Congruent Patterns Of Realisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 236-7):

In the congruent form the pattern of realisation is as follows:

Looking at these 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 which 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, clause complexes, and elements in the structure of the clause:

The elements making up a figure were of three kinds: a process, participants in that process, and circumstantial features. How did the grammar construe this classification? — as verbs, nouns, and other things:

The circumstance could be either some quality of the process or some participant that was indirectly involved: 

The Directionality Of The Congruent–Metaphorical Continuum

  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 235-6):

On all these grounds 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. Thus given the pair 

 

we shall locate the two with respect to each other on a metaphor scale as above. The expression engine failure evolved after the expression the engine failed in the evolution of industrial discourse; to explain in times of engine failure to a child you gloss it as whenever an engine failed (as one of the authors had to do to his 7-year-old son); the text would be likely to progress from loads were reduced, engines failed to reduced loading, engine failure rather than the other way round. 

And when we derive one from the other, we find ambiguity in one direction only: reduced loading might be agnate to loads were reduced, had been reduced or were lighter than usual; engine failure might be agnate to an engine failed, the engine failed or engines failed, and to ... failed or had failed in each case.

The Derivational Priority Of Congruent Wording

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 235):

We have also seen that there is a derivational priority because of the loss of information: given she announced that she was accepting we can derive the announcement of her acceptance, but given the announcement of her acceptance we do not know who made the announcement, she or someone else ('they'); whether she had accepted, was accepting or would accept; or whether it was a case not of her accepting but of her being accepted — twelve possible rewordings in all.

The Semogenetic Priority Of Congruent Wording

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 235):

If we view a set of metaphorically agnate wordings synoptically, any member of such a set appears metaphorical by reference to all the others. Given the announcement [was made] of his probable resignation and he announced that he would probably resign there is no reason to say that either is the less metaphorical. But if we view them dynamically, taking account of their relation in time, then in all three histories the same one precedes: he announced that he would probably resign comes before the announcement of his probable resignation. It evolved earlier in the language (phylogenesis); it is learnt earlier by children (ontogenesis); and it typically comes earlier in the text (logogenesis).

Lexical And Grammatical Metaphor Go Together

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 234):

Thus in many instances, not unexpectedly, lexical and grammatical metaphor go together. What we are most likely to be told, after the performance, is that the audience gave thunderous applause. In she felt a flood of relief there is not only the lexical metaphor of flood but also the grammatical metaphor of a flood of relief where intensity is represented as a Thing and the emotion as its Qualifier, contrasting with very relieved, with intensity brought in as Submodifier very to the Epithet relieved. 

Similarly, in the example of grammatical metaphor increased responsiveness may be reflected in feeding behaviour there was also the lexical metaphor reflected. 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 (often with morphological variation, e.g. we act effectively / the effectiveness of our actions).

Lexical Metaphors Have Grammatical Implications

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 234):

As Whorf s examples illustrate, lexical metaphors have grammatical implications: they occur at a 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 be also 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.

Whorf On Lexical Metaphor In Standard Average European

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 233-4):

More than half a century ago, Whorf (1956. 145-6) provided a revealing account of the metaphorical construction of the domains of duration, intensity, and tendency in English and other standard languages of Europe:

To fit discourse to manifold actual situations, all languages need to express durations, intensities, and tendencies. It is characteristic of Standard Average European and perhaps many other language types to express them metaphorically. The metaphors are those of spatial extension, i.e. of size, number (plurality), position, shape, and motion. We express duration by 'long, short, great, much, quick, slow,' etc.; intensity by 'large, great, much, heavy, light, high, low, sharp, faint' etc.; tendency by 'more, increase, grow, turn, get, approach, go, come, rise, fall, stop, smooth, even, rapid, slow'; and so on through an almost inexhaustible list of metaphors that we hardly recognise as such, since they are virtually the only linguistic media available. The nonmetaphorical terms in this field, like 'early, late, soon, lasting, intense, very, tending', are a mere handful quite inadequate to the needs.

It is quite clear how this condition "fits in". It is part of our whole scheme of OBJECTIFYING — imaginatively spatialising qualities and potentials that are quite nonspatial (so far as any spatially perceptive senses can tell us). Noun-meaning (with us) proceeds from physical bodies to referents of far other sorts. Since physical bodies and their outlines in PERCEIVED SPACE are denoted by size and shape terms and reckoned by cardinal numbers and plurals, these patterns of denotation and reckoning extend to the symbols of nonspatial meanings, and so suggest an IMAGINARY SPACE. Physical shapes 'move, stop, rise, sink, approach,' etc. in perceived space; why not these other referents in their imaginary space? This has gone so far that we can hardly refer to the simplest nonspatial situation without constant resort to physical metaphors. I "grasp" the "thread" of another's arguments, but if its "level" is "over my head" my attention may "wander" and "lose touch" with the "drift" of it, so that when he "comes" to his "point" we differ "widely," our "views" being indeed so "far apart" that the "things" he says "appear" "much" too arbitrary, or even "a lot" of nonsense!

