Functional Grammar Three

Again, a nicely practical unit so not too much to say. However, the claim that we can identify sets of items by ‘focusing on the similarities they share and ignoring the differences,’ seems to warrant a little discussion. The question is which differences, between which items?

Adverbs, for example, seem to be largely defined by what they are not (the ‘rag bag category’, and from what I can remember from the more psychologically orientated literature (cf. Lexis) and semiotics seems to suggest that we organize categories entirely in reference to other categories. Groups are not defined so much by internal similarities, but by their differences to externalities: by what they are not, in other words. Vive la diffarance!