Fawcett's 'Quantity Group'

Fawcett (2010: 207-8, 208n):

The fourth and last class of group is the quantity group. This has as its pivotal element an expression of 'quantity'. It takes its name from the semantic unit of 'quantity' that it realises, and the "quantity" that it refers to may be a quantity of a 'thing', a 'situation', a 'quality' or, perhaps surprisingly, a 'quantity' (as in the underlined portion of very many more) — and so to equivalent conceptual units.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, as was also the case for the 'quality group', Fawcett provides no semantic network featuring his semantic unit 'quantity' in support of his claims.

[2] To be clear, Figure 12 (p210) presents Fawcett's 'thing' as the semantic counterpart of his nominal group, so the claim here is that meaning of the entire nominal group that is quantified, rather than an element within it. Similarly, Fawcett's 'situation' is the semantic counterpart of his clause, so the claim here is that meaning of the entire clause that is quantified, rather than an element within it. However, this latter case presents a further difficulty, since, for this to be coherent, there would have to be a (higher-ranked) grammatical unit of which a clause is a constituent, and which serves a function in that higher unit. Fawcett provides no clause functions within a higher unit.

[3] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the instance very many more is the Numerative element of a nominal group, with more as its Head, and very many as preModifier. That is, what Fawcett models as a 'quantity group', SFL models as the premodification of the Numerative of a nominal group:

[4] To be clear, Figure 12 (p210) presents Fawcett's 'object' as the 'belief system' counterpart of his semantic 'thing', and 'event' as the 'belief system' counterpart of his semantic 'situation' — with 'belief system' not a level of language, but a higher level system that is expressed as language. As previously mentioned, this is inconsistent with the epistemological assumptions on which SFL Theory is founded. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 2-3):

In modelling the meaning base we are building it 'upwards' from the grammar, instead of working 'downwards' from some interpretation of experience couched in conceptual terms, and seen as independent of language. We contend that the conception of 'knowledge' as something that exists independently of language, and may then be coded or made manifest in language, is illusory.