Shell nouns as a class

Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) identify 3 vectors along which words are capable of functioning as Thing: 1. Countability – count/mass; 2. Animacy – conscious/non-conscious; and 3. Generality – general/particular. They claim that it is the location on each of the vectors that will suggest the functional potential of a noun or pronoun. In the case of shell nouns, shell nouns may be countable or mass; they are non-conscious and they probably tend more towards the generality than the particular. As a class, however, they cannot all be placed at the same position along each vector. While all shell nouns are abstract, some are countable (e.g. idea) and others are mass (e.g. knowledge). Some are extremely general (e.g. thing) while others are less so (e.g. mistake). Some are at one end of the spectrum of non-consciousness (e.g. fact) while others imply a conscious Senser who is absent (e.g. knowledge). It is to be noted that the three vectors do not correspond to Schmid’s three functional properties.

A more useful framework to understand shell nouns is found in Halliday and Matthiessen’s (1999:190) general system for nouns (figure 3.2 below). Within this system shell nouns would be classed as semiotic abstractions. Semiotic abstractions

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are non-discrete, that is they are mass nouns. Halliday and Matthiessen claim that they typically function as Range in mental Processes and verbal Processes, or as possessed Attribute in relational Processes. As an unbounded semiotic substance, they may be qualified by projection. This latter feature is important, as will be argued in 3.3.2.

conscious

animal

simple thing→ object (material)

material → substance

abstraction (material) non-conscious →

institution semiotic→ object (semiotic)

abstraction (semiotic) Figure 3.2: A general system for nouns (Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999: 190)

Within each category, Halliday and Matthiessen identify two additional subsets: pronouns and general nouns. The latter is of more interest to this thesis because many scholars have likened shell nouns to general nouns (e.g. Flowerdew, 2003c; Francis, 1994; Ribeira 2007). Schmid (2000: 6) rightly rejects the correspondence and demonstrates how some general nouns, for example creature, cannot be used as shell nouns because they cannot be modified with post-nominal clauses as complements. However, Halliday and Matthiessen’s (1999: 190) general system of nouns (figure 3.2) accounts for the inclusion of some general nouns as shell nouns and the exclusion of others. Because general nouns are a sub-set in each category, it is the characteristics of the category that will determine the functional abilities of the general noun, not the other way round. According to Halliday and Matthiessen (1999: 189), general nouns “are used discursively to refer to instances of the category in question”.

The categories of the system are not discrete, but blurred, and a noun may exhibit features of one category or another or be “equally at home in both” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999: 194). Halliday and Matthiessen identify three intermediate categories: natural forces, between animals and material objects; human collectives,

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between conscious beings and institutions; and discrete semiotic abstractions, between semiotic objects and non-discrete semiotic abstractions. This latter category includes non-personalised ‘facts’ and ‘cases’ as well as mental entities such as ‘beliefs’ or ‘ideas’, all of which are typically used as shell nouns. In addition, it includes enhancing nouns such as ‘way’, ‘time’, ‘place’ and ‘reason’, which are also used as shell nouns. Nouns such as ‘nuisance’, ‘mess’, ‘disaster’, and ‘shambles’ are classed as abstractions, which means they could be either semiotic or material. Within this system, shell nouns would clearly be classed as semiotic abstractions, and they may be discrete or non-discrete.

The system also makes it possible to distinguish clearly between shell nouns and text nouns (Francis, 1994) such as paragraph, both of which Francis classed as metalinguistic nouns. In the framework, text nouns would be considered semiotic objects. The difference between them can be brought out in the following examples. 3.19 The study says that such a diversified village structure produces a dualistic

pattern of migration (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004: 254)

3.20 The regulations require that the following information must be conveyed to each subject: a statement that the study involves research ...

(answers.hhs.gov/ohrp/categories/1566 )

Both these clauses are verbal Process clauses. The Subject, conflated with Theme, is a semiotic object that construes the role of Sayer. However, only regulations can function as a semiotic abstraction if used in a certain colligational pattern, i.e. that of a shell noun such as Th- N be that. This is apparent in rewrites of the two examples where 3.19’ is not possible but 3.20’ is, even though there may be a change in meaning. The noun regulation(s) is thus “at home in both” categories; it can be used as a semiotic object and a semiotic abstraction.

