Syndromes Of Elemental Metaphors: Figure => Element

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 250-2):

Here a figure is being construed metaphorically on the model of a participant: grammatically, the figure is construed not as a clause but as a nominal group. There is a shift in rank from figure to element, and concomitantly a shift in status among the elements making up the construction.

he was arrested by the police => his arrest by the police 
(…) bond rapidly => rapid bonding occurs 
the group decided yesterday => yesterday’s decision by the group 
the accused appeared to be innocent => the apparent innocence of the accused 
he argues cogently => the cogency of his argument

Syndromes Of Elemental Metaphors: Types

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 250):

These syndromes of elemental metaphors fall into three general types, not very sharply distinct but worth using as a conceptual framework. The distinction relates to the rank where the metaphoric reconstrual takes place: (I) from figure to element, (II) from sequence to figure, (III) from figure with process to figure with process as thing.

Syntagmatic And Paradigmatic Aspects Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 249):

Syntagmatically, instances of grammatical metaphor typically occur not in isolation but in organic clusters or “syndromes”. Paradigmatically, there will typically be other wordings intermediate between an instance of grammatical metaphor and its “most congruent” agnate variant.

Verbal Group Complex And The Cline From Figure To Sequence

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 248):

Note that where the grammar has a simple verbal group, this construes a single ‘process’ element in the figure. Where the clause contains a verbal group complex, while this (congruently) still construes a single ‘process’ it is now somewhere along the cline towards a sequence of two figures. Thus: the government deregistered the union —> the government moved to deregister the union —> the government moved/acted (in order) to deregister the union.

Sequences: Taxis And Temporal & Causal Ordering

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 245):

A sequence is construed congruently by the grammar as a clause nexus joined by a conjunction. A nexus may be either paratactic or hypotactic. Where the sequence is construed paratactically, the preferred order is the iconic one; thus in the case of ‘time’ and ‘cause’, “precedent, then subsequent”, “cause, so effect”. The alternative causal sequence “effect, for cause” (as in I strove with none, for none was worth my strife) is rather infrequent; while the alternative temporal sequence apparently does not occur. 

(These relationships can of course be expressed cohesively — that is, without being construed as grammatical structures at all: I strove with none. The reason was that … .) 

Where the sequence is construed hypotactically, either order is possible: “after precedent, subsequent” / “subsequent, after precedent”; “because cause, effect” / “effect, because cause”. 

Note also “precedent, before subsequent” / “before subsequent, precedent”; “cause, so that effect” / “so that effect, cause” — where tying the relator to the ‘effect’ typically implies intentionality. … 

The reason for this disparity is that hypotaxis construes an order of its own — ordering in dependence; whereas in parataxis, the only ordering is that being imposed by the grammar on the experiential phenomena themselves.

Clusters Of Grammatical Metaphors: Syndromes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 244):

When we find grammatical metaphors in discourse, they nearly always cluster into what we are calling syndromes; these are typical clusterings of metaphorical effects among which there is some kind of interdependence (for example, in the government decided => the government’s decision, there is an obvious relationship between decide => decision, process as thing, and the government => the government’s, participant as possessor of the thing).

Junctional Elements Vs Ordinary Elements

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 244):

Metaphoric elements […] are junctional in that they embody a junction of two semantic categories. In previous chapters, 3–5, we dealt just with elements that could be assigned to a single category: process, thing, quality &c. We shall refer to these as ‘ordinary’ elements, and contrast them with ‘junctional’ elements which are those that embody grammatical metaphor. Junctional elements will always have two categories in their description, e.g. ‘process thing’, ‘circumstantial quality’, ‘relator process’.

How Did Junctional Elements Evolve?

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 243):

… it seems that meaning-making by transcategorising has evolved, through intermediate stages, into meaning-making by metaphorising; there is no sharp line between deriving a thing from a process, as ‘one who makes’, ‘that which is made’, and construing a process as a thing ‘making, creation’; with ‘action of making, act of making’ somewhere in between.

Grammatical Metaphor: Junctional Elements

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 243):

What is the status of such fictitious objects or pseudo-things? Unlike the other elements, which lose their original status in being transcategorised (for example shaker is no longer a process, even though it derives from shake), these elements do not: shakiness is still a quality, development is still a process — only they have been construed into things. They are thus a fusion, or ‘junction’, of two semantic elemental categories: shakiness is a ‘quality thing’, development is a ‘process thing’. All such junctional elements involve grammatical metaphor.

