The System Of Determination [1]

Matthiessen (1995: 695):

In the clause, THEMATISATION determines the thematic status of participants and circumstances (thematic vs. rhematic). In the information unit in spoken English, INFORMATION determines their information status (given vs. new). These textual statuses are independent of, but clearly related to, a third textual status, the identifiability status of referents; this status is controlled by DETERMINATION in the nominal group.

In the experiential perspective, an object is a general class, possibly with subcategorisations and descriptive attributes. The textual perspective is concerned with the instantiation of the class; with the object as a referent. In the case of objects, both perspectives are integrated in the nominal group. DETERMINATION is the resource for determining whether a referent is identifiable or not; and if it is, how it is to be identified; and if it is not, how it is to be selected as an instance of a class. DETERMINATION is concerned with things as instances, not as experiential classes.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this again confuses a genuine nominal group system, DETERMINATION (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 366) with the 'identifiability' of the non-structural cohesive system of REFERENCE (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 623).

Non-structural cohesive systems are not systems of the nominal group, since systems of the nominal group specify the structure of the nominal group, relationships between its elements, whereas systems of COHESION do not.