06 September 2021

[3] Halliday (1979) On Structure Types

Doran (2021):


Blogger Comments:

The following summary, from the same early paper, will also be useful for later discussions. Halliday (2002 [1979]: 217):
In English, experiential options tend to generate constituent-like structures, actually constellations of elements such as can be fairly easily represented in constituency terms. Interpersonal options generate prosodic structures, extending over long stretches (for example intonation contours), which are much less constituent-like. Textual options generate culminative structures, elements occurring at the boundaries of significant units, and give a kind of periodicity to the text, which is part of what we recognise as “texture”. Logical options generate recursive structures, paratactic and hypotactic, which differ from all the other three in that they generate complexes — clause complex, group complex, word complex – and not simple units.