The Domains Of Lexical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 233n):

Because of the vastness of lexis, we do not yet have a general description of lexical metaphorical syndromes or of the location of 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. 

Renton (1990: 513-514) lists 37 such motifs, which account for 87 %of the 4215 metaphorical items in his dictionary of metaphor. The most common are human body (23%), animals (9%), sport (4%), food & drink (4%), war A military (4%), buildings (4%), geography (4%), clothes (3%), nautical (3%), religion & biblical (3%), transport (2%), plants (2%), meteorology (2%), science & medicine (2%), colours (2%), commerce (2%), manufacture (1%), and the remaining types 1% or less. 

The descriptive challenge is to systematise the domains of lexical metaphor, as Lakoff & Johnson (1980) and researchers building on their framework have started to do.

Lexical Metaphor: Syntagmatic And Paradigmatic Characteristics

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"; for example, the metaphor congregation => flock forms a syndrome together with religious official => shepherd, group of believers => fold and so on. 

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'), as the same examples show.

Lexical And Grammatical Metaphor Differ in Delicacy

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; for example:

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. For example:

 

Lexical And Grammatical Metaphor Viewed 'From Above'

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 232):

The traditional approach to metaphor is to look at it 'from below' and ask what does a certain expression mean. For example the lexical metaphor flood means either, literally, an inundation of water or, metaphorically, an intense emotion as in she felt a flood of relief. But we could look 'from above' and ask how is intense emotion expressed. Then we would say it is expressed either, literally, as she felt very relieved or, metaphorically, as she felt a flood of relief. Once we look from above in this way, we can see that the phenomenon under discussion is the same as metaphor in its traditional sense except that what is varied is not the lexis but the grammar. Thus:

Here in (a) the lexico-semantic domain of 'volume' has been mapped onto the lexico-semantic domain of 'meteorological commotion'; while in (b) the grammatico-semantic domain of 'figures' has been mapped onto the grammatico-semantic domain of 'participants'. The metaphoric principle is the same in both cases; they differ only in generality.

Congruent And Metaphorical Variants

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 227):

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

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 is what we refer to as grammatical metaphor. Grammatical metaphor expands the semantic potential of the system.

The Motivation For Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 225-6):

The ideation 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.

Expansion Types And Figures Of Speech

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 225):

Specifically each type of expansion contributes one figurative mode, as in the following examples: 

In these examples the figures of speech are largely lexical; but the principle they illustrate — that because of the "play" that occurs between different strata the system has the potential for construing figurative meanings — extends throughout the grammar, as we shall see in the next chapter. What this means is, that whatever is construed can also be reconstrued, giving yet another dimension to the topology of semantic space.

Expansion And Projection As Resources For Figures Of Speech

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 225, 226):

Thus our concept of "construing experience through meaning" refers to the construal in human consciousness of an ideational system in which such motifs play a critical 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: for example, the types of expansion create new meaning potential through "figures of speech" (see Figure 5-15).

Examples Of Other Transphenomenal Motifs

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 225):

There are other "transphenomenal" motifs, often related to these, 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.

Expansion And Projection As Autogenic Resource

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 224-5):

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. 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" extralinguistic 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 on 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.

Blogger Comments:

Since SFL Theory assumes that there is no meaning outside semiotic systems, 'extralinguistic experience' can be understood as the construal of the meaningless by perceptual semiotic systems.

Fractal Agnation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 223-4):

Sequences, figures and elements, and their subclasses, constitute different environments within the ideation base. If we construe some phenomenon of experience as a sequence of qualification, we give it a location in the overall ideational system that is quite distinct from the location it would be assigned if it was construed as a figure of circumstantial cause. These two types are thus not particularly close agnates in the system, However, 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 For example, the sequence ebola broke out so 52 people died is agnate with the figure the outbreak of ebola caused 52 deaths even though they are quite far apart in their semantic structure.

The Patterns Of Transphenomenal Categories As Fractal Types

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 223, 224):

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. Projection and expansion are manifested at three levels of organisation: as sequences, as figures and as elements. Table 5(6) presents a partial summary of the cases we have discussed.

