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'Mere' As Post-Deictic

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 373, 374):

The post-Deictic identifies a subset of the class of ‘thing’ by referring to its fame or familiarity, its status in the text, or its similarity/dissimilarity to some other designated subset. …
The words occurring as post-Deictic are adjectives, and may also occur in the function of Epithet but with a different sense; …
In an incongruent nominal group, the post-Deictic may correspond to an interpersonal Adjunct in the related congruent clause.

For example: 

In the first two instances, the word 'mere' identifies a subset of the Thing in terms of its dissimilarity to some other designated subset. In each case it corresponds to 'merely', an interpersonal Adjunct of counter-expectancy: limiting.

In the third instance, the word 'merest' has a different sense, indicating a quality of the subset of the Thing, like 'slightest', and so functions as Epithet.

"Feelings" vs "Faux Feelings"

The distinction between 'feelings' and 'faux feelings' is the distinction between inner and outer experience, as distinguished grammatically by the domain of attribution: semiotic vs material.

See Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 260, 272-3).

The Speech Function Of Silence

* William Armour's translation.

By coding the silences in terms of the two potential moves not selected, the disconnect between the two interlocutors is made more apparent. From a social psychology perspective, there is a crucial switch in epistemic authority from Mr Ikeda to Mr Tasaki with the move I treated you.

Performative Verbal Processes

The Reification Of 'Please'

Por Favor

Please

Modified 'Ago'

Nominal Group Qualifiers?

Beatriz Quiroz asked on Sysfling on 12 Apr at 5:24:

How would you analyse the underlined element in the following English nominal groups:

The year 1920
My friend John
captain Ahab
his wife Sarah
The city of Rome

Would they all be Qualifiers?

Blogger Comments:

Just the first and last.

But, even in IFG4 (p391):

Other than this type [nominal group as Attribute], Epithets and Classifiers do not normally function as Head.

England's King's Hat

The King Of England's Hat

Adverbial Group As Attribute Encoding 'The Amazing Thing About The 80s'

The Days Of Auld Lang Syne

Both units of the Qualifier realise the meaning 'in the past', with the second elaborating the first, and the relation is paratactic, because neither depends on the other:

The days of auld (old)
The days lang syne (long since/long ago)

However, on the model of Halliday (1994: 193):

 the logical structure is:

From A Vast Cloud Of Gas And Dust

 For 'from'/'out of' as Manner: means, see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 313).