Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 153):
In figures of saying, the Sayer is the symbolic source: prototypically human, but not necessarily so (e.g. the instructions tell you to switch it off first). The Process is symbolic; but here too there is a subtype of figures of saying that imparts a similar sense of action and impact, those where the Sayer ‘does something to’ another participant by means of a verbal process, as in Don’t blame the messenger, Everybody praised her courage. We refer to this participant as the Target; and again, we may note a partial analogy with figures of doing (though only partial — for example, such figures cannot take a resultative Attribute or other representation of the outcome.