonal meaning → different ways of exchange (commitment, statement,..) Wh-Questions are usually self sufficient to provide the full theme, because they are already topical. “Why do you want this job?” = 1. “Why” is theme as a circumstance → when the theme is a circumstance is always MARKED, because it cannot be the subject but it is still a TOPICAL THEME. “How would you make an impact in the company?” How = Topical Theme “What are your questions?” What = Topical theme “How well is the company doing?” How well = Topical Theme → just one unit of sound (assimilation, one phoneme). We also have the glottal stop (allophone of the dental unsounded t or also some plosives) which is a short but audible pause between the Theme and the Rheme, that here occurs after well. Also the question is not just about how the company is doing but how well the company is doing, the focus of the question is about the extent to which the company is doing well. ‘Doing well’ is a given fact but we are asking ‘to what extent is doing well’. + How and What are sometimes not enough on their own to provide the Topical Theme. They’re not on their own the focus of the question. When does this happen? Exceptions: 1. HOW + adverb (e.g well) →whole Theme = HOW + adverb; 2. HOW + adjective (e.g. how long does it take to walk to the station?) →whole Theme = HOW + adjective; 3. WHAT + noun (e.g. What nationality are you?); 4. WHAT + noun group → in exclamations. In polar questions (yes/no questions and offers) such as: e.g. Are your motivations driven by financial goals? Theme = Are (Finite) + your motivations (Goal, TT) ↪ the full Theme is are your motivations, starting with our first word that must be included in the Theme because in English the Theme is what comes first: are is the first word so it must have a role in Theme, however it isn’t Topical Theme (TT). The Topical Theme is the first item that has a role in representation so your motivations whereas are is only a Finite so its role is interpersonal. How would you analyse these Themes? : - Are your motivations ||driven by financial goals? We have seen that the Theme is what comes first, so we must consider are here. The element ‘are’ is not enough to be topical though, because on its own is just Finite and the Finite (back to the clauses exchange → mood) is only interpersonal. We must go on, but your is not enough yet because your is a Premodifier to the Noun, we have to include the whole Noun Group that follows so the Head or Thing (as FG calls it). your + motivations. Why don’t we also include driven? Because are is a Finite but there’s a reason why it’s split from its Predicator (driven). In the identification of Theme in FG, because it uses the patterns of internation that English uses, the first element that has a role in representation is enough. The first element in transitivity is enough as Topical Theme. ‘driven’ is beside the point and we do not consider it as Theme because beside the Topical Theme (your motivations) the Theme analysis is over. How do we split this Theme so that we give a name to either of its two components? Are your motivations ||driven by financial goals? Are = (Finite, when talking about mood) Interpersonal Theme, it’s an optional part of Theme. If it’s a polar question, you do have an Interpersonal Theme, but the Theme is not vital for a clause in order to be a clause, only Topical Theme is obligatory to a clause to be such. your motivations = (Participant) Topical Theme → here the Topical analysis is over and everything else is Rheme ||driven by financial goals? = Rheme This is what ‘do’, ‘are, ‘would’, ‘can’, ‘will’, ‘shall’, so what all Finites do in the Theme of Polar Interrogatives → they perform the role of Interpersonal Theme. Full Theme = are your motivations - Are you || motivated by the company’s mission? Full Theme = are you you = (Participant) Topical Theme → because it’s the first element that plays a role in Transitivity and it would count as Participant. Do you feel like…? Theme = Do (Finite) + you (Senser, TT) Here your motivations and you are Topical Themes and they both are the noun group following the Finite. But the Finite, because it comes first, also has a role in the Theme Structure of the clause and this role is called Interpersonal. Another example: Whose shoes are these? Topic of the question = shoes But there’s also a structural reason because shoes, here, are premodified by whose so the whole Noun Group is whose shoes. What factors do you consider to be most important? What factors = Noun Group →what precedes factors and, in a sense, it modifies the noun. It’s a Premodifier and it has an impact in deciding that what factors will be the Topical Theme and not just what. This is one of those cases we have listed as “exceptions” (What + Noun). The W-Question is usually self sufficient except for those exceptions we have as in “How well is the company doing?”