Shell nouns and reference

The use of nouns of projection, fact nouns and expansion nouns, i.e. shell nouns, in a nominal group to refer anaphorically to a clause is clearly related to the

84

textual metafunction and demonstrative reference. An example is given in 3.39. The shell noun is in bold and its lexicalisation is underlined.

3.39 The Labour Party opposed Thor missiles, because, he said, they were out of date and vulnerable and would attract enemy action. That argument did not apply to the Polaris submarine (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004:468)

In 3.39 the nominal group with shell noun as Head construes the Carrier in an attributive relational Process clause, and it both composes Theme and enacts Subject. That argument refers to the preceding projected clause nexus they [the Thor missiles] were out of date and vulnerable and would attract enemy action. Halliday and Matthiessen note the similarity of the cohesive effect between this use of projection nouns and text reference by means of this, that or it (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004: 468), and Martin and Rose (2003: 164,165) even use a shell noun which refers anaphorically to several clauses an example of text reference. In addition to its cohesive function, the noun concomitantly functions to classify the projected information (Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999: 203). It is this classification of the projected clause that can be seen as contributing to the instantial ideational system of the text (Matthiessen, 1995), and it corresponds to Schmid’s (2000) semantic, characterising function of shell nouns.

According to Frances (1994), an anaphorically-referring shell noun is always presented as given information. Hence, part of the means of recovering the information that the shell noun encapsulates – i.e. the lexicalisation – is realised through the Deictic. The system for deixis within the nominal group is shown in figure 3.7, below.

85

Figure 3.8: The system of DETERMINATION (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004: 313)

Of relevance here are the demonstratives of proximity, in particular the selective Deictics - this, these, that, those. This and that can also function as demonstrative reference items, construing Head/Thing in a nominal group. The function of the specific Deictic in the nominal group is to identify the Thing as information known or treated as recoverable for the listener or reader. As argued in section 3.1.1, the nominal group with the shell noun as Head might be seen to relate back to the referent by means of identity of reference, in this case lexical cohesion (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:63). Lexical cohesion works by means of reiteration. Reiteration can be interpreted as relexicalising the referent along a cline from a) the same word, through b) a synonym or near-synonym, c) a superordinate, to d) a general word (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:279). However, it is hard to place shell nouns on such a cline. While they are inherently unspecific due the semantic gap identified by Schmid (2000), they do carry experiential meaning that interprets the presumed clause. Although reference is considered to be “overwhelmingly nominal in character” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976: 43), Martin (1992: 309) provides a test for determining when

nominal-group specific personal-(possession) interactant speaker my speaker-plus our addressee your non-interactant one-only non-conscious its conscious female her male his more-than-one their demonstrative-(proximity) non-selective the selective non-plural-(singular/mass) <near> this, <far> that plural

<near> these, <far> those near

<non-plural> this, <plural> these far

<non-plural> that, <plural> those determinative-(i'm-telling-you)

interrogative-(you-tell-me)

<demonstrative> which, <personal> whose non-specific total unrestricted partial } }

86

non-nominal lexical items such as Processes or qualities are cohesive9, and it might be applied to shell nouns as well. He claims that lexical items “can be treated as such [cohesive] where one item codes sufficient experiential meaning to be presumed by another, either directly, or indirectly through bridging”. Bridging depends on “experiential connections between presuming and presumed which facilitate the recovery of an implied identity” (Martin, 1992:124), for instance when the identity of something must be established with respect to one of its parts through the relation of meronomy or when a hyponym is used to presume a superordinate. Such experiential connections are not restricted to relations between nominal groups. This argument comes close to Schmid’s relation of “experiential identity”, as detailed in section 3.1.1.

Martin (1992), himself, does not treat shell nouns at the stratum of the lexicogrammar. Rather, he argues that shell nouns are metaphorical realisations of internal conjunctive relations or they function as meta-text (Martin, 1992: 409, 416- 417). In fact, this is the typical treatment given to shell nouns, and it will be discussed in 3.5.1. However, Thompson and Zhou (2004: 123) argue that there is no absolute division between reference and conjunction given that “on the one hand the relationship between an unspecific noun and its specific lexicalization is in the broadest sense one of repetition [i.e. reference], and on the other hand repetition may in itself indicate the type of conjunction.”

The use of shell nouns to refer anaphorically to a preceding clause or stretch of discourse enables the writer to move the argument on (Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999; 2004). Repackaging the information previously realised as a clause in a nominal group with an anaphoric shell noun as Head allows the writer to take full advantage of the textual resources of the Theme to build up instantial ideational systems (Matthiessen, 1995), thus contributing to the logogenesis of the text. Furthermore, as a nominal group, the information can construe transitivity roles that would not be possible otherwise, and the opportunity for modification is opened up.

87