The Systems Of Determination And Postdetermination

Matthiessen (1995: 698):

The most general system in the DETERMINATION region of systems is concerned with the general recoverability or identifiability status of the discourse referent being presented — is it recoverable or not? If it is, then the issue is how it is to be recovered (as an instance of some general class); if it is not, then the issue is how it is to be presented (as an instance of some general class). (In either case, the system of POSTDETERMINATION may give some further indication of the status of the referents as instances of the general class: the usual three trouble-makers; these famous two stars; the alleged two burglars.)

Blogger Comments:

[1] 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).

[2] To be clear, this confuses a genuine nominal group system, POSTDETERMINATION (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 373) 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.