Fontaine (2017: 2, 3):
As we move forward in this discussion, I propose another metaphor for the study of lexis, that of the Tardis from the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. The Tardis is remarkable, not only because it can travel through time and space but precisely because it is bigger on the inside. We find, with the lexeme, multiple dimensions which challenge our linguistic notions of size and relativity. Halliday has developed not only a multi-functional approach to language but also a multi-dimensional one. Halliday and Matthiessen (2014:20) identify five dimensions: structure or syntagmatic order (rank); system or paradigmatic order (delicacy); stratification (realisation); instantiation; and metafunction. Figure 1 illustrates how instantiation and delicacy can be represented as distinct dimensions.
Blogger Comments:
[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, these are the dimensions of language, not of 'lexemes' — which Fontaine later defines as 'lexical items as potential, rather than as instance. Each lexical item, on the other hand, as potential or instance, is the synthetic realisation of the most delicate features of lexicogrammatical systems, analogous to the phoneme /b/ being the synthetic realisation of the features [voiced, bilabial, stop]. Halliday and Matthiessen (2014: 20) locate lexis within the dimensional architecture of SFL Theory:
[2] To be clear, Figure 1 is potentially misleading. To counter this, the reader may wish to imagine the following:
- the removal of the terms: 'stratification', 'metafunction', 'realisation', 'specificity' and 'structure'; and
- the relocation of the system network, and the term 'delicacy', so as to be under the term 'system'.
Compare the distinction of delicacy and instantiation for ideational semantics in Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 14):
