Relational Clauses Vs Material & Mental Clauses: Inherent Participants

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 261-2):

In ‘relational’ clauses, there are two parts to the ‘being’: something is said to ‘be’ something else. In other words, a relationship of being is set up between two separate entities. This means that in a ‘relational’ clause in English, there are always two inherent participants – two ‘be-ers’. In contrast, the general classes of ‘material’ and ‘mental’ clauses have only one inherent participant (the Actor and the Senser, respectively).  Thus, while we can have a ‘material’ clause with one participant such as she was walking or she was walking into the room, we cannot have a ‘relational’ clause such as she was, with only one participant; we have to have two: she was in the room. Similarly, a ‘mental’ clause with one participant such as she rejoiced is possible; but the nearest ‘relational’ equivalent must have two participants – she was happy, not she was.

Blogger Comment:

Note that attributive clauses with qualitative Processes, such as this stinks, manifest only one participant, unless the Attribute is interpreted as conflated with the Process; see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 271).

Relational Clauses Vs Mental Clauses: Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 261):

With a ‘mental’ clause, the phenomenon of consciousness can be construed as an idea brought into existence through the process of consciousness and represented grammatically as a separate clause … but this is not possible with ‘relational’ clauses.

Relational & Mental Clauses Vs Material Clauses: Acts & Facts

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 261):

In being able to be construed not only with things as participants, but also with acts and facts, ‘relational’ clauses clearly differ from ‘material’ ones; but they resemble ‘mental’ ones in this respect.  However, in a relational clause, these things, acts and facts are not construed as a phenomenon of consciousness; rather, they are construed as one element in a relationship of being. Thus while a thing, act or fact construed as a Phenomenon in a ‘mental’ clause is configured with a Senser, in a ‘relational’ clause, a thing, act or fact construed as a participant is configured with another relational participant that has to come from the same domain of being [material vs semiotic].

Relational Clauses Vs Mental Clauses: Participanthood

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 261):

… while one participant in a ‘mental’ clause, the Senser, is always endowed with consciousness, this is not the case with ‘relational’ clauses.  If anything, the participants in ‘relational’ clauses are more like the Phenomenon of a ‘mental’ clause – not only things, but also acts and facts can be construed as participants in a ‘relational’ clause.

Relational Processes: Un/Marked Present Tense

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 260):

In the nature of the unfolding of the process, ‘relational’ clauses thus pattern like ‘mental’ ones rather than like ‘material’ ones; and this is reflected in the unmarked present tense. … The present in present is in fact highly marked and is largely restricted to ‘relational’ clauses of behavioural propensity.

Relational [Static] Vs Material [Dynamic] Construals By Expansion Types

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 260):

Thus, static location in space [enhancement] is construed relationally – she’s in the dining room, but dynamic motion through space is construed materially – she’s walking into the dining room. Similarly, static possession [extension] is construed relationally – she has a mahogany dining table, but dynamic transfer of possession is construed materially – she’s getting a mahogany dining table; she’s being given a mahogany dining table; and static quality [elaboration] is construed relationally – the bottle’s empty, but dynamic change in quality is construed materially – the bottle’s emptying; she’s emptying the bottle.

Relational Clauses: Nature Of Unfolding

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 260):

Unlike ‘material’ clauses, but like ‘mental’ ones, ‘relational’ clauses prototypically construe change as unfolding ‘inertly’, without any input of energy — typically as a uniform flow without distinct phases of unfolding (unlike the contrast in material processes between the initial phase and the final phase of the unfolding of a process, the outcome).

Relational Clauses: Viewed From Above

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 259):

As we have seen, ‘material’ clauses are concerned with our experience of the material world and ‘mental’ clauses are concerned with our experience of the world of our own consciousness. Both this outer experience and this inner experience may be construed by ‘relational’ clauses; but they model this experience as ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’ or ‘sensing’.

Looking 'From Below' & 'From Around' [Defined]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 259):

Looking … ‘from below’ (how are they realised?) and ‘from around’ (what other systemic variants are possible?) …

Relational Clauses: Function

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 259):

‘Relational’ clauses serve to characterise and identify.

The Transitivity Environments Of 'Remind'

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 257n):

As is often the case of with verbs, remind has different senses corresponding to uses in different transitivity environments.