→ here the polar question leads the finite to complete its Theme even if the Finite has no representational value because it only works in Interpersonal analysis. Let’s see what happens if you have circumstance before everything set off with a comma: Right now in your life, are your motivations driven by… financial goals? In a case like this, where you can have a Prepositional Phrase, an Adverb or an Adverbial Expression and a Prepositional Phrase before everything and set off with a comma (as it often happens), this may set (?) the Topical Theme. Just like we saw with statements, where you decide to put a PP before everything because you want to give emphasis to that circumstance and it becomes the TT, the same happens with questions. ↪ you have to pay attention when saying that an added element at the beginning of the polar interrogative is the TT because it depends. Going back to our knowledge of Mood, we know that we have such things as Mood and Comment Adjuncts, so it isn’t always true that a PP preceding a polar question will be Theme, for example: In all honesty, are you ||a doctor? A clause like this implies that I think that you’re not a doctor and it will trigger the association of suspicion because In all honesty is a Comment Adjunct, it isn’t a circumstance and it isn’t answering the question “in what manner?” but it answers the question of “are you being honest/are you telling the truth”. In all honesty, are = Interpersonal Theme you = Topical Theme and the same goes for Adverbs as we previously said: Honestly, are you ||a doctor? Honestly, are = Interpersonal Theme you = Topical Theme ↪ because they PP and Adverbs can be Interpersonal if they fall within the area of Mood and Comment Adjuncts, and in that case they will be part of the Interpersonal (non-Topical) Theme. Let’s see the Topical Theme of these questions: 1. What do you think? It’s one plain case, where what (Wh-Question) is self sufficient to form the Theme. 2. Why do you think that? Why is self sufficient too because why is the Circumstantial Cause that provides us with the TT 3. How do you know this? How only gives us a doubt when it’s followed by an adjective or by an adverb but here it is followed by a Finite so How is our Circumstance providing the Theme. 4. Can you tell me more? Here it’s Can you because it’s a polar question and the Topical element is you, because Can as a Finite doesn’t have enough meaning potential in the role of representation. It has a meaning but it’s only restricted to its Interpersonal Meaning (Can = Interpersonal Theme). 5. What questions do you still have? The Topic is the questions and not just generally What do you still have. Questions is the focus of the Clause and if you look at this from the point of view of constituent What questions is a Noun Group, so you have to include it all and not just the head (What). 6. What advice would you give a teacher who is just starting out? The focus is the kind of advice and not just the ‘things’ you would give a teacher. To revise: Is example n.6 a Clause or a Clause Complex? We have two verbs: give and starting out. But there’s one Clause that is embedded and we know it because we could contrast two versions: one with the Relative Clause and one without the Relative Clause. E.g. 1. What advice would you give a teacher? 2. What advice would you give a teacher who is just starting out? ↪ the Topic of the booklet changes because in case n.1 it’s a teacher generally whereas in case n.2 the teacher is qualified. So thanks to the Post Modifier, which looks like a Clause but is in fact an embedded Post Modifier defining Relative Clause, I know that the Topic of the booklet is ‘beginning teachers’. 26/11 All imperatives have a MARKED THEME because a VERB (=Process) can never be conflated with the three subjects of FG (i.e. they can’t be Actor, grammatical subject). ↪ So imperatives are always marked Topical Theme, because conflation isn’t possible. If it is a verb automatically it’s a marked theme because it can’t be the subject. A Topical Theme that is also, at the same time, doer of the action and grammatical subject, so it HAS to be a noun group → conflated. IMPERATIVE NEGATIVE CLAUSES If it is negative you will include the finite element just like you do for interrogatives 1. “don’t hurry on”→ “don’t/do not” as the interpersonal element and the process which is also part of the theme. 2. Here you don’t have a “you” in the middle (between do not and hurry on) but you have to stop when you have a verb that is substantially representational because we know that the auxiliary alone can’t be the Topical Theme. “Don’t you hurry on” in this syntactic imperative “don’t” is not enough to be the Topical Theme → you need “you” = Don’t you (Theme) 1. “don’t” is like an Interpersonal Theme 2. “you” is the Topical Theme 3. Hurry on = the rheme. “Tonight, do not come”→ we have a circumstance at the start, so the sentence starts with an element (tonight) that already has a representational value on its own. 1. “tonight” is the Topical Theme. “You hurry on!” → another form of an imperative with emphasis. 