Thursday 27 February 2020

Elaborating Hypotactic Verbal Group Complexes: Reality–Phase


Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 569-70):
The reality-phase, or realisation, system is based on the contrast between ‘apparent’ (seems to be) and ‘realised’ (turns out to be); both are perfective, the first being unreal, the second unreal emerging into real.
Witnesses said || the sand dredger seemed to go past the Marchioness || but suddenly smashed into the side || and went right over it. 
This offensive appears to be a sign of their strength, || but their position is highly contradictory. 
Both in terms of quantity and quality, FY 1998 proved to be a very challenging recruiting year. 
The 22 bibliophiles turned out to trail clouds of glory. 
There is a variant of the ‘realised’ which is imperfective, e.g. she turns out knowing all about it; this is looking at it from the ‘real’ end, as reality emerging from appearance. We can also relate the passive voice to this general meaning, with its original sense of ‘is (in a state of) having been realised’.