"Most of"

"Most of" | Gerry Munzing | December 7th, 2003

Hi everyone,

I'm working on the GE task (SFPCA analysis) and I'm having some trouble determining how to analyze "most of".   Can anyone suggest where I might be able to find something about this in writing?   

I've gone through Bloor, Halliday and the GE binder, but I can only find stuff on "of" in relation to it acting as a Adjunct in a clause or as a Post modifier/Qualifier in a nominal group. It seems almost clear to me that what I'm looking at is a case of the latter, but, if possible, I'd like to find some examples which confirm this.

Many thanks in advance,

Gerry   

Re: "Most of" | Mike McDonald | December 9th, 2003

Hi Gerry,

To summarize what you've mentioned, it appears that Quirk et al's interpretation jives with that of Halliday who considers things like "most of" as a one of the modifiers of the nominal group.

Gerry, did you look at Halliday's "Introduction to Functional Grammar", p. 183, Table 6(5): Items functioning as Numerative?

The table is in Section 6.2, "Nominal Group", and contains a cell labeled "quantitative" and "indefinite". The contents are as follows:

few little [a bit of] etc.

several [a number of] etc.

many much [a lot of] etc.

fewer less

more

[the same amount of] etc.

I think the "etc." in the third row could be taken to include "most of".

Mike McDonald

Re: "Most of" | Gerry Munzing | December 9th, 2003

Hi Maria and Mike,

Thanks for your tips!   Once again the e-mail list comes through in flying colors as I don't have access to the mammoth CGEL and I'm still making my way through Halliday in bits and pieces (it's just being able to find those extra important bits when you need them!).  

To summarize what you've mentioned, it appears that Quirk et al's interpretation jives with that of Halliday who considers things like "most of" as a one of the modifiers of the nominal group.   More precisely, Halliday categorizes "most of" as a numerative when analyzing the experiential structure of the nominal group (hats off to Mike for that one), while Quirk et al consider it as an indefinite pronoun or an of-pronoun (cheers to Maria).   It's interesting (and in a way reassuring) to see that both grammars appear to treat this collocation as a single lexical item.

Thanks again for the info,  

Gerry

Re: "Most of" | Tom Bloor | December 9th, 2003

Dear Gerry

You have highlighted a complicated issue here.

There seems to be a sort of mismatch between the syntactic form and the semantics. Similar structures are 'all of', 'some of', 'many of', 'a few of', and arguably also 'a pint of', a pack of', etc.

I don't quite see how it is a problem for SFPCA analysis. In an SFPCA analysis there is no reason to separate 'most of' from the rest of the nominal group of which it is part. I don't know what data you have, but   for example in the clause

Most of the answers were correct

'Most of the answers' is S.   And in the clause

He knew most of the answers

'most of the answers' is C. I can't think of any instance where 'most of' alone could exist as a separate unit at clause rank.

In analyzing the nominal group 'most of the answers' in terms of Head and Modifier, one might be tempted to treat 'most of the' as Premodifier with 'answers' as Head. Support for this can be found in the related expression 'most answers'. However, it has the form of a nominal group with a prepositional phrase as Postmodifier, and might better analyzed as 'most' Head; 'of the answers' Post modifier.

Compare: 'copies of the answers', 'the bulk of the answers' or even closer, 'one of the answers'. ("one'   must be Head because of agreement with Head, viz: One of the answers IS wrong, isn't IT?)   So it's a bit fuzzy, but I think the second is preferable.

As far as experiential analysis of the group goes, 'answers' is certainly interesting, and, since there is a parallel with 'three of the answers', 'most of' looks like Numerative and 'the' Deictic. (I still feel a bit uncomfortable isolating 'most of' in this way though, and I wonder if most of the' might conceivably be regarded as Numerative - or even Deictic since IFG lists 'complete', 'entire' and 'whole' as items functioning as Deictic.)

Halliday's (1994) discussion of non-conflating Head and Thing in IFG 6.2.6 especially page 195 (to which Bloor and Bloor page 147 directs you) does not mention 'most' but it is relevant, and it seems to support the second of the Head/Modifier analyses I gave above.

I think you are right about it not being dealt with much in the literature.

At least, I can't find anything on a quick scan through my shelves. Quirk et al barely mention it, except that they usefully classify 'most' as a pronoun, which would fit in with my suggestion that it is Head of the nominal group.

This response may be more detailed and less decisive than you want at present, but I hope it sheds more light than darkness.

Good luck.

Tom

PS Just read Mike McDonald's much more succinct comments and, obviously, I fully concur.

Re: "Most of" | Gerry Munzing | December 9th, 2003

Hi Tom,

Thank you for the detailed response.   I think you expressed exactly the difficulty I went through when I first sat down and tried to pick apart the sentence. Treating "most of" as a pre-modifier seems to make sense and it allows me to get on with the SFPCA analysis, but it is interesting to work through the possibilities.

Thank you again,

Gerry

P.S. It was quite a surprise to see e-mail from one of the authors of a book I have just read! Your FAoE is a great prerequisite to Halliday, who I still find a bit intimidating.   The more I read his, the more it (seems to) make sense, but I definitely appreciated having the basics of SFG broken down before attempting to deal with the source.  

 

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