Friday 5 January 2018

'No More Than' Serving As Mood Adjunct


even
the best of our models 
are 
no more than
aids to the imagination
mood Adjunct: intensity: counterexpectancy: exceeding
Subject
Finite
mood Adjunct: intensity: counterexpectancy: limiting
Complement
Mood
Residue


Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 153):
There are two lexical verbs in English, be and have, where, strictly speaking, the simple past and simple present forms consist of Finite element only, rather than of a fusion of Finite with Predicator. This is shown by the negatives: the negative of is, was is isn’t, wasn’t — not doesn’t be, didn’t be.

No comments:

Post a Comment