Fred thinks something; this is a mental event. To represent it, I use a ‘mental’ clause Fred thought, plus a report of his mental act (that) it had stopped. The two have unequal status (hypotactic), because one is a wording while the other is a meaning. That is to say, my locution Fred thought is a lexicogrammatical phenomenon, but Fred’s idea ‘that it had stopped’ is a semantic one.
Jill says something; this is a verbal event. To represent it, I use a ‘verbal’ clause Jill said, plus a quote of her verbal act ‘It’s raining’. The two have equal status (paratactic), because both are wordings. That is to say, both my locution Jill said and Jill’s locution it’s raining are lexicogrammatical phenomena.
A fact is thus analogous, as a form of projection, to what we call an ‘act’ as a form of expansion. Each represents the least prototypical form of its own general category; and hence the least differentiated. Whereas there is a clear distinction between expansion and projection in their finite clausal forms … there is only a minimal distinction, and perhaps even blending, between (projection: fact) she liked the snow falling (that the snow was falling) and (expansion: act) she watched the snow falling (as the snow was falling). Seeing that facts and acts come so close together in this way, we can understand how it is that the same scale of interdependency types (parataxis/hypotaxis/rank-shift) is associated with both these logical-semantic relations.
It is still a meaning, a semantic abstraction, not some third type differing both from meanings and from wordings (indeed there is no third level to which it could belong). But it is not a meaning created in anybody’s consciousness, nor is it emitted by any signal source; it is simply got up so as to function as a participant in some other process — typically a relational process, but sometimes also a mental or verbal one.
As with propositions, there is an impersonal form of expression, it is required/expected that you wait in line; these are the imperative (proposal) equivalents of it is said/thought that… with propositions. They have an important function as ‘objective modulations’ whereby the speaker disclaims responsibility for making the rules.
… needs (nouns of modulation) relate to proposals, which are inherently modulated — eg ‘it is necessary for…to…’. These again have no corresponding mental process verbs; they differ from nouns like order (the name of a verbal process) and insistence (the name of a mental process) in the same way that fact differs from thought and statement — they do not imply a Sayer or a Senser. Like a proposition, a proposal may either be embedded as Qualifier to one of these nouns … or may function on its own as a nominalisation …
A fact, as already pointed out, is an impersonal projection. However, it is possible for a fact to enter into a ‘mental’ process clause without being projected by it. In this case it functions as a Phenomenon within the mental process clause. For example:The fact [[that he rides in such exalted company]] will not deter Scott.
Another minor but significant environment in which fact clauses occur is that of ‘existential’ clauses (an environment favoured by evidence):There is evidence [[that the Russians were just as surprised as anyone else…]]
… we also need to take note of ‘attributive’ clauses where the Carrier is realised by a nominal group denoting a person and the Attribute is a nominal group with an embedded fact clause, either ‘possessive’ with a noun as Head (eg idea, notion, inkling [[that…]]) or ‘intensive’ with an adjective as Head of the nominal group (eg sure, certain, aware, cognizant, oblivious (of the fact) [[that…]]; … These ‘personal’ ‘attributive’ clauses are closely agnate with projecting ‘mental’ clauses: they have no idea ~ they don’t know, I’m not sure ~ I don’t know.
In an ‘identifying’ clause, the fact clause serving as Token is identified with a Value realised by a nominal group with a noun as Head that typically belongs to the class of fact nouns; this fact noun may itself be qualified by an embedded fact clause. The Value is an interpretation of the fact clause, identifying it as a specific fact, reason, problem, lesson, difficulty, etc.
In an ‘attributive’ clause, the Attribute ascribed to the fact clause serving as Carrier is realised by a nominal group with an adjective or noun as Head belonging to one of a small number of classes. … Several of the types are similar to classes of interpersonal Adjunct and two of them can also be related to types of sensing in ‘mental’ clauses. …The ‘attributive’ clause may have an agnate ‘mental’ clause of the ‘please’ type: it is surprising that… ~ it surprises me that…; the equivalent of the Senser in the ‘mental’ clause is a circumstance of Angle.