Expansion And Projection Manifested Across Phenomenal Domains

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 222-3):

Figure 5-14 shows the two motifs manifested in the environments of sequences, figures and elements.

Expansion And Projection In The Construal Of Domains Of Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 222):

These two motifs 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 of being. 

Major Ideational Motifs: Expansion And Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 222):

In addition to setting out the main dimensions and systems of ideational meaning, we have tried with this approach to bring out a small number of very general motifs that run throughout the grammar's construal of experience.

The first of these motifs is that of 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 regions boundaries to take in more, and enhancing the region's potential by enrichment from its environment.

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.

Circumstances That Are More Like Figures Than Participants

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 221-2):

But even within one language, however they are construed grammatically, the status of circumstantial elements is variable. In English, those that are nearer the centre of our helix are more like participants, as shown by the examples above; while those that are on the periphery are more like figures. We can give some examples of agnate pairs of this kind.

The Two-Faced Character Of Circumstances

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 221):

It is interesting to note how this two-faced character of circumstances — that they are on the one hand like participants and on the other hand like figures — is reflected in their treatment in languages other than English. In the way they are construed in the grammar, in a language such as Finnish, where what corresponds to the English preposition is often a "case" in the nominal group, they appear to be (relatively to English) closer to participants; while in a language such as Chinese, where what corresponds to the English preposition is typically a class of verb, they appear (again, relatively to English) closer to figures. But they typically seem to have a status that lies somewhere intermediate between the two.

Crossing Between The Two Types Of Circumstances

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 221):

Coming back now to the distinction between type (1) circumstances, those realised by adverbial groups, and type (2), those realised by prepositional phrases: as typically happens in language (since grammar abhors determinacy), we find a crossing between the two types. 

This happens mainly in one direction: there are prepositional phrases which construe qualities of figures, and hence function as circumstances of Manner; for example in a hurry, without proper care (cf. hurriedly, carelessly). Typically these may also appear as qualities of participants, as in he was in a hurry (realised as Attribute in a clause), a man in a hurry (Qualifier in a nominal group — not Epithet, since English does not like phrases and clauses before the Thing). These usually involve some kind of metaphor, either (as here) grammatical metaphor, where a quality or process is made to look like a participant, or lexical metaphor (metaphor in its traditional sense) as in they left the matter up in the air. 

Less commonly, we find a cross-over in the other direction; an example would be the adverb microscopically where this has the sense of 'using a microscope' (we examined the tissue microscopically).

Participants & Circumstances: 3 Kinds Of Mixed Categories Exemplified

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 220-1):

That those in (i) are being construed primarily as participants, whereas those in (ii) are being construed primarily as circumstances, is shown by a variety of other grammatical factors; to give just one example, the question equivalent to (i) is who? or what? (who did you give milk to?, not where did you give milk?), whereas the question equivalent to those in (ii) is how long?, when? (when are we meeting?, not what are we meeting on?). By the same token, in (iii) we have two different elements, one participant and one circumstance, but with hardly any difference between the two:

Participants And Circumstances: Three 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 circumstance, the other participant, but with very little difference in their meaning.

Agnation Between Participants, Circumstances And Figures

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 218-20):

Table 5(5) combines the two perspectives, showing their relationship both to participants and to figures. 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.

Table 5(5): Agnation between participants, circumstances and figures

The Relation Of Circumstantial Elements To Figures

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 218):

We are now looking at these same circumstantial elements from a complementary standpoint, from the point of view of their own internal composition. As we remarked, 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 prepositional phrase as a "Minirange"). This means that, shifting our perspective, we can also suggest how the circumstantial elements are related to different figures.

The Relation Of Circumstantial Elements To Participants

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 218):

Earlier we tried to suggest how the circumstantial elements were related to participants. There, we were 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 role. We were able to incorporate these two points in a helical form of presentation in Figure 4-14.

Circumstantial Elements Realised Grammatically As Prepositional Phrases

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 218):

Type (2), those circumstantial elements that are realised by prepositional phrases, are rather more complex, since they include another element — a participant — in their makeup ("macro circumstances"): e.g. the table, my knowledge, peace and quiet in right under the table, without my knowledge, for the sake of peace end quiet. 

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 Process in the main figure but is nevertheless related systematically to the spectrum of process types — mainly, though not exclusively, to processes of being.

Adverbial Groups Not Realising Circumstantial Elements

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 218):

Finally, some adverbial groups are interpersonal in function — the speaker's comment on the figure, like sensibly in sensibly, they didn't argue 'I consider their behaviour sensible' (contrast they didn't argue sensibly 'in a sensible manner'). These lie outside the ideational structure of the clause: they are not serving as qualities in the figure realised by the clause, but rather derive from features within the interaction base.

Circumstantial Elements Realised Grammatically As Adverbial Groups

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 217-8):

Circumstantial elements can be realised grammatically either as adverbial groups or as prepositional phrases. These represent circumstances of two different types.

Type (1) are qualities ("simple circumstances") — but construed not as qualities of a particular participant but as qualities of a figure as a whole; for example, steadily, extremely loudly, perfectly in it rained steadily all night, they were shouting extremely loudly, it suits your complexion perfectly. Typically such adverbs are derived in the grammar from adjectives, with the added suffix -ly; a few have special forms, like well (from good), and sometimes the same form is both adjective and adverb, e.g. fast in a fast car, she drives fast.

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. There are some adverbial expressions realising other types of circumstance, e.g. everywhere (Location: space), recently (Location: time); as well as others which 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).

Sometimes the Manner element is a quality of the process itself, rather than the manner in which it unfolds, for example he was falsely accused/wrongly dismissed; these tend to be bonded rather closely to the Process element in the clause. (The adverbial form also functions as a quality of a quality, like frostily, superficially in a frostily polite receptionist, what he says is superficially correct; here it is not a circumstantial element but is part of the Epithet in the nominal group.

The Salient Characteristic Of Processes

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 217):

From an ideational point of view, the temporality of processes is their salient characteristic. As we saw, there are no semantic or grammatical systems for construing processes into elaborate taxonomies, as there are for construing things. Apart from considerations of time we have also shown that processes can be classified according to their potential for serving in figures of different types.

Processes And Figures

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 217):

Obviously, choices made in all these parameters relate to the figure as a whole (at least; they may have implications for longer stretches of discourse). The major process types — the primary categories of sensing, saying, doing & happening, being & having — tend to have inherently different temporal characteristics, affecting all aspects of the way time is construed: in terms of what temporal categories are possible, what the relative probabilities are, and what the different choices mean (note for example the total lack of proportionality in pairs such as I go : I'm going ≠ I know : I'm knowing). Part of the meaning of any fragment of experience is its potentiality for being variably construed in time.

Patterns Of Time In English: 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 bounded use up (use some salt — but don't use it 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.

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: Phase

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 216):

Temporal staging is explicit and lexicalised, with a basic system of categories as shown in Figure 5-13; for example

… but the money kept on not coming through

The combination of staging with perspective has already been referred to; note in this connection sequences such as

where the move in staging creates an increasing semantic distance between the two perspectives. 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: Aspect

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 215):

By comparison with temporal location, temporal perspective (aspect) is relatively backgrounded in English. (Some 20th century grammarians have interpreted the serial location as a kind of aspect, with "present in ..." as continuous, "past in ..." as perfect; but the earlier description as we have presented it here accounts more richly for the semantic patterning.) 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. Sometimes the difference in meaning is very slight (e.g. a way of doing it/the way to do it)', but it is always there.

Patterns Of Time In English: 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' [they paid me/they pay me/ they will pay me], but also as past/present/future relative to some moment that is relative to now [they are going to pay me (future in present), they've been paying me (present in past in present)], 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 [they'd already paid me, they've just paid me, they soon paid me]. Interestingly, the deictic time reference (that appealing to 'now') can be switched off; either there is no deixis (the clause is non-finite, e.g. not having paid me yet...) or the deixis takes the form of modality (speaker's angle on the process, e.g. they should have paid me).

Patterns Of Association Among The Four Temporal Parameters Of The Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 214-5):

Each of these variables differs from all the others; but at the same time, each is related to all the others, so that there are certain patterns of association among them. For example, a process that is unbounded (e.g. travel) is more likely than one that is bounded (e.g. arrive) to be put under temporal focus (e.g. while travelling is more likely than while arriving); a process located in the future is more likely to be beginning than ending (e.g. it will start warming up is more common than it will finish warming up). Some combinations may be more or less excluded: for example, a process that is beginning can vary in its perspective (e.g. the sun started to shine/started shining), whereas one that is ending is always actualised (e.g. the sun stopped shining; but not the sun stopped to shine). Thus, 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.

Four Basic Parameters In The Construal Of Experience As 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)

(2) the temporal perspective on a process: we may frame it in or out of temporal focus. This takes many different guises in different languages, and 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.)

(underlying concept: a process relates to the flow of experience as a whole, including other processes)

(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)

(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) …

When these parameters are grammaticised, they are referred to respectively as 

(1) phase,

(2) aspect,

(3) aktionsart,

(4) tense.