(i) In a ‘mental’ clause, remind may have different senses.

(1) Remind may serve as a causative equivalent of remember, ‘cause somebody to remember’ with the causer in the role of Inducer (if the clause is ‘phenomenal’, the Phenomenon represented on the model of a circumstance of Matter (e.g. [Inducer:] This reminds [Senser:] me [Phenomenon:] of an interesting encounter I had a few years ago with the late Col M.S. Rao, the celebrated physician.) and if the clause is ‘hyperphenomenal’ with a project ‘idea’ clause, remind is configured with only Inducer + Senser (e.g. [Inducer:] The church clock striking the hour reminds [Senser:] me that I must hurry if this is to be ready on time for the printer.). 

(2) Alternatively, remind may have the sense of ‘cause somebody to see a relationship of similarity’ (e.g. They [‘the children’] reminded old Amai of a flock of bright birds gathering together to peck corn.).

(ii) In a ‘verbal’ clause, remind has the sense of ‘tell somebody something so that s/he will remember it’, the ‘verbal’ clause projects a report or quote (e.g. ‘Don’t forget, there was the hope it would pass for a natural death’, Pauling reminded him.). 

(iii) In a hypotactic verbal group complex, remind serves as a causative variant of remember (e.g. Mary reminded John to do it).

Mental Clause Subtypes: Indeterminacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 257):

Like all other experiential systems, the system of type of sensing construes experience as indeterminate: the four different types of sensing shade into one another. For example, perception shades into cognition, with I see coming to mean not only ‘I perceive visually’ but also ‘I understand’. And cognition shades into perception with clauses where remember serves as the Process; unlike ‘cognitive’ clauses in general such clauses can be construed with a macrophenomenal Phenomenon …

Mental Clause Subtypes

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 256):

Within the general class of ‘mental’ clauses, there are four different subtypes of sensing: ‘perceptive’, ‘cognitive’, ‘desiderative’ and ‘emotive’. These are treated by the grammar as distinct types. They differ with respect to phenomenality, directionality, gradability, potentiality and ability to serve as metaphors of modality …

Mental Clauses Vs Material Clauses [Diagnostic: Probe & Substitute]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 255):

Mental clauses also differ from material ones with respect to the use of do as a substitute verb. … Mental processes … are not kinds of doing, and cannot be probed or substituted by do.

Mental Process: Present In Present Tense (Marked)

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 255):

The present in present with a mental process is a rather highly conditioned kind of inceptive aspect, as in I feel I’m knowing the city for the first time (‘I’m getting to know’);

Material Process: Simple Present Tense (Marked)

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 254-5, 255n):

The simple present with a material process is general or habitual – that is, the occurrence of the process is construed as generalised or as habitual, e.g. they build a house for every employee. … 

In addition, there is a registerially restricted use of the simple present tense. In commentary accompanying demonstrations and the like, the simple present is used.

'Marked' Option [Defined]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 254):

… this means that it is less frequent and that it carries a special interpretation.

Mental Clauses Vs Material Clauses [Diagnostic: Tense]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 254):

‘Material’ and ‘mental’ processes also differ with respect to the way that they unfold in time and this is reflected in the grammatical system of TENSE. … In a ‘mental’ clause, the unmarked present tense is the simple present … But in a ‘material’ clause the unmarked present tense is the present in present …

Idea Clauses Vs Fact Clauses [Diagnostic For Clause Constituents]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 254):

Thus while ‘fact’ clauses serve as the Phenomenon of a ‘mental’ clause and can therefore be made Subject and be theme–predicated, ‘idea’ clauses are not part of the ‘mental’ clause but are rather combined with the ‘mental’ clause in a clause nexus of projection.

Projecting Representations Of The Content Of Consciousness: Ideas

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 253, 254):

But there is one further option open to such clauses – an option that sets them apart not only from ‘material’ clauses but also from ‘relational’ ones. This option is the ability to set up another clause ‘outside’ the ‘mental’ clause as the representation of the ‘content’ of consciousness. … Here the ‘mental’ clause projects another clause (or combination of clauses) as a representation of the content of thinking, believing, presuming and so on; the projected clause is called an idea clause.