From Transcategorising Lexemes To Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 243):

What for example would be the semantic interpretation of [the transcategorisations] shakiness, awakening, analysis, development?  Here we find ourselves using precisely the terms of our own metalanguage in the definition: ‘quality of being shaky’, ‘process of being awake, or causing to become awake’, ‘process of analysing, developing’. When this happens, it is a signal that a phenomenon of this other kind — quality or process — is being treated as if it was a thing. The grammar has constructed an imaginary or fictitious object, called shakiness, by transcategorising the quality shaky; similarly, by transcategorising the process develop it has created a pseudo-thing called development.

Transcategorisation: Shifting Lexemes From One Class To Another

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 242):

The phenomenon of transcategorising elements would seem to be a feature of the grammar of every language. This implies two things: (i) that each etymon belongs inherently to a major class; (ii) that at least some etymons can be transferred to another class — by some means, syntactic and/or morphological.

Interpersonal Significance Of Ideational Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 242):

But the interpersonal significance of grammatical metaphor is likely to be felt most clearly at the macroscopic level, in the overall pattern of interpersonal relationships, and the ideological orientation, that emerge over the course of a text.

Interpersonal Significance Of Ideational Metaphor: Negotiability

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 241-2):

In a similar way, phenomena in the ideation base also map onto constructs of interpersonal meaning. For example, a congruent figure maps onto a move in a dialogic exchange; it is enacted interpersonally as a proposition or a proposal. It follows that when phenomena are reconstrued metaphorically within the ideation base, there are also interpersonal consequences. For instance, the figure ‘atomic nucleus + absorb + energy’ can be enacted interpersonally as a proposition that is open to negotiation: The atomic nucleus absorbs energy — Does it? — Yes, it does — No, it can’t.   However, when this figure is reconstrued as the participant ‘absorption (+ of energy) (+ by atomic nucleus)’, it no longer has the potential for being enacted interpersonally as a proposition; rather, it would be taken for granted in discourse. You can’t argue with the absorption of energy by the nucleus since it is not enacted as an arguable proposition. Such interpersonal differences can have a powerful rhetorical effect in persuasive discourse. (There is an analogous effect with respect to proposals in regulatory discourse.)

Textual Significance Of Ideational Metaphor: Textual Status

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 241):

Ideationally, grammatical metaphor is a resource for reconstruing experience so that, alongside congruent configurations, we also have alternative metaphorical ones. At the same time, these different configurations map onto different textual patterns. For example, a figure maps onto a message; but a participant maps onto part of a message, so that a figure construed as if it was a participant can be given a textual status within that message.

The Metaphorical Mode Of Construal

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 241):

The metaphoric shift does not mean that the natural relationship between meaning and wording is destroyed; rather, this relationship is extended further when new domains of realisation are opened up to semantic categories through metaphor. The shift does however create a greater distance from the everyday experience; the metaphorical mode of construal makes it possible to recast that everyday experience, retaining only certain features from the congruent wording but adding others that it did not include.

Ideational Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 241):

The metaphors we are considering here are in fact all shifts within the ideational realm — from sequence to figure, from figure to participant, and so on — and their primary effect is ideational. They constitute a resource for reconstruing experience along certain lines, redeploying the same categories that have evolved in the congruent mode of construing experience.

Given Theme & Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 239):

The significant point is that the Theme of an English clause has to be nominal. Not that there cannot exist other kinds of Theme — adverbials, prepositional phrases or even verbs; but these construe Themes which are highly marked (verbal Themes in particular), embodying features of contrast which are not appropriate in these contexts. The only kind of grammatical entity that construes the message in precisely the way required, without special effects, is a nominal — which may be a nominal group or else a nominalised clause or clause complex.

Theme & Information

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 239):

If the Theme of a clause (realised as the element in first position) is also explicitly located as Given, this has a very strong ‘backgrounding’ effect: the message is ‘you already know this; now use it as a stepping-off point for a further move, to something you don’t know’. By the same token, the remainder of the clause (either the whole of it or the culminating element) is strongly ‘foregrounded’. The total construction is obviously a powerful device for reasoning and argumentation.

Why Semantics & Grammar? Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 237-8):

Why then in our present interpretation have we to recognise two parts, one a lexicogrammar and one a semantics? Because the system continued to evolve beyond that point [congruent construals], enriching itself (i.e. engendering a richer model of experience) by forcing apart the two ‘facets’ of the sign so that each could take on a new partner — sequences could be realised by other things than clause complexes, processes could be realised by other things than verbs, and so on. […] It is this step that gives rise to grammatical metaphor. When a sequence is realised as a clause complex, or a process as a verb, this is congruent: it is the clause complex, and the verb, in the function in which it evolved. When a sequence is realised as something other than a clause complex, or a process as something other than a verb, this is metaphorical. Some other grammatical unit is supplanting them in these functions.

