[15] Misconstruing "Iterated Elements" As Iterative Structure

Doran (2021):

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Doran's claim here is that a multivariate structure with multiple occurrences of a specific element is inconsistent with the notion of a multivariate structure, because Halliday (1965) stipulated that the elements of a multivariate structure occur only once. 

However, Halliday (1965) was his very first paper distinguishing multivariate and univariate structures, written at the time of Scale & Category Grammar, before the emergence of Systemic Functional Grammar. It also included the similarly mistaken claim that Modifier°Head structures are multivariate, rather than univariate. No paper in the 56 years since Halliday (1965) has claimed that the elements of a multivariate structure occur only once (with the sole exception of the current work of Doran and Martin).

However, what is truly astonishing here is Doran's assumption that Halliday — unlike Doran — would fail to notice that such structures contradict the notion of multivariate structure ascribed to him by Doran.

[2] To be clear, the data that Doran presents as evidence of his claim are artificial constructions, rather than attested examples in natural texts. But, in any case, none of the "iterations" constitutes an iterative structure, since iterative structures are unit complexes, formed out of logico-semantic relations, such as group complexes or clause complexes. That is, the three Epithets do form an "Epithet complex", the two Qualifiers do not form a "Qualifier complex" and the three Locations do not form a "Location complex".

[3] To be clear, the clause example does not support Doran's case, even in Doran's own terms, because it actually features one Location — not three — realised by a (textually motivated) discontinuous elaborating paratactic prepositional phrase complex:

 

Compare the textually agnate clause:

and the agnate clause that deploys embedding instead: