Thursday 11 December 2014

The Particularistic Model: The Principle On Which The Grammar Categorises Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 150-1):
In the most general terms […] the principle is that all phenomena can be interpreted as falling within a small number of broad experiential domains:
those happening “inside”, within the realm of our own consciousness; 
those happening “outside”, in the perceptual world that lies around us; 
those that are not kinds of happening at all, but rather kinds of being and of relating to something else.
We have referred to these as, respectively:
(1) figures of sensing — or, more inclusively, (since ‘languaging’ is treated as a distinct phenomenal realm), (1) figures of sensing and 
(2) figures of saying
(3) figures of doing — or, more explicitly (since the word ‘doing’ might suggest intentionality), figures of doing & happening
(4) figures of being — or more accurately (since ‘having’ is construed as a kind of relative ‘being’), figures of being & having.
Each of these types of figure has its own special character, as revealed by the way it is organised in the lexicogrammar.