Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 165-6):
To cite just one example, the phenomenon of precipitation from clouds is typically construed in Italian as a figure with a process alone piove 'rains', in Akan as figure with process + one participant nsuo retø 'water + fall', and in one local variety of Cantonese as a figure with process + two participants tin lok sui 'sky + drop + water'. …
As the examples illustrate, there are numerous points at which the system allows for alternative semanticisations of the flux of experience. These may differ in the extent to which the 'quantum' of experience is analysed into separate components. There is a cline from unanalysed and continuous to analysed and discrete; from example, from 'it's raining' (one phenomenon) to 'the sky's dropping water' (a configuration of three phenomena): see Figure 4-13.
