Processes of semogenesis in English intonation

Semogenesis, the creation of meaning, has been promoted by Halliday & Matthiessen (1999) as a ‘guiding principle’ in their presentation of a systemic functional theory of language — that language has within itself the resources by which people can create new meanings. Halliday & Matthiessen illustrated three processes of semogenesis and used an example of English intonation to illustrate one of the processes, deconstruction. This paper proposes two other processes, blending and reconstitution, to account for three other developments in English intonation: the falling-rising tone, the so-called high rising terminal/tone (HRT) and the mid level tone for routine listing.

Published online: 12 May 2004
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.10.2.04ten