3.19’ *The study is that such a diversified village structure produces a dualistic pattern of migration.

3.20’ The regulation is that the following information must be conveyed to each subject: a statement that the study involves research ...

Few SFL scholars have used Halliday and Matthiessen’s (1999) general classification system for nouns in their analyses. Ravelli (2004) adapts part of it along a cline of abstraction moving from general noun through semiotic abstractions to

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grammatical metaphors, realised as nominalisations (figure 3.3). Ravelli’s interpretation suggests a relation between generic nouns, semiotic abstraction and grammatical metaphor. A similar relation has also been noted by Martin (1992: 376) and Hood (2008). Martin, for example, states that many of Winter’s (1977) Vocabulary 3 items include metaphorical realisations of internal conjunctive relations, e.g. point, problem, reason, (consequence), result (consequence). He also notes that Carter’s (1987:80) examples of Francis’s A-nouns (anaphoric nouns) are all grammatical metaphors. Yet, while Ravelli classes shell nouns such as ‘possibility’ and ‘variation’ as grammatical metaphors rather than semiotic abstractions, both these nouns can be used as shell nouns and have the ability to project.

Figure 3.3 Organising vocabulary (Ravelli, 2004: 117)

Ravelli (2004: 122) posits that semiotic abstractions may be used “to mediate a grammatical metaphor which is analogous with, but not directly parallel to, a preceding figure or sequence”. Shell nouns certainly seem to fit this function, and because they remain unspecified unless the necessary propositional content is retrieved from the surrounding co-text, Ravelli’s point is in keeping with Halliday‘s (1988/1993: 66) explanation of the drift towards nominalisation in scientific English, where one of the intermediary steps involves a fact clause. In Ravelli’s model, shell

grammatical metaphor semiotic variations abstraction possibility occurrence n notion o idea i concept t c a a r g u m e n t generic r nouns t b e l i e f way s p o i n t b v o c a b u l a r y a 3 r e a s o n way l a b e l s

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nouns would be classed as semiotic abstractions, some of them overlapping with general nouns (e.g. move) and others with grammatical metaphor (e.g. possibility). Although the overlapping categories in Ravelli’s model seem to account for the kind of difference between grammatical metaphor ‘proper’ (Ravelli, 2004: 117) and the use of shell nouns to construe a figure as an entity, the model mixes two distinct theoretical constructs: noun as a class, such as semiotic abstractions, or a sub-class, general nouns; and nouns resulting from the semogenic strategy of grammatical metaphor, e.g. an incongruent realisation of a Process, Quality or Relator. Given that Ravelli implies a distinction between grammatical metaphor ‘proper’ and semiotic abstractions, at this point a closer examination of the relation between grammatical metaphor and shell nouns is warranted.

As detailed in section 2.8, grammatical metaphor involves a shift in the realisational domain of a phenomenon. Of interest here is the semogenic process of nominalisation. Of the 13 types of elemental grammatical metaphor (see Table 2.5 p 28), five result in realisation as Thing. A summary of the types of nominalisation is reproduced here for convenience (table 3.5).

congruent: metaphorical =» thing quality =» unstable 1 instability process =» absorb 2 absorption circumstance =» instead of; on the surface 4 replacement surface relator =» for/because [b, for/because a] so [a, so b] 7 cause, proof; result Ø =» 11 phenomenon, fact

Table 3.5 Grammatical metaphor: nominalisation (adapted from Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999: 245) All the examples of the nominalisations reconstrued from the Relator (7) (cause, proof, result) and Ø (11) (phenomenon, fact) can be used as shell nouns, and it is possible to find examples of shell nouns for all the others. For instance, the shell nouns importance and tragedy are metaphorical realisations of the qualities important and tragic respectively (1), statement and belief are metaphorical realisations of the

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verbal and mental Processes state and believe, respectively (2), and alternative can be seen as a metaphorical realisation of the Circumstance instead of (7). Of note also is category number 11, which includes fact nouns, where there is no congruent realisation of the metaphor. The relations between fact nouns and shell nouns will be explored more fully in section 3.4.1.

In their explanation of grammatical metaphor, Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) provide several examples where the metaphorical wording is realised by shell nouns in the lexicogrammatical environments deemed essential for nouns to be functioning as shell nouns (N-be-cl and N-cl) (Schmid, 2000). The transfiguration of the grammatical metaphor of the two lexicogrammatical environments is explained here.