Facts & Process Types

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 253):

Given the semiotic nature of facts, it stands to reason that they cannot serve as participants in ‘material’ clauses. When they do occur in what might appear to be a ‘material’ clauses, these clauses are abstract; and they have to be interpreted either mentally or relationally …

Facts: Status Signals

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 253):

The status of the ‘fact’ clause is often signalled by the noun fact itself … or by another ‘fact’ noun such as notion, idea, possibility.

Metaphenomenon: Environment

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 253):

The most common environment for a metaphenomenal Phenomenon is that of a clause of emotion where the Phenomenon is construed as impinging on the Senser’s consciousness.

Facts vs Acts

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 252-3, 253n):

A fact is on a higher level of abstraction than an ordinary thing or an act. Ordinary things and acts are both material phenomena; they can be seen, heard and perceived in other ways. Thus while an act is more complex than an ordinary thing, it still exists in the same material realm. In contrast, a fact is not a material phenomenon but rather a semiotic one: it is a proposition (or sometimes a proposal) construed as existing in its own right in the semiotic realm, without being brought into existence by somebody saying it. 

We could say that a fact is an act that has been propositionalised — that has been given existence as a semiotic phenomenon.

Metaphenomenal Mental Clauses: Facts

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 252):

In a ‘metaphenomenal mental’ clause, the Phenomenon is realised by a (typically finite) clause denoting a fact.

Macrophenomenal Clauses: Receptive Variant Or…?

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 252):

One of the interesting features of ‘macrophenomenal’ clauses is the form of what would seem to be the ‘receptive’ variant: instead of the expected the sand dredger heading for the cruiser was seen by him, where the whole Phenomenon is the Subject, we are much more likely to get the sand dredger was seen (by him) heading for the cruiser, where only the Subject of the non-finite clause serving as Phenomenon is ‘picked out’ to serve as the Subject of the ‘mental’ clause. For example:

Smoke was seen billowing from the police headquarters after an explosion.

This might suggest a different analysis of macrophenomenal clauses: what appears to be the ‘receptive’ variant could be interpreted not as a ‘receptive’ variant of a ‘macrophenomenal’ clause but rather as a clause with a verbal group complex serving as Process, was seen billowing, on the model of the sand dredger was rumoured (said) to be heading for the cruiser. Such constructions could be interpreted as markers of evidentiality – of the nature of the evidence for the information being negotiated.

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 252n):

A receptive variant such as the sand dredger heading for the cruiser wasn’t spotted by the navy would in fact be ambiguous: it could be a macrophenomenon, but alternatively heading for the cruiser might be an embedded relative clause. These two are significantly different in meaning. The interpretation as embedded relative clause would not be plausible where the non-finite clause occurs after the process of perception. 

Macrophenomenal Mental Clauses: Realisation Of Acts

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 252):

The non-finite clause realising an act is either a present participial one … or an infinitival one without the ‘infinitive marker’ to … The difference between them is a temporal one: the participial clause represents the process as unbounded in time, while the infinitival one represents it as bounded in time.

Macrophenomenal Mental Clauses: Acts

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 251-2):

In a ‘macrophenomenal mental’ clause, the Phenomenon is realised by a non-finite clause denoting an act; … An act is a configuration of a process, participants involved in that process and possibly attendant circumstances … Macrophenomenal Phenomena are typically restricted to one subtype of ‘mental’ clause — clauses of perception: the act is seen, heard, tasted or perceived in some other way; but it is not normally thought, felt emotionally, or desired.

Macrophenomenal & Metaphenomenal Mental Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 251):

… the concept of ‘thing’ is extended in ‘mental’ clauses to include macrophenomenal clauses where the Phenomenon is an act and metaphenomenal clauses where the Phenomenon is a fact.

Material Participants Are 'Things' Only

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 251):

In a ‘material’ clause, every participant is a thing; that is, it is a phenomenon of our experience, including of course our inner experience or imagination — some entity (person, creature, institution, object, substance or abstraction).  Any of these ‘things’ may also, of course, be the object of consciousness in a ‘mental’ clause;

Phenomenon: Thing, Act, Fact

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 251):

… the set of things that can take on this rôle in the clause is not only not restricted to any particular semantic or grammatical category, it is actually wider that the set of possible participants in a ‘material’ clause. It may be not only a thing but also an act or a fact.