The Construal Of Experience As Time

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 213-4):

It is not easy to construe experience of time, and different languages vary considerably in the way they do it: there are differences from one language to another, and differences within the same language over the course of time. Like everything else we are exploring here, the 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.

 

Blogger Comments:

This wording construes time as transcendent of semiotic systems, which is inconsistent with the epistemological assumption of SFL Theory that all meaning is immanent of semiotic systems. On this assumption, time is meaning construed of experience, not "pre-existing" meaning that is modelled by languages.

Process

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 the construal of 'eventing' — a phenomenon perceived as having extension in time.

Participants vs Processes

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 a 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 a categorisation of the Thing. But while the Thing is enmeshed in an 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.

The Process As The Central Element Of A Figure

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 roles, of which one is 'that participant in which the process is actualised' (if there is 'flying', there has to be something that flies or is flown: birds fly, people fly kites); hence the grammatical nucleus of the clause is the configuration of Process with Medium.

Qualities Of Enhancement

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 212):

Qualities of enhancement also resemble those of 'elaboration: identity' and those of extension in that they construe a relation between the 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) after, 
preceding : be (come) before/precede, 
interior : be within, 
exterior : be outside, 
as in previous occasions : occasions coming before this one, 
interior design : design of what is within a house. 

This relation is 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 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 purely 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 role, that of Numerative (as in two/many brave volunteers).

Qualities Of Expansion

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 vs Depictive and Resultative Attributes

  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 210):

Qualities of projection are unlikely or impossible as the Attribute of figures of doing (thus it is hard to interpret she polished it certain [contrast she polished it clean] and while we can say he drove her mad [caused figure of being] and he drove the car hot [figure of doing with Attribute], we cannot say he drove the car mad).

Blogger Comments:

I certainly can. In this instance, mad is an Attribute that depicts the emotional state of the driver.

Qualities Of Projection As Agnate With Modality and Attitude

 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 As Agnate With Processes Of Sensing

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 210):

Qualities of projection are all scalar and they are, as we just noted, 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, realised by v-en if verbal in origin: happy, sad, angry, afraid, frightened, certain, sure) or with the Phenomenon (the 'please' type, realised by v-ing if verbal in origin: sad(dening), tragic, irritating, scary, certain). 

From this it follows that when they are agnate with the Senser, they are ascribed to conscious beings (as in an angry child/boss/cat), whereas when they are agnate with the Phenomenon, they can be ascribed not only to things but also to metathings, i.e. to projections (as in it's sad(dening)/tragic/irritating/scary/certain that they ignore world opinion). In the former case, these qualities may be 'transferred' to tokens of the senser's sensing, as in an angry face/look/letter/reaction.

A Very Tentative Classification Of Qualities

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 209, 211):

Table 5(4) suggests a very tentative classification.

Qualities Of Projection And Expansion

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 in figures of sensing; for example, happy in the happy child (or the child is happy) is agnate with rejoice in the child rejoices. 

In contrast, qualities of expansion display patterns of agnation within figures of 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.

The Semantic Movement In The Nominal Group

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 209, 210):

We suggested above that 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. 

The former 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 (see Haliiday, 1976:131-5, for the systems). In contrast, elements at the latter end tend to be construed in complex taxonomies. That is, greater experiential complexity is handled by means of greater taxonomic complexity. 

The semantic movement in the nominal group is summarised in Figure 5-12. Qualities lie at different places along these various dimensions; hence they vary in their potential for taking on roles in different types of figure.

Quality As Depictive Attribute vs Manner Circumstance

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 208-9):

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:

As always with such closely agnate expressions, while they are semantically related they are not synonymous; we could even imagine a figure such as he walked in drunk quite soberly. But they make the point that a quality, when attached to the figure as an Attribute (rather than to a participant as in the drunken man walked in/ the man who walked in was drunk), 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.

Quality As Feature Of The Process

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.

The Intermediate Status Of Qualities

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.

The Attribute Is Not A Prototypical Participant

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 a 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; compare the truck was very heavy / a very heavy one (i.e. "heavy for a truck') with the chair was very heavy / a very heavy one (i.e. 'heavy for a chair'). Hence it is not possible to re-instate the thing where the Attribute occurs as resultative in a process of doing: we do not say I've wiped it a dry plate or I've wiped the plate a dry one.

Things vs Qualities: Different Kinds Of Role In Participant Structure

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 207):

We said that both things and qualities are construed as participants. This does not mean that they are different kinds of participant. Rather, it means that within the structure of a participant, they serve different kinds of role.

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 role 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 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.