1. A sequence of figures realised by a projection clause nexus may be reconstrued as a figure in a relational clause. The Process is nominalised and the projected figure (hypotactic projected clause) is down-graded to an embedded fact clause. The Process be is added.

congruent ‘(people) most strongly

believe that there is no

...’

α → ‘β

clause: mental clause: projected

Senser Manner: degree

Process nom. gp. adv. gp. verbal gp.

metaphorical The strongest belief of all is that there is no... clause: relational

Value Process Token

nom. gp. nom. gp.: clause

Deictic Epithet Thing Qualifier Finite/event Thing determiner adjective noun:

nominalisation prep. phrase

verb Clause

Figure 3.4 Congruent and metaphorical wordings of N-be-cl (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004: 639) 2. A sequence of figures realised by a projection clause nexus may be reconstrued

as an element (nominal group). The Process is nominalised, and the projected figure is rankshifted to function as a Qualifier.

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Congruent (people) claim that inspection is about improving schools

α β

clause: verbal clause: projected

Sayer Process nom. gp. verbal gp.

metaphorical The claim that inspection is about improving schools nom. gp.

Deictic Thing Qualifier

determiner adjective finite clause

Figure 3.5 Congruent and metaphorical wordings of N-cl

Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) also relate grammatical metaphor to the logico-semantic relation of expansion. Nominalisations of this kind include typical shell nouns such as reason and cause. This prompts the question of whether all shell nouns are grammatical metaphors. A reading of the index of shell nouns in Schmid (2000) shows that with remarkably few exceptions, they are all grammatical metaphors. The exceptions are circumstantial shell nouns (e.g. area, age, era), which Schmid recognises as being on the extreme fringe of shell nouns because they can be interpreted as derived from relative clauses (cf section 3.1.3, p 43)

Although it can be argued that except for some marginal, circumstantial shell nouns, all shell nouns are grammatical metaphors, it is not the case that all grammatical metaphors realised as nominalisations are shell nouns. This is no doubt what Ravelli (2004) meant when she distinguishes between grammatical metaphor and grammatical metaphor ‘proper’. Nominalisations such as displacements and failure in 3.21 are not shell nouns although failure can function as one, as in 3.22, in which the shell noun is in bold and its lexicalisation is underlined. This is why Schmid defines the class of shell nouns as functional; it depends on the relation between the shell noun and its lexicalisation in a given text. From a Systemic Functional Linguistics perspective it can be argued that the meaning of the shell noun is instantiated in the text. Guillén Galve (1998) have called this feature intratextual dynamic grammatical metaphors.

3.21 Displacement along these faults caused failure of the Baldwin Hill Reservoir in 1963. (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004: 643)

3.22 His remarks are being interpreted by many here as preparation for his expected failure to unseat Mr Patterson, Jamaica’s first black leader. (Schmid, 2000:254).

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Grammatical metaphors that are shell nouns can be ideationally oriented, e.g. reason, interpersonally oriented, e.g. possibility (Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999; 2004; Martin, 1992), or textually oriented (Martin, 1992), e.g. point as in That point is just silly (Martin, 1992: 406). The latter use has been referred to as ‘textual metaphor’ (Martin, 1992). Martin posits that such textual metaphors construe meta-message relations. As a result they add additional layers of meaning to a text that are best treated at the stratum of the discourse semantics (Martin, 1992).

Although Ravelli (2004) has noted the relation between shell nouns and grammatical metaphor, most other analyses that include shell nouns have focused on the experiential domain in the construal of technical taxonomies and their contribution to field. Halliday (1998) argues that technical taxonomies in scientific discourse are built on a relationship of generality, where a superordinate category is more general than its hyponyms, but, unlike folk or everyday taxonomies (domestic taxonomies, Martin 1992: 545), they also embody theoretical abstraction because “assigning a class to a larger, more general class is a theoretical operation” (Halliday, 1998: 198). Technical taxonomies thus distinguish between what belongs in the class from what does not, and, in doing so, recognise an entity’s “place in the taxonomy, and its value as a theoretical construct (Halliday, 1998: 198). Martin (1992: 545) proposes four grades of technicality - domestic, specialised, administration, and exploration – each of which construes field-related taxonomies. The fourth grade, exploration, which concerns instruction, is the most technical, and he argues that the “linguistically constructed taxonomies of humanities, social science and science are the ones that are most appropriately referred to as technical since they function as distillations of common sense or less technical experience into uncommon sense classifications of the world” (Martin, 1992: 545). Halliday (1998: 201) goes on to argue that “the terms created are not transient constructs that serve for one moment of discourse and disappear. They become part of a sub-system within the overall semantic space that constitutes the experiential domain of the grammar.”

