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||| Because human beings cannot fly, | fear of flying is quite rational. |||
once had
Elaborating (i.e.)
1. Kings, emperors and pharaohs had storytellers; || that was their entertainment.
(1^2)
2. I have a friend whos unemployed || hes collecting unemployment insurance.
(1^2)
3. They decided to cancel the show, | which upset everybody. ^
4. They decided to cancel the show, | upsetting a lot of people. ^
5. Pfaff succeeds Martin Burke, | who resigned. ^
6. He appears as an independent and self-reliant figure, | whose rugged
individualism need not be pressed into the mold of a 9 to 5 routine. ^
7. One of the roughest was the TV quiz shows, | which gave him inferiority
complexes. ^
8. His inner voice, which should tell him what not to do, has not developed.
("")
Extending (and, or)
1.
2.
3.
4.
Maybe the comets killed the dinosaurs, || maybe they tripped and fell. (1^2)
Its my book || but you can read it. (1^2)
I could not cling to my past || nor did I wish to. (1^2)
Vocational courses should be provided in grades 11 and 12; || however, for
slow learners and prospective dropouts these courses ought to begin earlier.
(1^2)
5. Some mediums speak in practical, down-to-earth terms, | while others may
stress the spiritual. ^
6. If they are here, | then surely I have the right to be here. (^)
7. We used to go away at the weekend, | taking all our gear with us. ^
Enhancing (so, yet, then)
qualifying the primary clause with some circumstantial feature of time, place,
cause or condition.
mostly adverbial clauses
1. Arger was never able to produce it, || so I cut him off my payroll. (1^2)
2. We'll work for about an hour on Saturday, || then we'll work Monday and
Tuesday of next week, || then taper off. (1^2^3)
8. My question is [[if you can go faster, why dont you go as fast as you can all
the time]]?
9. If there were more such cases, it would be easier to answer the question
[[whether the policy-makers favor their own social classes]].
10. It is difficult to understand [[why you cant go faster]].
11. [[That you dislike her]] is obvious to everyone in the department.
12. It is obvious [[that you dislike her]].
That you dislike her
is
obvious
Carrier
Process (rel.)
Attribute
senser
mental
pr.
phen.
Text analysis
Lets face it, the human body is like a condominium
apartment.
The thing that keeps you from really enjoying it is the
maintenance.
Theres a tremendous amount of daily, weekly, monthly, and
yearly work that has to be done.
From showering to open heart surgery, were always doing
something to ourselves.
parataxis elaboration:
1^2
embedding
embedding
hypotaxis
enhancement ^
parataxis projection
Youd go, "Nah, Ive heard about these human being bodies.
1^2
This is one of those Earth models, right?
Yeah, a cousin of mine had one.
Too much work to keep them going.
embedded projection
The new ones are nice looking, though."
If your body was a used car, you wouldnt buy it
||| Lets face it, || the human body is like a condominium apartment. |||
||| The thing [[that keeps you from really enjoying it]] is the maintenance. |||
||| Theres a tremendous amount of daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly work
[[that has to be done.]] |||
||| From showering to open heart surgery, were always doing something to
ourselves. |||
||| If your body was a used car, | you wouldnt buy it. |||
||| Youd go, || "Nah, Ive heard about these human being bodies. |||
||| This is one of those Earth models, right? |||
||| Yeah, a cousin of mine had one. |||
||| Too much work [[to keep them going]]. |||
||| The new ones are nice looking, though." |||
Basic types of clause complex: taken from Halliday 1994: 220
paratactic
Expansion elaboration
extension
John didnt wait; he ran away. John ran away, which surprised
everyone
John ran away, and Fred
stayed behind.
hypotactic
Clause as constituent?
Thematic equative
1. What the English did was to introduce tea as a part of their daily lives.
Thematized comment
2. Its nice to sit down with a quiet cup of tea.
Predicated Theme
3. It was the English who first introduced tea as a part of their daily lives.
Enhancement circumstantial adjunct?
4. We made ourselves a cup of tea after dinner.
5. We made ourselves a cup of tea after having dinner.
6. We made ourselves a cup of tea after we had had dinner.
Exercise
Identify clause complexes and the ways in which the clauses have been combined.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Here's a key.
Most of the examples on this handout are from Jerry Seinfeld's book SeinLanguage
Top of page
Cohesion
Extra reading: M.A.K. Halliday & Ruqaiya Hasan: Cohesion in English.
London: Longman, 1976.
"The concept of cohesion is a semantic one; it refers to relations of meaning
that exist within the text, and that define it as a text.
Cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some element in the discourse is
dependent on that of another." (Halliday & Hasan 1976, p 4)
"It is important to be able to think of text dynamically, as an ongoing process of
meaning; and of textual cohesion as an aspect of this process, whereby the flow
of meaning is channelled into a tracable current of discourse instead of spilling
out formlessly in every possible direction."(Halliday 1994: 311)
Cohesion vs. coherence (distinction not systematically made by Halliday)
Coherence: connections that exist between clauses at the level of content.