Qualities: Between Things And Processes

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 equally clearly related to the verb.) Here English is similar to Latin, where in the traditional grammars a general class "noun" was classified into "noun substantive" and "noun adjective":

Things As The Frame Of Reference Of Qualities

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 206):

Since qualities are assigned to things, they are construed with things as their frame of reference: in the first instance, a quality characterises a thing relative to other things in the same (primary) class. Thus a thick book is not a 'thick thing'; rather, it is a 'thick book' as opposed to a 'slim book': the scale of 'thick' to 'slim' is relative to book and a thick book would be much thicker than a thick envelope. This characteristic is particularly noticeable with scalar qualities, which have received particular attention in semantic studies; but it is also, in principle, a feature of taxonomic adjectives — even those construing complex classes. For example, the criteria for assigning 'wooden' to a 'spoon', a 'house' and a 'carriage' are fairly different in terms of the actual material make-up of these things.

Three Kinds Of Qualities

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 206):

These values may be of three kinds, according to the type of contrast they set up: 

(i) binary, e.g. ('dead'/'alive'); 

(ii) scalar, e.g. ('happy/'sad'); 

(iii) taxonomic, e.g. 'wooden'/'plastic'/'stone'/... . 

Of the three, the most complex, experientially, are the taxonomic qualities; for example, the taxonomy of materials (whether a folk taxonomy or one that is more scientifically informed) is based on a variety of different features, such as (in a folk taxonomy) its appearance, its texture, its range of functions, its relative value in different contexts, and the like. Taxonomic qualities are thus the closest to things; they are often realised as denomina! adjectives, or even as nouns, and they tend to function as Classifier rather than Epithet (i.e. they sort things into classes rather than describing them).

Qualities (vs Things)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 205-6):

The discussion of 'facets' illustrates the difference between things and qualities of things; it also illustrates the indeterminacy of the distinction. Let us begin our discussion of qualities by relating them to things.

[Previously] we discussed the complementary contributions made by qualities and things in the construal of participants. We showed that qualities and things differ in two related respects, temporal stability and experiential complexity: things tend to persist through time and to represent intersections of many dimensions, whereas qualities tend to be less stable through time and tend to represent values on single dimensions. Qualities thus construe values on dimensions such as size (e.g., 'big/ small'), weight ('heavy/light'), and shape ('round'/ 'square'/ 'rectangular'/ 'oval'...).

Cohesive Function Of Expansions As Things

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 205):

As with names of projections, names of expansions often serve a role in creating cohesion in discourse: e.g. Instances such as these ..., Another way of approaching the situation ..., That aspect hadn't occurred to me. Such expressions construe preceding figures and sequences as participants in their turn, and so enable the speaker or writer to make explicit the organisation of the discourse itself.

Expansions As Things: Ambivalence

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 205):

Since things of these various kinds are the names of semantic relationships, it is not surprising that their status is somewhat ambivalent. Consider an expression such as a volume of poetry: this may be volume as Thing, qualified as being concerned with poetry, e.g. she picked up an old volume of poetry from the shelf, or Facet (extending: amount), e.g. she has just published a new volume of poetry. The latter example shows up the nature of the ambivalence: the quality 'new' is presumably a quality of the poetry (cf. I'd like a strong cup of tea). 

Similarly we have the ambivalent relationship between parts and wholes (the basis of synecdoche), and between symbols and what they represent, regarding which to construe as the participant in particular figure. In general, the uncertainty that arises is whether the expansion is to be construed as an independent thing or as a facet of something other than itself. This uncertainty is sometimes foregrounded under pressure from the textual metafunction: as Theme, for example, do we say the end of that story you're never going to hear! or that story you're never going to hear the end of?

Enhancements As Things

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 204-5):

Things of the enhancing type have already been cited as a micro category. They construe one or other of the general logical semantic relations of cause, manner, time and place. As Facet, they specify some circumstance of an element functioning as Thing: the cause/result/purpose of the breakdown, the manner of the breakdown, the time/occasion of the breakdown, the place/location of the breakdown; cf. also the circumstances of the breakdown. As Thing, they give the logico-semantic relation itself the status of participant; here the usual words are reason, way, time, place, and the phenomenon becomes a figure realised by a qualifying clause: the reason/way/time/place we broke down. These are closest to the borderline with projections: we may have either expansion the reason for which we broke down, or projection (the reason) why we broke down. Those with 'reason' and 'way' often enter into an identifying relation with some other figure; for example, the reason we broke down was that/because the engine overheated.