1. “you” will be the Topical Theme in its capacity to be a participant. The Topical Theme unmarked is also the subject of the transitivity system and the subject of the mood system. Definition of the Topical Theme = the first element in the clause that has a representational value (that is Participant, Process or Circumstance, in other words that is a noun group, a verb or a certain type of prepositional phrase or adverb that gives us circumstantial information, instead of interpersonal information). Quite often this first element in the clause that has a representational value, isn’t really the number one (not the first word) → we must give a name to the elements that may precede the TT in the clause. We’ve already seen that some of them, like the auxiliary when we have a question that is polar or a negative imperative, is an Interpersonal Theme. There are also some other cases. For example when a clause starts with a conjunction = “And, if you should come upon this spot, please do not hurry on” ↪ “And” and “If” before we get to the first element that can be a participant because it is the doer of the action, so a participant but also a noun group because it’s a pronoun (YOU). So let’s see what we’re supposed to be doing in these cases in which we have interpersonal or textual themes. In Substance we have 3 types of theme 1. a topical theme (the full theme of a clause must include it) → the element that comes last 2. an interpersonal theme 3. a textual theme The best idea is to start reading the theme from the right, so from the topical element because that is the obligatory one. And whatever follows it is the Rheme. Once you have identified the Topical Theme, looking at what comes first is much easier. The Topical Theme is obligatory. INTERPERSONAL THEME TEXTUAL THEME These Themes, when present in a clause, precede the Topical Theme and indicate the kind of exchange or interaction between speakers, i.e. the positions they are taking. - Mood Adjuncts (probably, certainly) - Comment Adjuncts (Unexpectedly, hopefully, allegedly) → provide opinion or degree of commitment or a kind of interpersonal addition to the meaning of the clause - Vocatives (Honey, Doctor, Mum...) - Auxiliaries that precede the TT because of the speech function (maybe because the clause is a polar interrogative or a negative imperative). -Interpersonal adverbs (Please,..) Textual meaning is when a clause begins with a conjunction or a conjunctive adjunct (ex. in fact, and, however but, nonetheless) which precedes the textual theme. We can also have continuatives, which are textual organizers ( in italiano gli “intercalari”). The textual theme is a conjunction (?) at the beginning of the clause. So vocatives aren’t considered in the system of mood but they do have an interpersonal meaning because the way in which you call somebody greatly affects the kind of interpersonal exchange that’s taking place → it has interpersonal meaning. “Believe me”, “To tell you the truth” ↪ These are clauses that are only used as phraseologies to orient the exchange. “Looking back on it, I think it was my fault” 1. Looking back on it = Interp. T 2. I = Topical Theme 3. think it was my fault = Rheme Soon is an adverb that may seem temporal but it’s a mood adjunct because you can’t find it on a watch, so they’re interpersonal because they’re unobjective evaluations of time. Interpersonal theme → Where+When+Why+How did+How old+How many They are all Topical because they have representational value. They may have a little interpersonal meaning but this doesn’t change anything in terms of cohesion. Textual theme → Conjunctive adjuncts There are some elements that are conjuncts, like “nevertheless”, “therefore”,”instead” and “besides”; we also have some adverbs (they are textual theme if they come before the TT). The conjunctive adjuncts are not conjunctions grammatically, but they can act as a conjunction depending on the context. “Stop and check your knowledge part 5” 1. [High altitudes, High Stakes: What next for China-India Relations?]Look at the title of this dossier, and identify the Topical Theme of the wh-question in its title = What next→ in this case “what” is followed by an adjective and it implies “what is next”, “what comes next”. They are both topical themes. “Next” works as a noun group. 2. Identify the Topical Theme of the clause "Join us in January" from an advertisement by Coventry University. Join is the TT → This is a jussive imperative, and the word “Join” is a process, it has a role in representation and it is the topical theme; 3. A clause whose Topical Theme is a Circumstance is always = MARKED (it can’t be subject so there can’t be conflation). What is special about phrases that start with a circumstance is that they are always marked. While in functional grammar, a clause in which the “subjects” coincide is called unmarked. 4. Identify the Topical Theme in the following: " In 2011, the charity played a huge part in Hellmann’s switching to free-range eggs in its mayonnaise" = in 2011 The topical theme is “in 2011” because it is the first element that makes sense and it has representational value → it’s a circumstance 5. Identify the topical Theme in the slogan of an advertisement, "Who says healthy eating can't be delicious?"→ “Who” is the Topical Theme because it is a simple Wh- question (self sufficient) 6. What is the topical Theme of the clause "today you're a star"?→ today (circumstance of time) 7. The only obligatory element in the full Theme of a clause is called… The obligatory element is called “Topical” 8. What is the full Theme of the clause "Yes, it is correct...."?→ The full theme is “Yes,it” because it is a pronoun (and it can be a participant = carrier) and it’s the TT. 9. What is the full Theme of the second clause in "But in ancient times, the semicolon was actually used"?