Why Semantics And Grammar Are Modelled As Two Separate Strata

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 237):

Of course, what we are recognising here as two distinct constructions, the semantic and the grammatical, never had or could have had any existence the one prior to the other; they are our analytic representation of the overall semioticising of experience — how experience is construed into meaning. If the congruent form had been the only form of construal, we would probably not have needed to think of semantics and grammar as two separate strata: they would be merely two facets of the content plane, interpreted on the one hand as function and on the other as form.

Congruent Forms

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 236-7):

… from the standpoint of the evolution of language, when we say they are the congruent forms we are claiming not merely that they evolved first, but that this is why they evolved. One of the contexts in which grammar came into being — one of its metafunctions — was that of construing human experience; and, as we have seen, the model that emerged was one that construed the continuum of goings-on into taxonomies: taxonomies of parts (meronymic) and taxonomies of kinds (hyponymic). The central construct was that of the ‘figure’; figures could be further constructed into ‘sequences’ and also deconstructed into ‘elements’. How did the grammar construe this hierarchy of phenomena? — as clauses, clauses complexes, and elements in the structure of the clause …

Metaphorical Relationship As Directional

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 235):

On all these grounds [of semogenetic and derivational priority] we have to acknowledge that the metaphorical relationship is not a symmetrical one: there is a definite directionality to it, such that one end of the continuum is metaphorical and the other is what we shall call congruent.

Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 235): 

We would not, in considering grammatical metaphor, maintain a simple dichotymy between ‘literal’ and ‘metaphorical’; rather we would propose that there is a continuum whose poles are ‘least metaphorical’ and ‘most metaphorical’.

Lexical & Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 234):

Thus in many instances, not unexpectedly, lexical and grammatical metaphor go together. … But they are not automatically associated, and in most instances of grammatical metaphor, if we reword in a less metaphorical direction, we can retain the same lexical items, merely changing their word class [transcategorisation] (often with morphological variation, e.g. we act effectively / the effectiveness of our actions).

Lexical Metaphors Have Grammatical Implications

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 234):

… lexical metaphors have grammatical implications: they occur at the lexical degree of delicacy in the overall system, but precisely because grammar and lexis form a continuum related by delicacy, lexical domains are in fact more delicate elaborations of grammatical ones. So, for example, if understanding is construed metaphorically as grasping, it follows that a high degree of understanding can also be construed according to the same material model: understand very well => grasp firmly, as in she grasped the principles firmly. Similarly, if intensity is construed metaphorically in terms of location or movement in abstract space, this lexical reconstrual also has grammatical consequences, e.g. in terms of circumstantial elements within metaphorical figures: prices fell sharply, prices rose to a new high, costs hit the ceiling, and so on.

Lexical Metaphorical Syndromes: Most Favoured Motifs

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 233n):

Because of the vastness of lexis, we do not have a general description of lexical metaphorical domains within the overall ideation base. But it is possible to discern that a central resource for metaphor is human bodily experience; and that the human body itself, concrete phenomena located in space-time, and features of daily social life are the most favoured metaphorical motifs.

Lexical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 233):

There are two other characteristics of lexical metaphors which are also central to metaphor in its grammatical sense. The first is syntagmatic: lexical metaphors tend to occur in regular clusters, which we shall refer to here as “syndromes” … The second is paradigmatic: lexical metaphors typically involve a shift towards the concrete, a move in the direction of “objectifying” (‘making like an object’, not ‘making objective’) …

Lexical & Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 233):

Lexical and grammatical metaphor are not two different phenomena; they are both aspects of the same general metaphorical strategy by which we expand our semantic resources for construing experience. The main distinction between them is one of delicacy. Grammatical metaphor involves the reconstrual of one domain in terms of another domain, where both are of a very general kind … Lexical metaphor also involves the reconstrual of one domain in terms of another domain; but these domains are more delicate in the overall semantic system.

Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 227):

We have seen that sequences, figures, and elements are congruently realised in the grammar as follows: 

	clause complex	clause	group
sequence	ü
figure		ü
element			ü

But these resources may be expanded by taking up further options in realisation; for example, sequences may alternatively be realised by clauses and even groups.  This what we refer to as grammatical metaphor.  Grammatical metaphor expands the semantic potential of the system.

