Purview Inflation: Seeing Two Propositions Where There Is Only One

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 78):

Finally, instances that involve projection, such as (52) from a news report given in Martin and White (2005, p. 112), also establish multiple propositions with the potential for different purview (plus sourcing – see Chapter 4).

Here, the reporter does not tie themselves to whether or not the Church of England’s status is indefensible (airing: – speaker purview; – listener purview), but they do assert the fact that a bishop today described the Church of England’s established status as indefensible (+ speaker purview; – listener purview).

 

ChatGPT Comments:

The example in (52) is mis-analysed. Structurally, we are dealing with a single clause: an attributive clause with assignment (A bishop today describes X as Y). This clause realises only one proposition. It is not a clause complex, nor does it project a secondary clause.

The authors, however, construe the instance as if it contained two propositions:

• an “air/proposition” (The Church of England’s established status is indefensible), and

• an “assert/proposition” (A bishop describes…).

By construing a clause as clause complex, the purview framework doubles the number of propositions where there is only one. This not only misrepresents the grammar but also artificially inflates the analytical complexity. Such inflation obscures rather than clarifies the semiotic organisation of discourse.

The added claim that the reporter withholds commitment to the indefensibility of the status, while asserting that a bishop described it as such, depends entirely on this misidentification. There is no separate “inner” proposition that can be independently assigned purview. What the reporter does is to assert a single relational attribution, not to air one proposition and assert another.

In short, the framework here does not clarify interpersonal stance but fabricates distinctions by misconstruing clause structure. And if purview relies on such misconstruals to generate its analytical categories, then the system itself cannot be trusted to track meaning but only to project its own confusions onto the grammar.