Delicacy

Fontaine (2017: 1):

For Halliday (1961:272), delicacy is “the scale of differentiation, or depth in detail” and it is clear from Hasan (1996) and also Martin (1992) that lexis as most delicate grammar is pursued along this dimension, which runs through the lexicogrammatical stratum and is generally represented as a system network of options. As Martin (1992:278) explains, “looked at from the perspective of grammar lexis is not different in kind but simply different in generality.” The least delicate options are extended in increasing differentiation within the network to the most delicate options.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, delicacy is the ordering principle of a system network: the arrangement of features from the most general to the most fine.

[2] To be clear, the Martin quote is invalid on two grounds. Firstly, it confuses delicacy with lexis. The difference in generality is the scale of delicacy of feature choices in system networks. Each lexical item, on the other hand, is the synthetic realisation of the most delicate features in the lexicogrammatical system — just as the phoneme /b/ is the synthetic realisation of the phonological features [voiced, bilabial, stop].

Secondly, grammar and lexis do differ in kind, both syntagmatically and paradigmatically; see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 58-66). For example, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 59, 64):

On either of these two axes we can establish relationships of a lexical kind (collocations and sets) and of a grammatical kind (structures and systems). …

The Theoretical Plausibility Of Modelling Lexis As Most Local Context

Fontaine (2017: 1):

In this paper, I use the SFL approach to context to establish the first steps towards an analogous approach to lexicology. The conclusion offered here is that it is theoretically plausible to draw on the dimension of instantiation, in a complementary way to delicacy, in order to model lexis as most local context, where the lexeme (or lemma) is modelled as meaning potential.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, to model lexis as "most local" context is not theoretically plausible, if only because, in SFL Theory, lexis is a dimension of language (lexicogrammar) whereas context is not language at all, but the culture as a semiotic system. The claim here is that most delicate grammar (lexis) can be modelled as most local culture — on the basis of instantiation: the relation between potential and instance.