The Power Of Ideational Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 225-6):

The ideational base as we have presented it so far, with its framework of sequences, figures and elements, serves well enough for construing the experience of daily life, and for organising and exchanging commonsense knowledge. But it proves inadequate to meet the semiotic demands of advanced technology and theoretical science. In the construction of scientific knowledge, the system needs to invoke the power of metaphor on a more global scale.

Transphenomenal Motifs & The Construal Of Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 225):

Thus our concept of “construing experience through meaning” refers to the construal in human consciousness of an ideational system in which such [transphenomenal] motifs play a crucial part. Expansion and projection are, as we put it earlier, fractal principles; they generate organisation within many environments in the ideation base, at different strata and at different ranks within one stratum. These environments are thus related to one another through the local manifestations of these different motifs; and this opens up the system’s potential for alternative construals of experience … . What this means is, that whatever is construed can also be reconstrued, giving yet another dimension to the topology of semantic space.

Other Transphenomenal Motifs

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 225):

There are other “transphenomenal” motifs, often related to these [fractal types], which are more specific in their scope; for example the foregrounding of perceptual space, and of the concrete having extension in space, so that these serve as models for construing more abstract, non-spatial realms; and more specifically, the spatial construction of the human body as an orientational framework.

Elaboration As Auto-Genetic Potential

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 224-5):

Here we have foregrounded especially the motif of elaborating, with particular reference to its manifestation in the identifying and ascriptive figures of being. We have tried to show how elaboration makes it possible to “import” extra-linguistic experience into the meaning base by actively construing it (as in ‘that [thing there] is a circle’); and also to “transport” meanings internally from one region of the ideation base in order to construe new meanings in another (as in ‘balance means you hold it in your fingers and it does not go’).  The extension of meaning in delicacy — not merely generalising across different types but construing such types into dimensional and open-ended taxonomies — is a function of the elaborating potential, exploiting the basic dimensions of the system itself.

Fractal Types As Auto-Genetic Potential

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 224):

The fractal types of projection and expansion are also a primary resource by which the semantic system creates new meanings. […] The ideation base thus itself embodies, auto-genetically, the principles on which it is organised and enabled to develop further, such that the primary systems of ideational meaning then serve as a grid within which more delicate categories are construed.

Fractal Agnation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 223-4): 

… the fractal types constitute an additional order of agnation that is projected onto the ideational system as a whole. We can refer to this as fractal agnation. Because of this, a qualifying sequence and a figure of circumstantial being, such as cause, are agnate; they are both manifestations of the fractal type of enhancement.

The Sense In Which Expansion & Projection Are 'Fractal Types'

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 223): 

Since projection and expansion operate across the various categories of phenomena, we referred to them as transphenomenal categories. As transphenomenal categories, they are meaning types that are in some sense “meta” to the organisation of the ideation base: they are principles of construing our experience of the world that generate identical patterns of semantic organisation which are of variable magnitude and which occur in variable semantic environments. Such patterns therefore constitute fractal types.

Transforming Experience Into Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 222):

These two motifs [meaning as expansion and meaning by projection] together have made it possible for human beings to transform experience into meaning, taking the experience of meaning itself — the “inner” processes of consciousness — as the central figures, and those with the ability to mean — prototypically humans themselves — as the central participants. These then serve as the point of reference for construing “outer” experience, the complementary experiences of the processes of doing and being.

Fundamental Semantic Motif: Meaning By Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 222): 

The second motif is that of meaning by projection: the way new dimensions of semantic space are created by the orders of human consciousness, sensing and saying — by projecting into existence another order of reality, one that is constituted by language itself.

Fundamental Semantic Motif: Meaning As Expansion

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 222): 

The first of these is meaning as expansion: the way regions of semantic space are opened up and defined by the three vectors of elaboration, extension and enhancement — elaborating a region that is already as it were staked out, extending the region’s boundaries to take in more, and enhancing the region’s potential by enrichment from its environment.

Participants And Macro Circumstances: 3 Kinds Of Mixed Categories

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 220):

The grammar does draw a line between the two: participant as nominal group, circumstance as prepositional phrase. But because of the continuous nature of the distinction, we find three kinds of mixed categories: (i) participants that may look like circumstances (being introduced by prepositions); (ii) circumstances that may look like participants (being introduced without prepositions); and (iii) pairs where one is a circumstance, the other a participant, but with very little difference in their meaning.