Phenomenon [Definition]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 251):

… that which is felt, thought, wanted or perceived …

Senser Vs Actor

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 250):

While the Senser is construed as being endowed with consciousness in ‘mental’ clauses, there is no trace of this pattern in ‘material’ clauses. In ‘material’ clauses, no participant is required to be human, and the distinction between conscious and non-conscious beings simply plays no part. The Actor of a ‘material’ clause is thus much less constrained than the Senser of a ‘mental’ clause.

'Conscious Being'

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 250):

‘Conscious being’ typically means a person or persons; but as the following examples illustrate, a human collective (the British public, the whole house, the world) can also be construed as conscious:

I think the British public doesn’t dislike force provided that it’s short, sharp and rewarding.

Surely you don’t want the whole house to know of this occurrence?

The judging must come from one’s own experience, one’s own conscience, and understanding. What the world thought didn’t matter.

It can even be a product of human consciousness:

The film imagines that the FBI imported a free-lance black operative to terrorise the town’s mayor into revealing the murderers’ names.

Time As Senser

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 250n):

There is one type of ‘mental’ clause of perception where the Senser is a period of time and the Process is either see or find, as in Summer finds campers and hikers descending on the mountains in throngs; Ten minutes later saw us speeding through London. These are metaphorical constructions where a circumstance of Time has been construed as if it were a Senser.

Other Possible Realisations Of Senser

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 249n):

In languages with case marking, the Senser — or certain types of Senser — may be in the dative case, as in Hindi and Telugu, setting it formally apart from the Actor.  In some languages, the Senser is realised by a nominal group denoting a certain body part, as in Akan (cf English it breaks my heart, it blows my mind).

Endowing With Consciousness

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 249):

Which particular creatures we choose to endow with consciousness when we talk about them may vary according to who we are, what we are doing or how we are feeling at the time; different registers show different preferences. Pets, domestic animals and other higher animals are often treated as conscious; the owner says of the cat she doesn’t like milk, whereas someone who is not a cat lover, or who has been annoyed by that particular specimen, is more likely to refer to the animal as it. But any entity, animate or not, can be treated as conscious; and since mental process clauses have this property, that only something that is being credited with consciousness can function in them as the one who feels, thinks, wants or perceives, one only has to put something into that role in order to turn it into a conscious being.

Blogger Comment:

 e.g. Heliotropic plants must know where the sun is.

Senser: Significant Feature

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 249):

In a clause of ‘mental’ process, there is always one participant who is human; this is the Senser, introduced above: the one that ‘senses’ – feels, thinks, wants or perceives, for example, Mary in Mary liked the gift. More accurately, we should say human-like; the significant feature of the Senser is that of being ‘endowed with consciousness’. Expressed in grammatical terms, the participant that is engaged in the mental process is one that is referred to pronominally as he or she, not as it.

Properties Differentiating Material And Mental Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 248):

The category of ‘mental process clauses’ turns out to be grammatically distinct from that of material process clauses on the basis of a number of properties; these are set out in Table 5-7 …

Distinguishing *Grammatical* Categories

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 248):

Obviously clauses construing doing and clauses construing sensing are different in meaning, but that is not enough to make them constitute distinct grammatical categories. There are indefinitely many ways of drawing lines on purely semantic grounds, for example, by invoking contextual considerations ‘from above’, as we do when we describe the semantic strategies specific to a particular situation type; but the question we are concerned with here is which of these have systematic repercussions in the grammar.

Grammatical Labels

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 247):

It might be argued … that since grammatical and semantic categories are not in one-to-one correspondence, then if we use grammatical terms that are semantic in import (as nearly all grammatical terms are) we cannot expect them to be appropriate for all instances. The reasoning is quite valid; grammatical labels are very rarely appropriate for all instances of a category — they are chosen to reflect its central or ‘core’ signification ( … ‘prototype’ …). These core areas are the central region for each process type … and the non-core areas lie on the borders between the different process types, shading into one another as the colours of a colour spectrum.

