04 March 2025

Confusing Functional Syntagmatic Relations With Formal Constituency

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 209):

Working from a functional paradigm we of course have to approach the relation of ‘sign languages’ to one another differently. In essence this means adopting a paradigmatic perspective and formalising their meaning potential as far as possible in system networks specifying the relation of one sign (in Saussure’s sense of the term) to another. 
The crucial question we then need to ask is whether meanings combine with one another. …The paralinguistic systems we describe in this volume do combine ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings but apparently without involving syntagmatic relations (i.e. parts configuring as wholes).


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[1] To be clear, the Saussurean sign includes both content ('signified') and expression ('signifier'), whereas system networks specify relations within one or the other, e.g. lexicogrammar or phonology. For some of Martin's misunderstandings of Saussure, see:

[2] To be clear, this confuses structural relations along the syntagmatic axis (e.g. Pretonic ^ Tonic) with the part-whole relations of the rank scale (e.g. feet (parts) as constituents of a tone group (whole)).

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