→ The full theme (But in ancient times) includes a conjunction (But) so Textual theme + TT (as circumstance = Full theme 10. Say if this statement is true or false: The System of Theme falls within ideational logical meanings → FALSE (these are textual meanings : structural cohesion depending on word order) The aspect of Cohesion that is more typical of functional grammar is structural, so the theory of theme is the one specific for functional grammar. Non-structural cohesion is more general → The theory of what makes a text a text, cohesion as we defined it, is largely the result of a study published in 1976 by 2 very important functional grammarians: Michael Halliday and Ruqaya Hasan. Ruqaya gave a big contribution to non-structural cohesion and especially to the definition of text. What is a text? (from the book “Language as social semiotic, 1985”) You can recognise a text because of 2 types of unity: 1. THE UNITY OF STRUCTURE: It is what we have already seen in the system of theme , therefore the focus of the message in a clause, this is the view of the clause as message in mode: you have a message that is either kept or changes throughout the text based on the order of the elements. Unity of structure → how theme is repeated or changed in the text to know what the focus of the text is. Sometimes a text is described with a tautology. + TAUTOLOGY= CIRCULAR DEFINITION WHEREBY AN ELEMENT IS DEFINED WITH ITSELF 2. THE UNITY OF TEXTURE: The word ‘texture’ comes from the vocabulary of textiles (fabric), in this vocabulary texture is the way in which the threads are woven to keep the cloth together. SO texture in FG is a metaphor for the cohesive devices that form the “red threads”, these red threads are the ones that can keep the text together and make it what it is. WHAT IS A TEXT? “A text is a unit of language in use. It is not a grammatical unit, like a clause or a sentence; and it is not defined by its size..A text is not something that is like a sentence, only bigger; it is something that differs from a sentence in kind…A text is best regarded as a SEMANTIC unit: a unit not of form but of meaning. Thus it is related to a clause or sentence not by size but by REALIZATION, the coding of So REFERENCE, that is an umbrella phenomenon, that can occur within the text (this is the most typical situation): anaphorically (you have a noun group, and at least one pronoun afterwards that refers to it) or the opposite case cataphorically. Cataphora is the opposite, it happens when you have first the pronoun and in order to find the noun referent you have to look further on in the text. This happens also with deixis, for example if I say: “I’m here, in the classroom” ➢ “Here” is deictic because it points to the extra-linguistic reality, but it’s also cataphoric in the sense that “in the classroom” refers back to “here”. First you have the deictic and only later do you have the nominal referent, which just in this case it’s structured as a prepositional phrase, but in general it happens with pronouns → the difference is that the pronoun comes before. EXAMPLES = Endophoric (anaphoric and cataphoric). Anaphoric: “Good Morning”said the roses. The little prince gazed at them.“Them” refers back to the roses, so it is anaphoric because the first element is the nominal referent. So when the noun comes first you have anaphora. “Good morning” the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing. So “The little prince” is first and then we have the pronoun “he” → it’s anaphoric. Cataphoric: “I’m right here” the voice said “under the apple tree”. “Here” is deictic and “under the apple tree” refers to “Here”. Ex: “She was my teacher for over 5 years. I miss Miss Mary very much”. Here in order to know who she is, you have to look forward to Mary. So this is Cataphoric because the first element of the reference is a pronoun. So let’s see what happens when reference is outside the text, so Exophoric. ↪ Endophoric means inside, Exophoric means outside. So Deixis as we saw of a slightly different nature from the deictic of the noun group which is pre-modifier, here instead “I am right here”→ it points to the external situation and in order to understand the meaning, you have to be present in a sense or have some kind of instruction about the outside world. Homophoric : there’s a cultural reference which is called in FG Homophoric. It is a kind of exophoric reference that requires some cultural background knowledge. CULTURE-SPECIFIC REFERENCES “When I was a little boy, the lights of the Christmas Tree, the music of the Midnight mass, the tenderness of smiling faces, used to make up, so, the radiance of the gifts I received”. So here to understand what this means you have to know about Catholic traditions. This creates Cohesion. Christmas is itself a cultural reference, because it’s celebrated in the Christian tradition and it’s a kind of cultural context → UNITY OF TEXTURE SUBSTITUTION AND ELLIPSIS Substitution and Ellipsis is when continuity is established by leaving out or replacing some given information with particular pronouns (so, one, ones, the same), some given information. It is usually confined to closely contiguous passages and characteristics of dialogue, in particular of adjacency pairs (e.g question – answer pairs). The replacive elements: SO, ONE, ONES, to which you can add the noun group, THE SAME that is used pronominally like in expressions: “The same holds true for” means the same applies, in this case “the same” is used cohesively with a replasive