The Overlap Of Participants And Macro Circumstances

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 218-9):

We referred to the cline from participants to circumstances as the “degree of involvement” in the actualisation of the process. This degree of involvement ranged from the closest, the Medium, which is part of the nucleus of the figure, to those that appear most remote, circumstances such as Matter (e.g. concerning your request) and Angle (e.g. in my own opinion). Somewhere in the middle was an area of overlap, where participants and circumstances are very closely akin. The two overlap because there are some functions which can be construed either as a form of participant in the process or as a circumstance attendant on it.

The Relation Of Macro Circumstantial Elements To Figures

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 218):

… looking at these same circumstantial elements from a complementary standpoint, from the point of view of their own internal composition […] a prepositional phrase represents a figure in miniature, with a structure analogous to one component of a figure — closest, perhaps, to Process + Range (so we refer to the participant in the circumstantial phrase as a “Minirange”). This means that, shifting our perspective, we can also suggest how the circumstantial elements are related to different figures. Table 5(5) combines the two perspectives, showing their relationship both to participants and to figures.

The Relation Of Macro Circumstantial Elements To Participants

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 218):

Looking at them as oblique “cases”, from the point of view of their function in the larger figure, two points emerged: one, that participants and circumstances taken together formed a cline, rather than being separated by a clear boundary; the second, that some of the circumstantial elements could be ‘paired off’ with participants, being seen as a more oblique manifestation of a similar rôle.

Macro Circumstances: Subsidiary Processes And Indirect Participants

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 218):

Those circumstantial elements that are realised by prepositional phrases are rather more complex, since they include another element — a participant — in their makeup. In such cases the element realised by the nominal group is still functioning as a participant in the process — but indirectly, being implicated only through the mediation of a preposition. That this is possible is because the preposition itself constitutes a subsidiary kind of ‘process’; one that does not function as a process in the main figure but is nevertheless related systematically to the spectrum of process types — mainly, though not exclusively, to processes of being.

Simple Circumstances: Location & Cause

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 217):

There are some adverbial expressions realising other types of circumstances, e.g. everywhere (Location: space), recently (Location: time); as well as others that might be interpreted differently because of the nature of the quality itself, e.g. pointlessly ‘in a pointless manner’ or ‘for no good reason’ (Cause).

Simple Circumstances: Manner

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 217):

[Simple circumstances] are qualities — but construed not as qualities of a particular participant but as qualities of a figure as a whole […]. The usual function is as circumstance of Manner, with the meaning ‘in such a way’, ‘to such a degree’; and if the manner of doing determines the quality of the outcome there may be very little difference between a circumstance of this kind and a resultative Attribute: cf. don’t chop the parsley too fine / too finely.*

* Also, poetically, depictive Attribute: Do not go gentle into that goodnight.

Patterns Of Time In English: Temporal Profile (Aktionsart)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 216):

The temporal profile, of unbounded/bounded, is not an independent option available to processes in general. Boundedness is a feature which may accrue to certain classes of process, typically processes of doing: contrast, for example, unbounded use with use up […]. It is on the borderline of lexis and grammar: the verb is extended by up or some other adverb of the locative-directional class (drink up, eat up, load up, pour out, melt down, fly away). The boundedness is not in fact temporally defined; its degree — and often its exact nature — is specific to the kind of process concerned, and may depend on the total figure and on the context; e.g.

pour out the water         ‘until the bowl is empty / until everyone has a drink’
write up the results        ‘in a publishable form’

But there is a clear proportionality involved, which allows us to treat this as a systemic feature of a significant subset of processes in English.

Patterns Of Time In English: Temporal Staging (Phase)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 216):

Temporal staging is explicit and lexicalised […]. Staging also extends to other categories that are not strictly temporal, which the grammar however construes as analogous: especially conation (tries to do / succeeds in doing) and appearance (seems to be / turns out to be).

Patterns Of Time In English: Temporal Perspective (Aspect)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 215):

By comparison with temporal location, temporal perspective (aspect) is relatively backgrounded in English. […] The temporal perspective takes over, however, when there is no deictic location (the clause is non-finite); in such cases, instead of making reference to ‘now’ the process is construed as either actualised, as in (on) reaching the gallery, turn left, or visualised, e.g. to reach the gallery, turn left.

Patterns Of Time In English: Temporal Location (Tense)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 215):

English foregrounds location in the flow of time (tense), and construes this not only as past/present/future relative to ‘now’ […] but also as past/present/future relative to some moment that is relative to now […], with the possibility of up to five shifts of reference point, as in

They said they’d been going to’ve been paying me all this time …

(present in past in future in past in past). This system is fully grammaticised, and is unusual in that it construes location in time as a logical relation rather than as an experiential taxonomy; it thus becomes a form of serial time reference. The tense categories also combine with time adverbs such as already, just, soon […]. Interestingly, the deictic time reference (that appealing to ‘now’) can be switched off; either there is no deixis (the clause is non-finite […]) or the deixis takes the form of modality (speaker’s angle on the process, eg they should have paid me).