Mental Clauses Of Perception

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 246-7):

There is one further type of ‘mental’ clause: I can feel something on my foot. This is a clause of perception, the can feel as the Process, I as the Senser and something on my foot as the Phenomenon being perceived. Such clauses are similar to emotive and cognitive ‘mental’ clauses in that the Senser is construed as a conscious being. But they also have properties that set them apart from the other subtypes of ‘mental’ clause. For example, while Pat could have said I feel something on my foot with the Process in the simple present, she has used a modulation of readiness instead – can feel. This is quite common with ‘mental’ clauses of perception, as with Can you see those pelicans flying across the lagoon alongside Do you see .... This example also illustrates another feature specific to clauses of perception: what is construed as the phenomenon being perceived can be a thing (such as cockroach); but it can also be an act, realised by a non-finite clause, as in I can feel [[something crawling up my foot]].

Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 246):

… the relationship between the ‘mental’ clause and the ‘idea’ clause is one of projection: the ‘mental’ clause projects another clause or set of clauses, giving them the status of ideas or the content of consciousness.

Mental Clauses Of Cognition

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 246):

They are able to set up another clause or set of clauses as the content of thinking — as the ideas created by cognition.

Why Projected Clauses Are Not Clause Constituents

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 246):

They do not serve as Complements in the ‘mental’ clause since we do not find ‘receptive’ variants with them as Subject …

Mental Clauses Of Emotion: Gradability

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 245-6):

The verbs serving as [emotive mental] Process are lexically gradable; they form points on a scale … expressing degrees of affection. … This property of lexical and grammatical gradability is typical of ‘mental’ clauses construing emotions.

The Complement Of An ‘Emanating’ Mental Clause

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 245):

In contrast to the Subject, the Complement is realised by a nominal group that can denote entities of any kind …

The Subject Of An ‘Emanating’ Mental Clause

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 245):

… the Subject is a nominal group denoting a conscious being …

Mental Clauses Vs Material Clauses [Diagnostic: Unmarked Present Tense]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 245):

When the clause refers to present time, the tense of the verbal group serving as [mental] Process is the simple present rather than the present–in–present that is characteristic of ‘material’ clauses.

Emanating Vs Impinging Mental Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 245):

This process of sensing may be construed either as flowing from a person’s consciousness [‘like’ type] or as impinging on it [‘please’ type]; but it is not construed as a material act.

Mental Clauses [Characterisation]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 245):

While ‘material’ clauses are concerned with our experience of the material world, ‘mental’ clauses are concerned with our experience of the world of our own consciousness. They are clauses of sensing: a ‘mental’ clause construes a quantum of change in the flow of events taking place in our own consciousness.

Process Type Determines Participant Functions

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 244-5):

It is important to recognise … that the functions assumed by the participants in any clause are determined by the type of process that is involved.

Abstract Material Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 243-4):

Material clauses do not necessarily represent concrete, physical events; they may represent abstract doings and happenings … But as the process becomes more abstract, so the distinction between Actor and Goal becomes harder to draw. … Even with concrete processes, however, we have to recognise that there are some where the Actor is involuntary, and thus in some respects like a Goal … With more abstract processes, we often find ‘operative’ and ‘receptive’ forms side by side with little difference between them … There is still some difference: if the ‘receptive’ form is used, we can probe for an explicit Actor — we can ask who by?, whereas with the ‘operative’ form we cannot.  And this is what justifies us in still giving a different functional status to the participant in the two cases.

The Case Of A Circumstance Being Inherent In The Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 243):

There are also, in fact, certain circumstances that are construed as inherent in a process. This happens with ‘enhancing’ clauses construing movement of a participant through space: here a circumstance of Place represents the destination of that movement and may be inherent in the process.  For example:

Did these books and articles put groceries on the table?

They carved its image into stone || and placed it on their temples and palaces.

On The Cline Between Participants And Circumstances

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 243):

Scope, Recipient and Client are clearly treated by the grammar as participants; for example, they are all candidates for subjecthood in a ‘receptive’ clause. However, at the same time, they are clearly located some distance towards circumstances on the cline between participants and circumstances, which is reflected in the fact that that, under certain conditions, they may be marked by a preposition [minor Process].

Attribute: Material Vs Relational Clause

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 243):

In a ‘material’ clause, the Attribute is always an optional added specification. In contrast, it is an inherent part of the configuration of a ‘relational’ clause and cannot be left out.

Blogger Comment:

But note that the Attribute is sometimes conflated with the relational process, as in Accuracy matters.

