The meaning of [exiting]: towards a grammaticalization of architecture

Abstract

Descriptions of grammars need not be restricted to language. Many attempts at the grammaticalization of nonlinguistic communicative events have been based on the theoretical tenets of systemic functional linguistics; however, in order to account for the affordances of these different semiotic systems, some of the models deviate from the Hallidayan model. With respect to architecture, this article suggests that perhaps it is not the model that needs modification; rather, architecture could be viewed from a different perspective. This article hypothesizes that the pathways that thread throughout spatial texts are analogous to clauses in spoken and written texts. This article develops a fundamental system network which formalizes the choice of pathway that people make as they move through buildings. The system network follows faithfully those that Halliday has developed for language, displaying paradigmatic and syntagmatic agnation as well as a system to structure cycle. I demonstrate that Halliday's model, as is, provides a suitable analytical tool for spatial discourse, that is, meaning beyond the pathway.