Strictly speaking the embedded ‘fact’ clause functions as Head of a nominal group which in turn functions as an element in the ranking clause. This analysis shows how clauses serving as Head are agnate with clauses serving as Postmodifier in nominal groups with a fact noun as Head: that Cæsar was ambitious is obvious : the fact that Cæsar was ambitious is obvious. But since a fact clause functioning as Head takes up the whole nominal group we can just as well leave out that stage in the structural analysis and show it as directly embedded into the clause …
Other than impersonals such as it is said, it is rumoured, it seems, the typical environment for a fact is a ‘relational’ process clause of the ‘intensive’ type, either ‘attributive’ or ‘identifying’ … Here the fact is an embedded clause standing as a nominalisation on its own, functioning as the realisation of an element in the relational process clause … Since it is embedded, there is always an agnate version where the fact clause serves as Qualifier of a noun of the ‘fact’ class, for example the fact that Cæsar was ambitious.
While there is no participant doing the projecting — no Sayer or Senser — a fact may be projected impersonally, either by a relational process (‘it is the case that…’) or by an impersonal mental or verbal process, as in:[i] relational:it is/may be/is not (the case) that …it happens (to be the case) that …it has been shown/can be proved (to be the case) that …it happened/came about that …[ii] mental: impersonalit seems/appears/is thought (to be the case) that …[iii] verbal: impersonalit is said/rumoured (to be the case) that …Here the it is not a participant in the projecting process but is simply a Subject placeholder; hence the fact clause can occupy its position at the front: that Cæsar was ambitious is certainly the case/is widely held/is generally believed, etc.
A fact clause serving as Head in a nominal group without a fact noun can be related to the first class of fact noun — that of ‘cases’, since such a fact clause is always agnate with an expanded nominal group with fact as Head. Whether the nominal group has a fact noun as Head or not, the fact clause is embedded. Because there is no projecting process involved, to which it could be paratactically or hypotactically related, a fact can appear on in embedded form: either as Qualifier to a ‘fact’ noun, or as a nominalisation on its own.
There are four subclasses of fact noun: (1) cases, (2) chances, (3) proofs and (4) needs. The first three go with embedded propositions whereas the last goes with embedded proposals … . The first three differ in terms of the modality of the subtype of modalisation:
(1) cases (nouns of simple fact) relate to ordinary non-modalised propositions ‘it is the case that …’
(2) chances (nouns of modality) relate to modalised propositions ‘it may be (the case) that …’(3) proofs (nouns of indication) relate to propositions with indications, which are equivalent to caused modalities, ‘this proves/implies (ie makes it certain/probable) that …’
There is one other type of projection, where the projected clause is not being projected by a verbal or mental process with Sayer or Senser, or by a verbal or mental process noun in a metaphorical nominal group, but comes as it were ready packaged in projected form. We refer to this type as a fact. … Consider That Cæsar was dead was obvious to all. Here that Cæsar was dead is certainly a projection; but there is no process of saying or thinking which projects it. Its status is simply that of a fact; and it can indeed function as Qualifier to the noun fact, for example the fact that Cæsar was dead was obvious to all.
Thus verbal processes, and mental: cognitive processes, project in the indicative mode (propositions), while verbal processes, and mental: desiderative processes, project in the imperative mode (proposals). The projecting environment may be a verbal or mental process clause, or a (metaphorical) nominal group with a verbal or mental process noun (locution or idea) as its Head.
Nouns that project belong to clearly belong to clearly defined classes, verbal process nouns (locutions) and mental process nouns (ideas); they correspond rather closely to, and in many instances are derived from, the verbs used in the projecting clause, especially the reporting ones. …
… the noun is the name of a locution or an idea, and the clause that it projects serves to define it in exactly the same way that a ‘restrictive’ relative clause defines the noun that is expanded by it. Hence any noun that belongs to a projecting class may be defined (restricted) in either of these two ways, either by projection (eg the thought [[that she might one day be queen]]) or by expansion (eg the thought [[that came into her mind]]). This leads to ambiguities such as the report [[that he was submitting]] …
The intonation pattern of free indirect speech is still further anomalous, since it follows that of quoting and not that of reporting: the projected clause takes the intonation that it would have had if quoted (that is, identical with its unprojected form), and the projecting clause follows it as a ‘tail’. This is because the projected clause still has the status of an independent speech act.