Depictive Attribute

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 242):

There is also a non-resultative variant of the Attribute. This is the depictive Attribute serving to specify the state in which the Actor or Goal is when it takes part in the process …

Resultative Attribute

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 242):

[The Attribute] enters into ‘material’ clauses in a restricted way. In certain clauses with an ‘elaborating’ outcome, the Attribute may be used to construe the resultant qualitative state of the Actor or Goal after the process has been completed … Such Attributes are called resultative Attributes. They are only marginal participants. While they are unlike cicumstances in that they are not marked by prepositions, they are also unlike true participants in that they cannot serve as Subject. There is in fact a closely related circumstance — the resultative Rôle or ‘product’ …

Scope Vs Goal: Grammatical Distinctions

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 242):

… the Scope cannot be probed by do to or do with, whereas the Goal can. Since nothing is being ‘done to’ it, a Scope element can never have a resultative Attribute added within the clause, as a (transformative) Goal can … Similarly, a Scope element can never be configured with a circumstance of Rôle of the ‘product’ type. The Scope cannot be a personal pronoun, and it cannot normally be modified by a possessive [so don’t cross my path!]. Moreover, although generalised Scope–receptive clauses … are quite common, Scope–receptive clauses with specific Actors are rare. Thus while a Goal readily becomes Subject … it is unusual to make a Scope element ‘modally responsible’ in this way …

Scope: Semantic Vs Grammatical Perspectives

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 241):

Semantically the Scope element is not in any very obvious sense a participant in the process — it is not directly involved in the process by bringing it about, being affected by it or benefiting from it; but grammatically it is treated as a participant. So it can become Subject of the clause …

Light/Vector Verbs & Cognate/Effective Objects

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 241n):

Jespersen (1942: 117) called verbs in such [Process + Scope] constructions ‘light verbs’, and this term is often used in the contemporary literature on English and also on other languages (e.g. Butt, 2003) – another term being ‘vector verb’. The Scope element in examples such as the candidate dances three dances, Waltz, Foxtrot and Quickstep, with an Amateur or Professional partner was traditionally recognised as a ‘cognate object’. Poutsma (1926) had noticed constructions with (in our terms) Process + Scope, characterising the verb realising the Process as having ‘vague meaning’ and calling the Scope an ‘effective object’; he analysed such configurations as ‘intransitive’.

Why Express A Process As Scope?

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 240-1):

… this structure enables us to specify further the number or kind of processes that take place. … The main reason for its prevalence is the greater potential that is open to nouns, in contrast to verbs, for being modified in different ways …

Scope: Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 240):

The Scope may be not an entity at all but rather another name for the process; … Consider I play tennis, where tennis is Scope. The game of tennis is clearly not an entity; there is no such thing as tennis other than the act of playing it.

Scope: Entity

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 240):

The Scope may construe an entity which exists independently of the process but which indicates the domain over which the process takes place. An example is You will be crossing some lonely mountains, so make sure you have enough petrol. … some lonely mountains specifies the range of the tourist’s crossing.

Material Clauses With Scopes

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 240):

… the Scope is restricted to ‘intransitive’ clauses (with the minor exception of clauses with give). This means that a material clause consisting of ‘nominal group + verbal group + nominal group’ can be either [transitive] Actor + Process + Goal or [intransitive] Actor + Process + Scope.

Material Clauses: 'Scope' [Defined]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 293-4):

In contrast the Scope of a ‘material’ clause is not in any way affected by the performance of the process. Rather it either (i) construes the domain over which the process takes place … or (ii) construes the process itself, either in general or specific terms … There is not, in fact, a sharp line between these two; they really lie along a single continuum.

Goal vs Recipient/Client

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 239):

Like the Goal, both Recipient and Client are affected by the process; but while the Goal is the participant that is impacted by the process, the Recipient/Client is the one that benefits from it.

The Realisation Of Recipients And Clients

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 239):

Most typically the Recipient/Client is realised by a nominal group denoting a human being; especially a personal pronoun, and most commonly of all a speech rôle (me, you, us), e.g. me in Mae West’s famous line Peel me a grape! But this is not necessarily so; the Recipient is a plant in did you give the philodendron some water?, and an abstract entity privilege in we... have today been given the rare privilege to be host to the nations of the world on our own soil. Nor, of course, is the ‘benefit’ necessarily beneficial: Claudius is Recipient in Locusta gave Claudius a dose of poison.