Basic Parameters In Construing Time

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 215):

… in any given language, (i) one or other parameter may be given prominence, (ii) two or more parameters may be combined into a single semantic system, (iii) any parameter may be construed either more grammatically or more lexically, and (iv) a number of features that are not strictly temporal may be incorporated into the picture, both ideational ones like attempting/succeeding and interpersonal ones like the speaker’s angle on the process — judgement of its likelihood, desirability, and so on.

The Temporal Perspective On A Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 214):

This takes many different guises in different languages, even within the same language; such as

(a) in focus: ongoing, out of focus: terminated;

(b) in focus: significant in itself, out of focus: significant for what follows;

(c) in focus: actualised, out of focus: visualised.

(It is the last of these that is relevant to English.)

Basic Parameters In Construing Time

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 214, 215):

In transforming experience of time into meaning, human communities have evolved a number of basic parameters.  We can identify four of these that are relevant in the present context:

(1) the temporal staging of a process: it may be beginning, taking place or ending. underlying concept: a process occupies a certain measure of time … [grammaticised as phase] … 

(2) the temporal perspective on a process: we may frame it in or out of temporal focus. […] underlying concept: a process relates to the flow of experience as a whole, including other processes … [grammaticised as aspect] … 

(3) the temporal profile of a process: it is either unbounded or bounded.  underlying concept:  a process has the potential for being extended in time … [grammaticised as aktionsart] … 

(4) the temporal location of a process: it can be related to 'now' as past, present or future. underlying concept: a process takes place within a linear flow or current of time … [grammaticised as tense] …

The Grammar's Model Of Time

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 213-4):

… grammar’s model of time has been evolving unconsciously in the context of human survival; it is part of the selective and collective wisdom that the species has accumulated in the understanding of its relationship to its environment and in the interaction of its members one with another. And again, like everything else in the construal of experience it is the product of continual compromise, whereby divergent and often conflicting aspects of experience are adjusted and accommodated in such a way that all of them have some place in the total picture.

Processes: Internal Organisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 213):

Thus from the point of view of the figure, a process is the central element, forming a nucleus around which participants and circumstantial elements are organised into a meaningful pattern.  From the point of view of its own internal organisation, a process is a construal of ‘eventing’ — a phenomenon perceived as having extension in time.

Thing Vs Event

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 213):

But while the Thing is enmeshed in a[n] elaborate taxonomy of things the Event is taxonomically rather simple and its complexity lies in the construal of time itself. Hence the verbal group is lexically sparse — typically the Event is the only lexicalised part; whereas nominal groups can be lexically extremely dense.

Participants Vs Processes: Spatio-Temporality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 213):

While participants are located in referential space, processes are located in time. The verbal group realising a process constructs a “moment” in time beginning with the ‘now’ (the time of speaking) leading up to the categorisation of the Event; this is analogous to the way the nominal group, realising a participant, constructs a “body” in space beginning with the ‘here’ and leading up to the categorisation of the Thing.

The Key To The Construal Of Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 213): 

The key to the construal of experience is the perception of change; the grammar construes a quantum of change as a figure (typically one clause) and sorts out figures in the first instance into those of consciousness (sensing and saying), those of the material world (doing & happening) and those of logical relations (being & having). The central element of a figure is the process; ‘things’ are construed as entities participating in processes, having different rôles, of which one is ‘that participant in which the process is actualised’ … ; hence the grammatical nucleus of the clause is the configuration of Process with Medium.

Qualities Of Enhancement: Realisation And Function

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 212):

This relation is typically typically a temporal or spatial one involving the thing as a discoursal instance rather than the thing as a general experiential class. Consequently, like qualities of extension, qualities of enhancement tend to serve as deictic elements (Post-Deictic) rather than as Epithets; as Post-Deictics, they come before Numeratives in the structure of the nominal group: the preceding / subsequent two meetings. Here they relate a specific referent, recoverable in the current situation: the subsequent two meetings : the two meetings that followed this one. But the spatial qualities can also, being taxonomic, serve to subclassify the thing they are assigned to: interior monologue, external pipes. Here they relate to a general class of thing, inferable from the experiential system: interior monologue : monologue that is within a person, external pipes : pipes that are outside a house.

