Friday 27 October 2017

Joint Participation As Accompaniment


There
have been
more clashes
between Iraqi and British forces

Process: existential
Existent
Accompaniment: comitative


This clause is agnate with:

Iraqi and British forces
have clashed
Actor
Process: material

Iraqi forces
have clashed
with British forces
Actor
Process: material
Accompaniment

British forces
have clashed
with Iraqi forces
Actor
Process: material
Accompaniment


Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 174):
The circumstance of Accompaniment does not correspond to any one particular participant rôle. Rather, it corresponds to an extending of the participant itself, by addition or variation… Grammatically, the analogous type of participant is one represented by a nominal group complex.

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 324):
Accompaniment is a form of joint participation in the process and represents the meanings ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘not’ as circumstantials;
See also Degree of Involvement.

Thursday 26 October 2017

Marked Information Focus


Any allegations of nonconsensual sex
are
unequivocally
denied
by Mr. Weinstein
Theme
Rheme


New
Given
Subject
Finite
mood Adjunct: intensity: degree: total
Predicator
Adjunct
Mood
Residue

In this analysis, the tonic prominence is assumed to fall on unequivocally, thereby textually highlighting the interpersonal intensity as the marked Focus of New information.

But it’s a key fact about passives in English that you don’t put older information in the by-phrase when there’s newer information in the subject. … Here that information-structure constraint is oddly violated by putting Mr. Weinstein in the by-phrase.
On clauses, like the above, that are marked for both voice and information, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 282) write:
The reason for choosing the ‘receptive’ in English is to get the desired texture, in terms of Theme-Rheme and Given-New; in particular, it avoids marked information focus (which carries an additional semantic feature of contrast).  Here, however, the ‘receptive’ has the opposite effect; it actually leads to a marked focus of information (New before Given); hence the resulting form is doubly marked, both for information and for voice. Such a form is by no means impossible; but the meaning is such that it assumes a highly specific context.