Extensions As Things

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 204):

Similarly, those of the extending type may also function in either of these two grammatical roles. As Facet, they specify some quantity (either by container, e.g. a jar of jam, or by division, e.g. a piece of cake), some aggregate (e.g. a crowd of onlookers), some aspect or component (e.g. the other side of the argument, the top of the mountain, the trunk of the tree), or something added or substituted (e.g. an extension of your ideas, the latest addition to the family, an alternative to this proposal). As Thing, again, they are participants, typically concrete objects (e.g. a glass jar, the top [= lid] of the canister, build an extension on the property).

Elaborations As Things

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 204):

Those of the elaborating type may function in the nominal group either as Thing or as Facet. As Facet (always constructed with of), they serve to construe the element functioning as Thing in some particular guise or perspective; for example, picture in this will give you a general picture of the situation, kind in a jet cat is a kind of passenger vessel, example in there were no examples of successful integration. As Thing, they are participants in their own right, either 'objects' (e.g. is that picture for sale) or 'abstractions' (e.g. Darwin showed how species first evolved).

Expansions As Things

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 204):

Certain categories of thing denote an element which is an expansion of something else, either elaborating it ('kind of', 'instance of', or 'symbol of'), extending it ('part of', 'amount of', 'collection of, or 'extension of'), or enhancing it ('time of', 'place of', 'cause of', 'manner of'). The following are some typical examples:

Cohesive Functions Of Projections As Things

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 203):

Things of this type have an important role in discourse, because they function anaphorically to refer to (and at the same time to classify) previous sections of text interpreted as projection. For example:

[Graham's] simulated atmosphere evolved in much the same way as the real atmosphere had – the temperature rose, and evaporation and rainfall over the tropical ocean increased closely matching actual records.

Based on these findings, Graham concludes that the increases in sea surface temperatures could well have caused the intensification of the hydrological cycle, explaining the warming.

Projections As Things: Four Subtypes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 203):

Things of this type fall into four subcategories, defined by their interaction with modality: cases, chance, proofs and needs. Cases represent simple facts; chances represent facts to which some degree of modalisation is attached; proofs are demonstrations of facts. The fourth category, that of needs, are facts accompanied by modulation, that is, where the projection is that of a proposal rather than a proposition.

Projections As Things

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 203):

Things of this category are the names of types of projection; in the taxonomy of things, they are semiotic abstractions, some discrete and some non-discrete, and as a grammatical class they are referred to under the heading of fact nouns. They are grammatically distinct because they can function as Thing in a nominal group with a fact clause as Qualifier, e.g. the notion that pigs can fly. Such clauses have the property that they can stand alone as participants in a figure, e.g. that pigs can fly is an intriguing notion.

Projections And Expansions Construed As Things

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 202):

In the various categories of thing we find a manifestation of the same very general semantic principles that we have established before, the principles of projection and expansion. Certain categories of thing have grammatical properties that relate them to one or the other, see Figure 5-9.

Strategies For Assigning Qualities To Things

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 201-2):

It will be clear that both these strategies, the expansion of word to group and the accumulation of contrasting words, are strategies for assigning qualities to things: we can gloss a slipper, for example, as a soft supporting garment worn by either sex at the lower extremities of the body. In general the qualities involved will come from the same semantic domains in either case; and there is often fluctuation between the two strategies within the language — we sometimes talk of slippers and sometimes of soft shoes. …

And although we have presented the two strategies as discrete, there are of course intermediate modes of construing that form a continuum between the two: noun-compounding (more syntagmatic) and morphological derivation (more paradigmatic). So we find compounds such as pushbike, motorbike; and derivational series like cycle : bicycle, monocycle, tricycle. It is not difficult to invent new categories if we need them such as bikelet or megabike. Note also the morphological strategy for deriving casual terms from formal ones: bicycle > bike (cf. omnibus > bus). 

The sort of strict taxonomy that is typically associated with related series of nominal groups is often a feature of special registers of the language. The limiting cases of such taxonomies are those found in the specialised technical registers of science and technology; these include some which are partially or even wholly designed in a conscious exploitation of the grammatical resources involved. The "things" that are construed in this way include the more abstracts concepts of a scientific theory, the virtual objects that are postulated to explain the more arcane phenomena that impinge on human experience.

