Wednesday 23 May 2018

‘Circumstantial’ and ‘Possessive’ Relational Clauses


Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 289):
These two types also come in two modes of being, ‘attributive’ and ‘identifying’. We can thus recognise the following series of proportions:
intensive            Emily is a poet :                            attributive
                          Emily is the poet ::                       identifying 
possessive          Emily has a piano :                        attributive
                          the piano is Emily’s ::                   identifying 
circumstantial    the meeting is on Friday :              attributive
                         the time of the meeting is Friday   identifying