Judy Diamondstone wrote:

> Bob, I think you are missing Halliday's point entirely. He is saying that
> there is some pragmatic value in grammar -- not that grammar explains all.
> Since he does not attempt to explain the language system apart from its
> uses, he would never attempt to explain a string of words outside its
> context of use. That is what makes SFG exciting to me. There is no language
> system that exists independently of its uses -- a theory of the structure of
> language freezes in time what is in fact a dynamic, changing system --

Unless I have missed something, the notion that "no language system
...exists independently of
its uses" is fundamentally flawed.  This puts "use" as explaining
structure and such explanations miss the fact that there are fundamental
structural similarities across various functions.  Newmeyer in Language
form and language function, p 50-1 (1998) observes that wh-phrases are
"displaced from its subcategorized position and fronted" in at least
four different kinds of constructions which differ functionally.

        Questions
                Who did you see?
        Relative clauses
                the woman who I saw
        Free relatives
                I'll buy what(ever) you are selling
        Wh (pseudo) clefts
                What John lost was his keys.

Why should that be the case if "no language system exists independently
of its uses"?  Despite the very different functional uses of these four
constructions, Newmeyer argues they all have the same underlying
abstract structural property.

I am sorry that I did not make clear what I tried to show with the
constraint on affirmative preposing.

> I miss your point entirely on the second example.

        1) Last night, John meant to insult his aunt.  And, insult her he did.
        2) Last night, John meant to insult his aunt.  ?And, offend her he did.

There is a constraint on what can be preposed.  It MUST have a
morphological similarity with the proposition that is being affirmed.
(1) is good: (2) is decidedly strange.  If USE explains language
structure, why should such a formal constraint?

Let us be clear what is at stake here for the teaching of grammar.  If
Judy is right that "no language system exists independently of its
uses," then all of the suggestions offered by Rei Noguchi to show
students that they can recognize grammatical subjects and independent
clauses are wrong.  The tag question test and the yes/no question test
work because ALL clauses in English, regardless of the function
(ideational, interpersonal, textual) those clauses perform, have the
same underlying abstract structural property.

My reading of the SFG literature seems to suggestion that, in fact,
clauses are different although I find the properties which identify
those differences incomprehensible.


Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University