Qualities Of Enhancement: Agnation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 212):

Qualities of enhancement also resemble those of ‘elaboration: identity’ and those of extension in that construe a relation between a thing they are assigned to and another thing. This is brought out by the fact that they are agnate with processes relating participants circumstantially: subsequent : be (come) before / precede, interior : be within, exterior : be outside, as in previous occasions : occasions coming before this one, interior design : design is what is within a house.

Qualities Of Extension

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 212):

Qualities of extension resemble those of ‘elaboration: identity’ in that they construe a relation between the thing they are assigned to and some other thing. The relation typically obtains between the thing as a discoursal instance rather than the thing as a general experiential class. Thus an alternative solution is a solution that can replace the one we have just been talking about. Consequently, properties of extension tend to serve as deictic elements (Post-Deictic) rather than as Epithets; they indicate how an instance (or instances) of the general class of the thing they are assigned to is selected from that class: we need an additional two volunteers means ‘two further instances of the general class of volunteer’. Like other properties serving as Post-Deictic, they may precede the Numerative (additional^two); but they may also follow, with no strong contrast in meaning: we need two additional volunteers.

Qualities Of Elaboration: Identity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 212):

Qualities of elaboration, subtype identity are not inherent properties, but rather are comparative. Thus the standard of comparison can always be construed: their car is the same/similar/different : their car is the same as / similar to / different from ours; and they are agnate with processes: their car is / resembles / differs from ours. The line between elaboration: identity and enhancement: manner: comparison is a fuzzy one; and processual agnates such as their car resembles ours are within the domain of enhancement.

Qualities Of Elaboration: Attribution

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 211-2):

The most prototypical qualities are those of elaboration, subtype attribution: they stand in a pure intensive relation to the thing they are assigned to, being construed as inherent qualities. They are typically scalar, but certain types are taxonomic or binary. As Epithets (or Classifiers) they are agnate with the Attribute of a figure of being. Many of them can serve as the Attribute of a figure of doing (as in he squashed it flat, she painted it blue) and are related to the outcome of such figures (cf. she heated/widened/enlarged it : it was hot/wide/large). The limiting case of qualities of attribution are quantities; they are assigned to a thing as a discoursal instance rather than as a general experiential class. Consequently, they do not serve as Epithets; they have a special rôle, that of Numerative (as in two/many brave volunteers).

Qualities Of Expansion: Agnation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 210):

Qualities of expansion cannot normally be assigned to metathings. They expand the thing they are related to by elaboration, extension or enhancement. these different subtypes display different patterns of agnation, but as Epithet (or Classifier) + Thing configurations they are all agnate with figures of being & having.

Qualities Of Projection: Modalities & Attitudes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 210):

As we have seen, sensing is agnate with modality and, in the case of emotive sensing, with attitude. Similarly, qualities of projection extend to include modalities and attitudes; when the thing (or metathing) they are assigned to is agnate with the Phenomenon, these qualities are construed as objective, impersonal ones: it is certain/likely/possible that the moon’s a balloon. (Contrast: I’m certain the moon’s a balloon.) With qualities of usuality, this is the only possible orientation.

Qualities Of Projection: Transferability

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 210):

[when they are agnate with the Senser], these qualities [of projection] may be transferred to tokens of the senser’s sensing, as in an angry face/look/letter/reaction.

Qualities Of Projection: Agnation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 210): 

Qualities of projection are all scalar and they are […] agnate with processes of sensing in figures of sensing; they are often realised by participial verb forms used as adjectives. The thing they are assigned to, as Attribute or as Epithet, is agnate either with the Senser (the ‘like’ type …) or with the Phenomenon (the ‘please’ type …). From this it follows that when they are agnate with the Senser, they are ascribed to conscious beings …, whereas when they are agnate with the Phenomenon, they can be ascribed not only to things but also to metathings, ie projections …

Qualities Of Projection & Expansion: Agnation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 209-10):

Qualities can be distinguished according to the transphenomenal types of projection and expansion. Qualities of projection and qualities of expansion differ in a number of respects. Most fundamentally, they differ in their patterns of agnation. Qualities of projection are agnate with processes of sensing in figures of sensing; … In contrast qualities of expansion display patterns of agnation within being & having, with variation according to subtype. This fundamental difference explains other differences; for example, qualities of projection tend to occur in agnate pairs of the ‘like’ and ‘please’ type that we find with figures of sensing (e.g. afraid/scary, suspicious/suspect, bored/boring), whereas qualities of expansion do not.