The Principle Of Lexis As Most Delicate Grammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 198-9):

This resource, the construal of systematically related lexico-semantic sets, illustrates well the principle of "lexis as most delicate grammar" (Halliday, 1961; Hasan, 1987; Matthiessen, 1991b; Cross, 1993). We have discussed above the principle that categories in the experiential grammar are ordered in delicacy, so that starting from the very general types of process that are construed into figures, we can differentiate both processes and participants into finer and finer subcategories, until we reach the degree of differentiation that is associated with the choice of words (lexical items). Note that it is not (usually) the lexical items themselves that figure as terms of the systems in the network. Rather, the systems are systems of features, and the lexical items come in as the synthetic realisation of particular feature combinations. Thus lexis (vocabulary) is part of a unified lexicogrammar; there is no need to postulate a separate "lexicon" as a pre-existing entity on which the grammar is made to operate.

Construing Things Paradigmatically

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 198):

But we also have to recognise that there is a systematic relationship among a set of terms such as bicycle, tandem, scooter, car, van, truck and bus. Here the form of wording gives no clue to any such relationship; all we have is an inventory of different words. Yet these also form some kind of a taxonomic set: they are all wheeled vehicles. We can have taxonomies of things without using the syntagmatic resources of the nominal group, simply by the device of naming — the organising principle is not syntagmatic but paradigmatic.

But there is a difference. The paradigmatic strategy, that of inventing new names, typically construes sets of things which are systemically related but not in a relationship of strict taxonomy. This resource is typically associated with feature networks: that is, networks made up of systems of features, such that each lexical item (as the name of a thing) realises a certain combination of these features selected from different systems within the network — a particular clustering of values of systemic variables.

Construing Things Syntagmatically

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 197):

The expanded form of the nominal group makes explicit the systematic taxonomic relationship which links one thing with another: it is clear that (theoretically at least) a touring bike is a kind of bike, a bicycle wheel is a kind of wheel. It is always possible, of course, to expand in a metaphorical way, as with cart wheel (in turning cart wheels) and Catherine wheel (a kind of firework); these are not, strictly speaking, kinds of wheel, so we have to recognise either that these fall outside the taxonomic organisation or that the taxonomy itself is being extended metaphorically. But this does not affect the general principle at work; indeed, it is the taxonomic principle which makes such divergence possible.

Construing Things Into Strict Taxonomies

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 197):

This syntagmatic resource serves prototypically to construe things into strict taxonomies, based on the principle of hyponymy. Thus a touring bike is a kind of bike, a reinforced touring bike is a kind of touring bike, and so on. Since touring is a Classifier, this means that it is one of a defined set: perhaps touring/racing/mountain/exercise/trail. Epithets do not assign classes, but they specify a particular dimension of taxonomic space: e.g. source European/American/Japanese...'.

One type of classification is meronymic (part-whole), where the thing is classified by the whole of which it forms a part, e.g. bicycle wheel 'wheel (that forms part) of a bicycle'. These are often indeterminate in meaning: if definite, they tend to be strictly meronymic (somebody stole my bicycle wheel), whereas if indefinite, they are often classifying by type (the kids were playing with a bicycle wheel 'wheel for/ from a bicycle').

The Syntagmatic Potential Of The Nominal Group

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 197):

We have referred above to the syntagmatic potential of the nominal group: how the grammar builds up the representation of a thing, expanding outwards by modification. For example:

The expansion proceeds by adding qualities; these qualities, as we have seen, are typically ordered in English from right to left according to the degree of systemicity, with the most systemic (most permanent, least particularised) at the right, the most instantial (least permanent, most particularised) at the left. Broadly speaking these are distributed by the grammar into distinct functions as Classifier, Epithet, Numerative, and Deictic.

Micro Category Of Thing: Nuisances

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 196):

Nuisances: nuisance, mess, disaster, shambles

General category: 'abstraction'

Particular features: formed as countable (a nuisance) but largely restricted to singular indefinite (forms such as nuisances, the nuisance, your nuisance are rare and outside this category); typically exclamative and/or ascriptive (that's a mess; what a mess), and accompanied by interpersonal Epithets (a horrible shambles, an utter disaster).

Micro Category Of Thing: Types Of Enhancement

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 196):

Types of enhancement: reason, time, place, way

General category: between 'semiotic object' and 'abstraction'

Particular features: countable, though typically occurring in singular; are names for major circumstantial classes (reason : why; time : when; place : where; way : how); can be qualified by relative clause (without the need for a circumstantial marker did you see the way [that] they glared at us?), varying with clause having corresponding relative adverb (did you see how they glared at us?), and sometimes both together (do you know the reason why they glared at us?).

Micro Category Of Thing: Drinks

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 196):

Drinks: coffee, beer, whiskey

General category: 'substance'

Particular features: whereas in general a substance, if counted, means 'a kind of' (these soils are less fertile), the counted form of this category may mean either 'a kind of' (I like this coffee) or 'a measure of' (Would you like a beer? Two coffees please!).