Strictly speaking it is not so much intermediate [between direct and indirect speech] as a blend: it has some features of each of the other two types. The structure is paratactic, so the projected clause has the form of an independent clause retaining the mood of the quoted form; but it is a report and not a quote, so time and person are shifted. This is another example of the semogenic principle whereby the system fills up a slot it has created for itself. … To accommodate free indirect speech in our account, we thus need to [dissociate] the quote vs report variable from the parataxis vs hypotaxis one … Free indirect speech can be projected both verbally and mentally, and includes both propositions and proposals — everything, in fact, that can be both quoted and reported (thus excluding minor speech functions since they can only be quoted).—
* 'Free indirect speech' encompasses a range of different feature combinations; it is a projection 'space' rather than a single invariant pattern. The account given here represents it in its prototypical form.
This is why so, which is a clause substitute, has the general sense of ‘non-real’, by contrast with what is ‘real’. Besides projection, where it signifies what is asserted or postulated, it is used in two other contexts: hypothetical, as opposed to actual, and possible, as opposed to certain.
In ‘verbal’ process clauses, therefore, he said that simply attests his production of the wording, whereas he said so raises the issue of whether what he said is in fact the case. With ‘mental’ process clauses the picture is more complex, since the reference form that tends to be associated with certainty and the substitute so with uncertainty; the principle is actually the same, but it is operating in a different environment. The principle is that a substitute does not refer; it simply harks back. It thus has the general semantic property of implying, and so excluding, possible alternatives; cf the nominal substitute one as in a big one, meaning ‘there are also small ones, and I don’t mean those’.
There are different ways of referring back to what is quoted and what is reported. Typically a reference item, usually that, is used to pick up a quoted passage, while a substitute, so/not, is used with a report. … This is because the act of quoting implies a prior referent, some actual occasion that can then be referred back to, whereas in reporting there is nothing but the reported text. This explains the difference in meaning between I don’t believe that ‘I do not accept that assertion as valid’ and I don’t believe so ‘in my opinion such is not the case’.
… the imperative is a somewhat indeterminate category, having some features of a finite and some features of a non-finite clause. Similarly, the category of a reported imperative (‘indirect command’) is not very clearly defined. But non-finite clauses with to, following a verb such as tell or order, can be interpreted as reported proposals. They similarly display properties of ‘indirect speech’ …
If the reported clause is interrogative it typically shifts into the declarative; the declarative is the unmarked mood, and is used in all clauses that do not select for mood independently, including all dependent clauses. A yes/no interrogative becomes declarative, introduced by if or whether; a WH- interrogative becomes declarative with the WH- element remaining at the front.
… a reported proposition typically takes on a set of related features collectively known as ‘indirect speech’. What happens is that all deictic elements are shifted away from reference to the speech situation: personals away from first and second person (speaker and listener) to third, and demonstratives away from near (here-&-now) to remote.
There is thus a cline from the reporter’s own voice via reported voices to quoted ones. The quoted material is closest to the reporter’s news source whereas the reported material is already, at least potentially, at some distance from what was actually said. … Quoting and reporting are thus two distinct modes of projection, representing two degress of remove from the original source.
In quoting, the projected element has independent status; it is thus more immediate and lifelike, and this effect is enhanced by the orientation of the deixis, which is that of drama not that of narrative. Quoting is particularly associated with certain narrative registers, fictional and personal; it is used not only for sayings but also for thoughts, including not only first-person thoughts … but also third-person thoughts projected by an omniscient narrator … . Reporting, on the other hand, presents the projected element as dependent. It still gives some indication of mood, but in a form which precludes it from functioning as a move in an exchange. And the speaker makes no claim to be abiding by the wording.
With the ‘mental’ reporting of ideas, there is an important distinction between propositions and proposals, deriving from their fundamental nature as different forms of semiotic exchange. Whereas propositions, which are exchanges of information, are projected mentally by processes of cognition — thinking, knowing, understanding, wondering, etc — proposals, which are exchanges of goods-&-services, are projected mentally by processes of desire … . Thus, while propositions are thought, proposals are hoped.