Within clauses of intensive attribution, we can distinguish three simultaneous contrasts:
(i) the class denoted by the Attribute may be defined by reference to an entity or to a quality;
(ii) the process of attribution may be neutral or phased; and
(iii) the domain of attribution may be either material or semiotic.
The ['attributive'] clauses are not reversible: there are no ‘receptive’ forms, such as complete nonsense is sounded by your story; while clauses such as a poet is Paula, wise is Sarah, are archaic or literary variants, not systemically agnate forms.
the
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thought
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the
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edible
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Attributor
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Process: attributive
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Carrier
|
Attribute
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the
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were thought
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edible
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by the
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Carrier
|
Process: attributive
|
Attribute
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Attributor
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Blessed
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are
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the cheesemakers
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Attribute
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Process: attributive
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Carrier
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The interrogative probe for such [‘attributive’] clauses is what? how? or what…like?, e.g. what is Paula?, how did the minister seem?, what will today’s weather be like?
The lexical verb in the verbal group realising the [attributive] Process is one of the ‘ascriptive’ classes: see Table 5-14. If the Attribute is realised by a nominal group with a common noun as Head without a pre-modifying adjective, it is usually expressed as if it was a circumstance (with a preposition following the verb, as indicated in the table; for example: he grew old but he grew into a man); Attributes with noun Head are rare with the verbs keep, go and get, where they would be highly ambiguous.
The nominal group functioning as Attribute construes a class of thing and is typically indefinite: it has either an adjective or a common noun as Head and, if appropriate, an indefinite article … It cannot be a proper noun or a pronoun since these do not construe classes. (Thus he is Charles Darwin would be interpreted as ‘identifying’; but if we say he is another Charles Darwin, the clause is ‘attributive’ and the proper name Charles Darwin has been re-construed as the common noun – the name of a class of people that are like Charles Darwin.)
In the ‘attributive’ mode, an entity has some class ascribed or attributed to it. Structurally, we label this class the Attribute, and the entity to which it is ascribed is the Carrier — the ‘carrier’ of the ‘attribute’. … This type of clause is a resource for characterising entities serving as Carrier; and it is also a central grammatical strategy for assessing by assigning an evaluative Attribute to a Carrier.
The ‘identifying’ ones are reversible … The ‘attributive’ ones are not reversible …
the tourists
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thought
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the crocodiles
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approachable
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Attributor
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Process: attributive
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Carrier
|
Attribute
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the crocodiles
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were thought
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approachable
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by the tourists
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Carrier
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Process: attributive
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Attribute
|
Attributor
|
The English system operates with three main types of relation — ‘intensive’, ‘possessive’ and ‘circumstantial’; and each of these comes in two distinct modes of being — ‘attributive’ and ‘identifying’.
Identifying clauses are also used to construe ‘exhaustive’ class membership where a class is identified with its members, as in: The fuels of the body are carbohydrates, fats and proteins.
… we can see how the grammar models the realisational relationship between two strata in the form of ‘relational’ clauses of identity. … In this way, the grammar of relational clauses is based on the dimensions of a semiotic system.
In her account of ‘relational’ clauses, Davidse (1992, 1996) adopts a semiotic approach, interpreting class–membership by reference to the semiotic relation of instantiation and identity by reference to the semiotic relation of realisation.
There is, however, a deeper sense in which ‘relational’ clauses are ‘nominal’: they construe the same range of relations as those of modification within the nominal group:
the house was old : the old house ::the house was in Wessex : the house in Wessex ::the house was Thomas’s : Thomas’s house.
Such clauses have often been called ‘nominal clauses’, in contrast to ‘verbal clauses’, where there is a Process present in the structure of the clause. But this reflects only the view ‘from below’ and hides the fact that in languages such as Arabic ‘relational’ clauses that are marked for aspect and/or polarity typically have a structurally present Process.
The configuration of Process + ‘Be-er1’ + ‘Be-er2’ opens up the potential for construing the abstract relationships of class–membership and identity in all domains of experience. Class–membership is construed by attributive clauses and identity by identifying ones. These two ‘relational’ clause types cut across the inner and outer experience of ‘mental’ and ‘material’ clauses …
Verbs in general in ‘relational’ clauses are typically non-salient, whereas verbs in ‘material’ and ‘mental’ clauses are salient at the accented syllable …
This tells us something significant about a prototypical configuration of ‘being’: the experiential ‘weight’ is construed in the two participants, and the process is merely a highly generalised link between these two participants … Thus the verbs that occur most frequently as the Process of a ‘relational’ clause are be and have; and they are typically both unaccented and phonologically reduced … This weak phonological presence of the Process represents iconically its highly generalised grammatical nature. The limiting case of weak presence is absence; and the Process is in fact structurally absent in certain ‘non-finite’ ‘relational’ clauses in English … and in many languages there is no structurally present Process in the ‘unmarked’ type of ‘relational’ clause … Here the ‘relational’ clause is simply a configuration of ‘Be-er1’ + ‘Be-er2’.
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.
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.
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].
… 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.
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.
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.
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).
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’ (how are they realised?) and ‘from around’ (what other systemic variants are possible?) …
‘Relational’ clauses serve to characterise and identify.
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).
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 …
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 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.
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’);