It is probably safe to say that whenever semovergent paralanguage is deployed, it will be coordinated with TONALITY, TONICITY and RHYTHM; this is tantamount to arguing that semovergence implies sonovergence. Sonovergent paralanguage on the other hand can be deployed without semovergence, through gestures in tune with or in sync with prosodic phonology (but no more).
An important exception to these principles is what is commonly referred to as mime. In terms of our model mime is semovergent paralanguage that does not accompany language, an apparent contradiction in terms.
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[1] To be clear, the authors have provided no evidence in support of this bare assertion, as the posts on semovergent paralanguage on this blog demonstrate. This is merely a reassertion of their earlier claim (p3):
We will in fact suggest that SFL’s tone group, analysed for rhythm and tone, provides an essential unit of analysis for work on paralanguage as far as questions of synchronicity across modalities are concerned.
[2] As previously explained, "sonovergent" paralanguage (Cléirigh's linguistic body language) is the direct opposite of "sonovergent" because the expression plane is where it differs from language. The reason Cléirigh called it linguistic body language is because it realises the same content as prosodic phonology.
[3] Here the authors present Cléirigh's theorising as an observation made in terms of "their" model. Cf. Cléirigh's original definition of epilinguistic body language ("semovergent" paralanguage):
These are body language systems which, like pictorial systems, are made possible by the transition into language, but which are not systematically related to the lexicogrammar of language. When used in the absence of spoken language, this type of body language is called mime, and it is mimetic in this sense.
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