CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION
A. Group and Phrases
The three functional
components of meaning, ideational, interpersonal and textual, are realized
throughout the grammar of a language. But whereas in the grammar of the clause
each component contributes a more or less complete structure, so that a clause
is made up of three distinct structures combined into one , when we look below
the clause, and consider the grammar of the group, the pattern is somewhat
different. Although we can still recognize the same three components, they are
not represented in the form of separate whole structures, but rather as partial
contributions to a single structural line.
The difference between
clause and group in this respect is only one of degree; but it is sufficient to
enable us to analyse the structure of the group in one operation, rather than
in three operations as we did with the clause. At the same time, in
interpreting group structure we have to split the ideational metafunction into
two modes of construing experience: experiential and logical. So far what we
have been describing under the ideational heading has been meaning as
organization of experience; but there is also a logical aspect to it – language
as the construal of certain very general logical relations – and it is this we
have to introduce now.