Cohesion: connections between clauses / clause complexes at the textual level; i.e. the
linguistic marking of coherence.
"The textual lexicogrammatical resources for expressing relations within text without
creating grammatical structure." (C. Matthiessen, Glossary of Systemic Functional Terms)
Cohesive tie: a term to refer to a single instance of cohesion, the occurrence of a pair
of cohesively related items.
An example of cohesion without coherence
I bought a Ford. The car in which President Wilson rode down the Champs Elyses
was black. Black English has been widely discussed. The discussions between the
presidents ended last week. A week has seven days. Every day I feed my cat. Cats
have four legs. The cat is on the mat. Mat has three letters.
Types of cohesive tie
exophoric
(deictic)
reference <
anaphoric
cataphoric
endophoric <
Caldecote Terrace. Philippa wondered if the social worker had brought them in
from her own garden.
comparison:
1. A firm basis for the study of Oriental art came more slowly, and as we shall
see, some of the differences of approach between East and West still require
wider recognition. Moreover, other cultures, such as those of Africa, have had
to wait until even more recent times for recognition.
2. "Will you let us give you a hand with your bags, Dot?" Mark asked.
"What about your knee?"
He grinned again. "I'll carry the little one," he said. "You girls can take
the others."
Ellipsis
Conjunction
elaboration (i.e. / =)
apposition
Not of his talent -- he always knew he was good and he always knew
what a great songwriter and performer he was -- but for instance, he was
nervous of audiences.
clarification
They are also found in the top levels of local government, the health
service and privatised industries. It is, incidentally, a career in which
women are making particular headway.
extension (and / +)
addition (and)
They are most widely known as company secretaries (which is the
function of roughly 20 per cent of the UK's chartered secretaries). In
1. It was not until September when she was spotted with Charles on the banks of
the River Dee at Balmoral by the royal reporter, James Whittaker, that anyone
was any the wiser. At that point life changed more than anyone could have
foreseen.
2. Many guests visit restaurants with preconceived ideas of what they should eat.
Therefore the restaurant manager and other front-of-house staff must use their
skill to talk enthusiastically and intelligently about the menu.
Lexical cohesion
Repetition
1. Sports cars are beautiful. Small cars are practical.
2. It took me a long time to pick myself up after my husband left me and our two
young children. I'm 28. Eventually, though, through friends, I met a man. He
has asked me out but I don't know what to do. I still love my husband although
he has said he doesn't love me anymore. How can I learn to be comfortable
with another man while I still have feelings for my husband? - Kathy.
Synonyms
Two more policemen blocked my way. This was getting annoying I was
trapped. Every exit was blocked, and the minions of the law were advancing.
'It's not that easy,' I shouted. 'Better cops than you have tried to capture
Slippery Jim DiGriz. All have failed. Better a clean death than sordid captivity.'
Superordinate term and hyponyms
A new fruit that looks like a lime, tastes like a grapefruit and is triple the size
of a peach has been launched. The fruit, the result of 21 years' research by the
Jaffa company, is called a Sweetie. It will have an average cost of 39p. It is a
cross between a grapefruit and a pomelo, yet looks like neither and has dark-
green skin and orange flesh. It is the lowest-calorie citrus fruit on the market apart from lemons and limes - and yet also the sweetest, with the lowest
acidity. A spokesman from Jaffa said: "We are hoping that it might take over
from bananas, apples and oranges as a snack."
Lexical fields (Collocation)
He was able quickly to convince us that he had little time to read and no time to
attend the theatre or opera. However, this did not prevent him from holding
opinions on every subject from Shaw to Pavarotti, from Gorbachev to Picasso.
The "happy hour" should be scrapped in pubs and bars to curb alcoholrelated violence and anti-social behaviour, a Government report said
yesterday. Ministers were also urged to consider whether the minimum age for
buying alcohol, currently 18, should be increased. The limit is 21 in countries
like America. The Home Office study Alcohol and Crime said cut-price
drinks intended to entice early evening customers merely encouraged bingedrinking and aggression.
anaph. personal
anaph. demonst.
(indirect)
It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated
with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome
style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select
street.But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even
the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emilys house was
left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons
andthe gasoline pumpsan eyesore among eyesores. And now Miss
Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where
they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and
anonymousgraves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the
battle of Jefferson.
anaph. personal
personal
conjunction
Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of
hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when
Colonel Sartoris, the mayorhe who fathered the edict that no Negro
woman should appear on the streets without an apronremitted hertaxes,
the dispensation dating from the death of her father on into
perpetuity. Not that Miss Emily would have accepted charity. Colonel
lexical: contrast
anaph. | cataph.
anaph. | extension
anaph.
anaph. +
repetition
collocation
collocation
personal
conjunction