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Abstract
This study investigates the semantics of MOOD and the syntax of the let’s-construction in English from a Cardiff Grammar approach. After reviewing previous studies and specifying basic notions in Cardiff Grammar, the study analyzes and discusses the semantics of MOOD and the syntax of the construction with linguistic data from COCA. The study shows that semantically the let’s-construction realizes [proposal for action], where three choices could be made: [by self and addressee], [by self] and [by addressee], with [by self and addressee] having the highest frequency. Dependent on these choices, more delicate choices could be made with different probabilities, such as [firm proposal], [statement of assumption], [statement of wish], [suggestion], [offer], [self-deliberation] and [request]. Syntactically, in most cases the study analyzes let in the construction as a direct element of the clause, i.e. Let Element (L), ‘s as the Subject and the lexical verb following let’s as the Main Verb. In highly specialized cases, let’s as a whole is analyzed as L, and the nominal group following let’s as the Subject. The basic syntactic forms to realize MOOD meanings of the construction are ‘L^S’ and ‘O^L’. This unique clause element of L plays an important role in MOOD selection of the construction.
Notes
1 By traditional grammar, we mean the modern comprehensive reference grammar.
2 Following the systemic tradition, the system is represented in capitalized form. According to Systemic Functional Linguistics, language is multifunctional with different strands of meaning. Since let in let’s-construction has lost its experiential meaning through grammaticalization (Hopper & Traugott Citation2003: 11), it plays no role in the transitivity system of the construction, which is more related to the lexical verb following let’s. Therefore, the semantic description of the construction in this study is confined to the MOOD system.
3 We choose COCA because it is the largest freely-available corpus of English, and the only large and balanced corpus of American English. The corpus contains more than 560 million words of text and it is equally divided among spoken, fiction, popular magazines, newspapers and academic texts.
4 Following the systemic tradition, the first letter of the functional element will be capitalized.
5 Following the systemic tradition, semantic features will be written within square brackets.
6 CG uses round brackets to indicate a covert element in syntactic representation.
7 The verb group in the Hallidayan approach is abolished in CG, and the elements of Halliday’s verb group are direct elements of the clause.
8 Halliday and many other systemicists use the term Finite.
9 Key: Cl=Clause; S=Subject; O=Operator; X=Auxiliary; M=Main Verb; C=Complement; A=Adjunct; ngp=nominal group; h=head; dd=deictic determiner.
10 Since the principle of ‘choice between meanings’ is at the heart of its description of language in SFL, we, following the systemic tradition, will explore the construction first ‘from above’, i.e. from the level of semantics, though, from the analytical perspective, it is the form that is directly observable and must be identified.
11 Note the addressee could be one or many, so we use ‘addressee(s)’.
12 In CG, semantic features are allowed to be shown more than once in the same system network (see Fawcett (Citation2009) for his arguments for a ‘displayed’ network).
13 Because some patterns are rare in frequency, to facilitate comparison of the paradigmatic features, we use the standard frequency of per million words, rather than percentage, as is usually practised in corpus linguistics.
14 Someone may argue that all and both are pronouns, which can be nominal groups of their own, filling the Subject, and let’s expounds the Let Element. The drawback of this analysis is that the origin of let’s has been ignored. Though let has been delexicalized, ’s has not lost contact of us at all. Furthermore the semantic equivalence of all of us to us all and both of us to us both proves that all and both in the construction do not behave like pronouns.
15 Instances are taken from examples in . For our purpose, this tree diagram does not show the syntactic relations of filling and conflation because of the limited space. Because example (j) is to some degree a special type of let’s-construction, which needs much more detailed discussion, we will postpone the syntactic analysis of (j) later. Key: &= Linker; N= Negator; L= Let Element.
16 For CG’s analysis of nominal group, see Fawcett (Citation2000, Citation2008).
17 Note here that let us … does not mean ‘Allow us to … ’.