Fawcett's Reason Why Clusters Occur Within The Nominal Group

Fawcett (2010: 211-2):

Clusters are a special set of units whose function is to carry complex meanings associated with two elements of the nominal group in particular: the deictic determiner and the head. It seems that the semantics of referring to things is so complex that we regularly need to introduce units within the nominal group, and embedded groups of all classes therefore occur quite frequently within the nominal group. … But certain classes of unit that occur within the nominal group can only occur within this unit (with one rare exception). We term these units clusters.

The reason why clusters occur within the nominal group is that the types of meaning that they express are inherently 'enrichments' of certain types of meaning that are inherently associated with things. Thus they do not realise meanings that can also be elements of situations, as groups do, so that they can never function as direct elements of the clause. They are therefore effectively sub-units of the nominal group. In this way, then, they are quite different from the four classes of group, all of which can fill various elements in various units.

As a consequence of the fact that they function within the nominal group, clusters can never function as referring expressions, as clauses and groups can. In other words, they can never be the answer to a question such as Who's this?, Where do you live? etc.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the nominal group is the grammatical resource for constructing taxonomies of things. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 265, 518):

Participants are realised by nominal groups, which allow more or less indefinite expansion (through the univariate structure of modification). This expansion is the grammar’s way of constructing taxonomies of things: grouping them into classes, assigning properties to them, quantifying them and then uniquely identifying any individual thing, or any number, set or class of things in relation to the “here–&–now” of the speech event. The expansion involves open sets of things and qualities, realised by lexical items; but it can also capture a circumstance, realised by a prepositional phrase, or an entire figure, realised by a clause, and put it to use as a quality in describing or identifying such a thing or set of things, e.g. this unique 20-piece handpainted china dinner service with optional accessories never before offered for sale at such a bargain price. …

The other resource for constructing taxonomies of things is the expansion of the nominal group, and here the picture is very different from that with verbs. Nouns are expanded lexically as well as grammatically, so that, while entities (like processes) are located deictically relative to the ‘here–&–now’, they are also (unlike processes) extensively classified and described. … Thus the grammar has the potential for construing a complex arrangement of classes and subclasses for any entity which participates in a process; … common nouns are almost indefinitely expandable, and it is this resource which organises our universe into it elaborate taxonomies of things.

[2] This claim is falsified by Fawcett's own examples, such as This is my father's* and She admired Sir Terence Conran where the genitive cluster my father's and the proper name cluster Sir Terence Conran each function as a "direct element" (Complement participant) in the clause:

[3] To be clear, this is true. Fawcett's clusters are constituents ("sub-units") of nominal groups, which makes them quite different from groups.

[4] This claim is falsified by Fawcett's own example, She admired Sir Terence Conran where the proper name cluster Sir Terence Conran does function as what Fawcett terms a 'referring expression', since it "refers" to a specific person.

To be clear, by 'referring expression', Fawcett means ideational denotation, not reference in the SFL sense of textual cohesion.  From the perspective of SFL Theory, Fawcett's denotation relation here obtains between language and perceptual categorisations of experience, whereas in SFL Theory, the denotation is the realisation relation between semantics and lexicogrammar.

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* Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 295):

If the relationship is construed as the Attribute, then it takes the form of a possessive nominal group, e.g. Peter’s; the thing possessed is the Carrier and the possessor is the Attribute. These are not, in fact, syntagmatically distinct from ‘identifying’ clauses; the clause the piano is Peter’s could be either ‘attributive’. ‘the piano is a member of the class of Peter’s possessions’ or ‘identifying’, ‘the piano is identified as belonging to Peter’. (Note that the reversed form Peter’s is the piano can only be ‘identifying’.)