pronominal function although it isn’t technically a pronoun, but it is a noun group. What do substitution and ellipsis have in common? We have to go back to short answers, for example: “Do you speak English? I do”→ This is a case that you can interpret both as a substitution whereby “do” replaces “speak English” or as an ellipsis where “speak English” is left out. This is why Substitution and Ellipsis are put together and they have something in common (the use of the auxiliary in short answers). They are also called adjacency pairs and it’s the name of this phenomenon in pragmatic (“I do/I don’t”). SUBSTITUTION Other than that, the clear cases in which it’s only Substitution are: 1. One/s = “The little prince, who asked me so many questions, never seemed to hear the ones I asked him.” “Ones” in a similar way to what happens to reference, refers back to “many questions”, but if we look at what the clause complex looks like, we’ll realise that we can’t say the same thing with Reference. Reference uses personal and demonstrative pronouns. We would have to rephrase the sentence completely to be able to use “this", “those" or “they”. In this sense, substitution is a different pronominal cohesive phenomenon from reference. 2. The same = “This is, to me, the loveliest and saddest landscape in the world. It is the same as that on the preceding page, but I have drawn it again to impress it on your memory.” It is the same as that on the preceding page; pointing not only in the text, but also to the physical book. 3. So = "The thing that is so (= intensifier) good about the box you have given me is that at night he can use it as his house." That is so (= pronoun referring to everything else that comes before)”. “So” as a pronoun has the characteristic of having a much wider meaning scope/range; it can replace much more of the text than reference and one/s.It generally refers to facts, it even replaces an entire clause → "It is contrary to etiquette to yawn in the presence of a king." the monarch said to him. "I forbid you to do so.” “So” can be a conjunction, an intensifier and also a pronoun. 4. Do = "And the stars obey you?” "Certainly they do”. "And (do) the stars obey you?”→ we don’t know if we’re looking at a case of substitution or ellipsis. Ellipsis of “do” → substitution (of “obey”) ELLIPSIS Here are some examples of Ellipsis: ➢ “Sire—over what do you rule?” "(I rule) Over everything," said the king. This is an ellipsis of “I rule”, and what remains is only the circumstance. ➢ “And then look: (do) you see the grain-fields down yonder (= over there)?” This is an ellipsis of the auxiliary of the finite (do). ➢ "The thing that is important is the thing that is not seen” "Yes, I know (that)” CONJUNCTION By convention in Functional Grammar, there’s only one case in which the elements, the conjunctions, that we’ve seen in Logical meanings work also in Textual meanings: 1. When the conjunction is the first word of a new clause, in this case it’s considered cohesive. 2. If the conjunction works intersententially (between separate clauses or sentences), it’s not considered cohesive. INTERSENTENTIAL VS. INTRASENTENTIAL CONJUNCTION Conjunction only works as a cohesive device when used intersententially: 1. [1] “To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. [2] But if you tame me, then we shall need each other.” These two are both cohesive because they come first and they are considered to constitute the non-structural cohesive relation of conjunction. Intrasentential conjunction: [1] "You are beautiful, [2] but you are empty, he went on.” It’s in the same passage but because “but” is not the first element of a new clause, it’s only looked at ideationally; so it’s only considered from the point of view of its logical meaning in extension, it’s not considered as cohesive. If we were to tamper, interfere, with the text like this it would became cohesive: [1] "You are beautiful, [2] but you are empty, he went on.” ⟹ [1] "You are beautiful. [2] But you are empty, he went on.” → “But” would become the first word in a new clause. LEXICAL COHESION Lexical cohesion is Continuity, unity of Texture, that involves that use of lexical words, those that have an abstract or concrete world referent: 1. Lexical scatters (words that have a common root/etymology). Ex: “They have guns, and they hunt...are there hunters on this planet?” “Hunters” is derivative of “hunt”, but its proper name is “lexical scatter” 2. Synonymy/ Antonymy 3. Hyponymy → all the different kinds of x are hyponyms of the more general word (hypernym) E.g. Food is the hyperonym or superordinate term: chips, curry, roast beef, potatoes, lasagne are all co-hyponyms. 4. Meronymy → there’s a physical relation of the parts to the whole ↪ Trunk, branch, leaf are in a relationship of meronymy to tree. 5. Collocation→ it's the tendency of words to co-occur (to be found in the same word environment)→ it doesn’t have to be an idiomatic phrase, it can also be a relation between a series of words that belong to the same area (like gardening). ↪ so that pinch goes with salt, snow with white, cold with ice, etc. 6. Repetition→ it’s an anaphora that involves lexical words (we have repetition only when the repeated item is a lexical word): E.g = “To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses”. Correzione questionario