Abducing Defeasible Conjunctive Relations

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 13):

As with imagic sequences in film, animations, graphic novels, comics, cartoons and picture books, the gesture sequence does not make explicit the conjunctive relations between figures. These have to be abduced (Bateman 2007) from the sequence and concurring language. In the case of this sequence conjunctive relations of time and cause are not made explicit linguistically either; only the additive linker and, is used. A defeasible reading of the sequence is offered below.

// and so the dermatologist um took like this needle
(temporal sequential)
// and under each like bump
(temporal overlapping)
// and injected this like steroid
(causal)
// and like it all bubbled up //

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, here the authors are concerned with the expansion relations between the meaning realised by gestures, not with identifying any gestures that might realise such expansion relations.

[2] The problem with abductive reasoning is that it is formally equivalent to a logical fallacy:

Abductive reasoning allows inferring a as an explanation of b. As a result of this inference, abduction allows the precondition a to be abduced from the consequence b. Deductive reasoning and abductive reasoning thus differ in the direction in which a rule like "a entails b" is used for inference. As such, abduction is formally equivalent to the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent (or Post hoc ergo propter hoc) because of multiple possible explanations for b.

[3] To be clear, here the authors are abducing the expansion relations between figures in a sequence of language and claiming that such relations also apply to the meanings realised in body language, despite the fact that there are no gestural realisations of any of these relations, let alone gestural distinctions between temporal and causal relations.

The reason why it is possible to interpret implicit expansion relations in language is that there are linguistic agnates that can be used to demonstrate that the same meaning is being construed.  In the case of and, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 487) have already done the work for us:

However, in the case of body language, the authors have provided no gestural agnates that can be used to demonstrate that the same meaning is being construed by the complete absence of such gestures.

[4] To be clear, 'defeasible' means open in principle to revision, valid objection, forfeiture, or annulment, and this is certainly the case here, as demonstrated below.  Moreover:

In logic, defeasible reasoning is a kind of reasoning that is rationally compelling, though not deductively valid. … Defeasible reasoning is a particular kind of non-demonstrative reasoning, where the reasoning does not produce a full, complete, or final demonstration of a claim, i.e., where fallibility and corrigibility of a conclusion are acknowledged. In other words, defeasible reasoning produces a contingent statement or claim.

[5] Here the authors confuse phonology (tone groups) with semantics (sequences of figures).  This is a sequence of three figures:

1. and so the dermatologist um took like this needle
2. and under each like bump (and) injected this like steroid
3. and like it all bubbled up

The expansion relation between 1 and 2 and between 2 and 3 is temporal: different: later ('and then').  Abducing the second relation as causal: reason ('and so') is feasible, though more defeasible.

Note that the authors' 'temporal overlapping' analysis mistakenly relates the circumstance of the figure to the Nucleus of the same figure.