A Practical Guide to System Networks : Modelling Paradigmatic Relations for Language Description in Systemic Functional Linguistics

In Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), paradigmatic relations are formalised in system networks.This book provides a practical, step-by-step guide to designing system networks for language description, one of the key aspects of SFL theory and analysis.Including examples from English, Chinese, Korean and Spanish, and exercises with answer keys for each of the main chapters, this book offers a broad coverage and guides learners through the process of designing system networks for the purpose of grammatical description in an accessible way. Beginning with simple systems, the authors show how grammars involve a complex of relations, with some systems dependent on others and some working in parallel with simultaneous options.They introduce the reasoning involved in designing system networks, explaining how choices in grammatical systems are motivated in terms of their realisation in structure and how this relationship between the paradigmatic axis and the syntagmatic axis is formalised i