This field-oriented view underlies many of the taxonomies for nouns used in SFL analyses. For example in their analysis of how the discourse of a personal exemplum, an argument by Desmond Tutu and an act of parliament construes experience, Martin

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and Rose (2003) classify the nominal entities according to the following criteria (table 3.5).

Indefinite pronouns some/any/no thing/body/one

Concrete everyday man, girlfriend, face, hands, apple, house, hill

specialized mattock, lather, gearbox

Abstract technical inflation, metafunction, gene

institutional offence, hearing, applications, violation, amnesty

semiotic question, issue, letter, extract

generic colour, time, manner, way, kind, class, part, cause

Metaphoric process relationship, marriage, exposure, humiliation

quality justice, truth, integrity, bitterness, security

Table 3.6 Kinds of entities (Martin & Rose, 2003:108)

They argue that the distinction between concrete and abstract ways of meaning reflects an important difference between the way everyday fields and the “uncommonsense” fields of social institutions and professions construe experience. They also note that semiotic entities are not field specific, and they are more frequently found in written discourse. These claims are in keeping with the findings that shell nouns are not discipline specific (Gray, 2010) and that written corpora show higher frequencies of shell nouns than spoken corpora (cf. Flowerdew, 2003a, b, Kanté, 2010). Nevertheless, while shell nouns are abstract nouns, they do not fit neatly into the class of semiotic entities; with the exception of abstract technical entities, it is possible to find examples of shell nouns for the abstract and metaphoric categories of the table.

The above discussion on technicality and the construction of taxonomies highlights a fundamental difference between shell nouns and technical terms: while technical terms aim to fix meanings permanently for a specialised audience, shell nouns do not. They rely on the listener/reader recovering the relevant information from the co-text of the noun to gain communicative effectiveness, and as such, their meaning is dependent on the surrounding discourse. In this sense they are closer to an instantial system (Matthiessen, 1995; Martin, 2006), which is built up over the course of the text.7 In addition, as shown by non SFL studies (cf Francis, 1994; Winter, 1977;

7

Matthiessen (1995:22) explains an instantial system as “created in the instantiation of the general system (general system potential) as a text unfolds; it is the product of logogenesis – the creation of meaning through instantiation of the system in text. From the speaker’s point of view, an instantial system is the system of selections s/he has to make in producing the text; from the listener’s point of view, an instantial system is the system that s/he can create out of the interpretation of the unfolding

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Charles, 2003; 2007; Hoey, 1993; Schmid, 2000; Shaw, 2000), shell nouns tend to organise the discourse, rather than the field. This latter function will be developed in section 3.4.3.

The discussion on grammatical metaphor has shown that, with extremely few exceptions, shell nouns are grammatical metaphors and are strongly linked to projection. Because any embedded fact clause is a metaphorical realisation of a projected figure, even when there is no overt congruent realisation, following Schmid (2000), it thus follows that any noun appearing as Value in an identifying intensive relational clause whose Process is realised by the verb be and whose Token is realised by a fact clause is functioning as a shell noun. Similarly, any noun projecting a fact clause as Qualifier is functioning as a shell noun. These colligational patterns will be explored more fully in section 3.4.1. Seen from a different angle, it can be argued that because fact clauses belong not to the material realm but to the semiotic, i.e. they are on a higher level of abstraction than an ordinary thing or act (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004: 205), nouns that can enter into the above colligational patterns must be semiotic as well, given that in identifying relational Process clauses the Token and Value must be of the same status – thing or fact (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004: 301). For these reasons, the most insightful theoretical position within SLF classification systems for nouns is to class shell nouns as discrete or non-discrete semiotic abstractions whose full meaning derives from the instantial system as the text unfolds.