The Systemic Environment Of Clients

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 239):

With a Client, the ‘service’ may likewise be construed as the Goal, especially a Goal of the ‘created’ as distinct from the ‘transformed’ type, one that is brought into being by the process – the ‘creative’ type of ‘transitive material’ clause; e.g. a picture, this house in he painted John a picture, built Mary a house. But it is really the process that constitutes the service; hence a Client may also appear in an ‘intransitive’ clause – one that has no Goal, but has either Process + Scope, e.g. played Mary a tune, or else Process only, as in play for me. These last cannot appear without for (play me); in order to show that they are Client it is necessary to add a Scope element in final position (play for me – play a tune for me – play me a tune).

The Transfer Of Possession: Giving Vs Depriving

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 238-9, 239n):

Note that the transfer of possession can alternatively be modelled in the grammar as depriving somebody of something rather than as giving something to somebody; in this model, the original owner is construed either circumstantially as a locative source, as in take/steal/borrow money from a friend, or participantally as the Goal, with the goods being transferred construed circumstantially as Matter, as in rob/deprive him of [‘in respect of’] his money. … 

These two models for construing the experience of transfer of possession are thus grammatically distinct in English. The ‘giving’ model constitutes a distinct type in the grammar of transitivity – the configuration of Actor + Process + Goal + Recipient. In contrast, the ‘depriving’ model is not a distinct one; it is based on a more general pattern of participant + circumstance:

(i) [possession as participant] Actor + Process + Goal + Place (e.g. they took his most cherished belongings from him) or 

(ii) [original owner as participant] Actor + Process + Goal + Matter (e.g. they robbed him of his most cherished belongings).

To account for the relationship between these two lexicogrammatical models in English, we have to move up to the level of semantics.

The Systemic Environment Of Recipients

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 238):

Recipients and Clients occur in systemically different environments. Recipients occur only in ‘transitive transformative’ clauses of the ‘extending’ type; and within that category, they occur with those clauses that denote a transfer of the Actor’s possession of goods – transfer to the Recipient.  Here the Goal represents the ‘goods’ being transferred.

Blogger Comment:

Consider the intransitive instances But I gave generously to you.  Won't you now give to me in return?

'Give' + Scope

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 237n):

And there are clauses with give which, though superficially like transfer of possession, differ from these in that they do not exhibit the contrast between + preposition and – preposition. These are clauses with a nominalised verb as one participant, as in give somebody a kick/punch/kiss/hug. Thus while we can say, he gave the dog a kick, we are much less likely say he gave a kick to the dog. Such clauses are in fact mildly metaphorical variants of clauses where kick, punch, kiss, hug, etc. is a verb serving as the Process: he gave the dog a kick: he kicked the dog. This suggests that the nominalised verb is in fact a Scope rather than a Goal and that what might at first appear to be a Recipient is in fact construed as a Goal (and can thus be probed with do to/with): [Actor:] he [Process:] gave [Goal:] the dog [Scope:] a kick (cf. what he did to the dog was give it a kick but not what he did with the kick was give the dog it) …

Blogger Comments:

i.e.

congruent:

He	gave	the dog	a stick
Actor	Process: material	Recipient	Goal

but

He	gave	the dog	a kick
Actor	Process: material	Goal	Scope

is metaphorical for:

He	kicked	the dog
Actor	Process: material	Goal

So 'give' provides the only means of construing Scope in a transitive clause.

Material Clauses With Recipients

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 238, 238n):

Recipients and Clients occur in systemically different environments … Recipients occur only in ‘transitive transformative’ clauses of the ‘extending’ type; and within that category, they occur with those clauses that denote a transfer of the possession of goods.  Here the Goal represents the ‘goods’ being transferred… 

They are thus the material version of possessive relational clauses. Fawcett (1988) treats them as relational rather than as material. But in our interpretation, they are simply part of a general pattern of agnation between material clauses on the one hand and relational and existential ones on the other: creative material clauses are related to existential clauses and transformative material clauses to relational clauses (more specifically, elaborating transformation — intensive relation, extending transformation — possessive relation, and enhancing transformation — circumstantial relation).

Client vs Behalf

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 237):

Clients tend to be more restricted than Recipients; in I’m doing all this for Mary, for Mary is not a Client but a type of circumstance of Cause (Behalf).