Qualities & The Semantic Organisation Of Nominal Groups

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 209):

The former [closed grammatical systems] are taxonomically simple (although they are notoriously difficult to interpret in lexical glosses); they include specific/non-specific; personal/demonstrative; near/far; total/partial &c. In contrast, elements at the latter end [open lexical sets] tend to be construed in complex taxonomies. That is, greater experiential complexity is handled by means of greater taxonomic complexity. […] Qualities lie at different places along these various dimensions; hence they vary in their potential for taking on rôles in different types of figure.

The Semantic Organisation Of Nominal Groups

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 209):

… the nominal group is organised as a move along two semantic dimensions: the elements become increasingly stable in time, and increasingly complex in their taxonomy of features. Lexicogrammatically, this corresponds to a move from grammatical items (determiners, determinative adjectives such as usual, same, typical, cardinal and ordinal numerals) to lexical items (adjectives [in general], and nouns); that is, a move from closed systems to open sets.

Qualitative Attributes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 209):

… a quality, when attached to the figure as an Attribute (rather than to a participant …), is construed as being more like a circumstance. The fact that manner circumstances are typically realised by adverbs that are simply derived from (and in some cases identical with) adjectives is a further symptom of the way a quality may resemble a circumstance.

Construing Qualities As Attribute Vs Manner

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 208):

Some qualities may occur as depictive (as opposed to resultative) Attribute in a figure of doing & happening; in such instances the quality is very close to a circumstance of Manner, as is shown by agnate pairs such as the following: 

quality as Attribute:                     quality as Manner: 

she came home cheerful              she came home cheerfully

he walked in drunk                      he walked in drunkenly

Construing Qualities As Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 208):

Some qualities can be construed as processes of doing; here for example there is an agnate form I’ve dried the plate, with ‘dry’ worded as a verb. In these cases, the quality is not repeated as an Attribute — we do not usually say I’ve dried the plate dry; it may however reappear in an intensified form, e.g. I’ve dried it very dry. Very many qualities may be construed as verbs in this way.

Construing Qualities: Participants, Processes And Circumstances

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 208):

Thus in its typical construal, as Epithet or as Attribute, a quality is clearly “participant-like”; we might also note that realised as an adjective in superlative form it does appear as a participant (these are the driest, pass me the driest; the smallest will fall through the holes). But there are also environments where a quality resembles a process or a circumstance.

A Quality Does Not Construe A Separate Class Of Thing

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 207-8):

The Attribute is not a prototypical participant. We have already noted that as it stands it cannot function interpersonally as Subject. On the other hand, it can easily be instated as a participant by adding the noun or the noun substitute one(s) to the nominal group which realises it: this is a dry plate, this is a dry one. The fact that the thing can be instated as the Head of the nominal group serving as Attribute illustrates the point already made: the quality does not construe a separate class of thing, it presumes this class from the environment. Thus this is heavy means that it is heavy relatively to whatever class of thing it has been assigned to …

The Rôles Served By Qualities Within The Structure Of A Participant

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 207):

Typically, a quality combines with a thing to make up a participant in a figure: a dry plate, where the quality ‘dry’ is Epithet in the nominal group. The only context in which a quality serves on its own in a participant rôle is as Attribute; here it stands in intensive relation to a participant, either (i) in a figure of being, where the participant is Medium/Carrier (i.e. its sole function is to have the quality ascribed to it) or (ii) in a figure of doing, where the participant is Medium/Actor or Medium/Goal and the quality results from the doing; for example:

being: The plate’s dry — I’ve made the plate dry
doing: I’ve wiped the plate dry

Note that, in the doing figure, where I is Actor, the Attribute could be omitted: I’ve wiped the plate; in the being figure it cannot, since the process itself is one of ascription and the other participant, if present, is merely the ascriber.

The View Of Adjectives As “Stative Predicates”

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 207):

More recently, it has often been asserted that adjectives are really stative verbs, or “stative predicates”. This is the position of predicate logic, where both qualities and processes are simply predicates — but so also are things. It complicates the description of English grammar, but it is a reminder of the intermediate status of qualities as elements of figures.

Qualities: Element Topology

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 206):

As a category, qualities lie somewhere along a cline between things and processes, and their status varies considerably among different languages.  In English, qualities belong more closely with things, since they contribute primarily to the construction of participants: grammatically, English favours construing a quality as Epithet in a nominal group, and the class of adjective is clearly related to that of noun. (By contrast, in Chinese, where qualities are typically construed clausally, as Attribute, rather than nominally, as Epithet, the adjective is clearly related to the verb.)