Chapter 7, after the detailed discussion of each type. The means of expressing these various types of cohesion are. as we have seen, drawn from a number of areas of the lexicograrnmatical system. which have in common merely the fact that they contribute to the realization of cohe- sion.. The personal pronoun he, the verb substitute Jo and the adjunct nevtrthele.ss would not be likdy to appear on the same page in a description of English grammar; still more remote would be any reference to the phenomena of ellipsis or to the repetition of lexical items. But these do come together in this book, because they are all text-forming agencies. A sentence displaying any of these features is an invitation to a text. If the invitation is taken up - if there is: in the environment another sentence containing the required key to the interpretation- the text comes into bcing. We have noted the significance of the sentence. as the highest structural unit in the grannnar. The relation among the elements within the sen- tence, together with the order in which the dements occur (which is one of the means of rea1izing these relations). is determined by the structure. Between sentences, however, there .are no such structural rdations; and there are no grammatical restrictions on the sequence -in which sentences are put together. Hence the sentences of[r:32) could follow each other in any order. without: in any way affecting the total meaning of the p=tge. The sentences of a text, however, are rdated to each other both sub- srantively and by cohesion; and it is a characteristic of .a text that the sequence of the sentences cannot be disturbed without destroying or radically altering the meaning. A text has meaning as a text,. whereas a passage consisting of more than one text h2s no meaning as a whole; it is simply the sum of its parts:. Within a text the meaning of each sentence depends on its environment. including its cohesive relations with other sentences. When we consider cohesion,. therefore. we are investigating the
Table I: The place of COHESION in the description of English Functional components of the semantic system Ideational Interpersonal Textw.l Experiential Logical (structural) All ranks: Cross-rank : Clause: Paratactic and Clause: Clause: Information transitivity hypotaccic mood, modality theme unit: relations information (condition, distributiOtl, tense addition, person VOlCC information report) focus Nominal group: Norn.irull group: Nominal group: epithesis attitude dcixis circumstance comment conjunction (non-structural) Cohesion Reference Substitution Ellipsis Conjunction Lexical cohesion .;, 0 = • " 0 z > z " " • 0 • ~ • " .tl
30 INTRODUCTION linguistic means whereby a text is enabled to function as a single meaning- ful unit. To round off this genera) introduction, let us look: at one further example. with a brief discursive commentary on its cohesion: [I: 34] The Cat only grinned when it saw Ali.ce. 'Come, it's. please<! so far,' thought Ali<:e, and she went on. 'Would you tell me. please, which way I ought to go from L_ ,. nore. 'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to." said the Cat. 'I don't much care where - • said Alice. 'Then it doesn't nutter which way you go.' said the Cat. '- so long as I get scmewhere; Alice added as an explanation. 'Oh, you're sure to do that,~ said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enongh.' Starting at the end, we :find the words M that occurring as a verbal sub- stitute for get somewlwre; this in turn relates by lexical cohesion to where you want to get to and thence to which way I ought to go. The form oh is a con- junction relating the Cat's answer to Ahce's preceding remark:; and in similar fashion the Cat~s interruption is. related to I don't much care where by the conjunction then. The dliptical form where presupposes (I) get ttJ; and care, in 1 don't much care, is lexically related to want. The reference item tlwt, in that dr:pends, presupposes the whole of Alice's question; and the it in Alia's first remark presupposes tht Cat, also by reference. Finally both the proper names Alice and the Cat form cohesive chains by repetition.- leading back to the first sentence of the passage. A systematic analysis of cohesion in a nUmber of other passages is given in the £na1 section of Chapter 8. Table I shows where cohesion belongs in relation to the graiillllar of the language as a whole.