Some [behavioural processes] also regularly feature a prepositional phrase with to, at or on: I’m talking to you, don’t look at me, fortune is smiling on us. These are in origin circumstances of Place; in the behavioural context they express orientation, but we may continue to use that label.
Certain types of circumstance are associated with behaviour[al] processes: those of Matter with [near mental and near verbal types] e.g. dreaming of you, grumbled about the food; Manner with the remainder, e.g. breathe deeply, sit up straight.
The boundaries of behavioural processes are indeterminate; but we can recognise the kinds set out in Table 5-24 as typical.
Behavioural processes are almost always middle; the most typical pattern is a clause consisting of Behaver and process only, like Don’t breathe!, No one’s listening, He’s always grumbling. A common variant of these is that where the behaviour is dressed up as if it was a participant, like she sang a song, he gave a great yawn; this structure is typical in the everyday spoken language. The participant is analogous to the Scope of a ‘material’ clause (both being manifestations of the general function of Range); we shall call it Behaviour.
The usual unmarked present tense for behavioural processes is present in present, like the material (e.g. you’re dreaming!); however, we also find a simple present in its unmarked sense (i.e. not meaning habitual), e.g. why do you laugh?, alongside why are you laughing? (with scarcely any difference between them), which suggests an affiliation with a mental.
The participant who is ‘behaving’, labelled Behaver, is typically a conscious being, like the Senser; the Process is grammatically more like one of ‘doing’.
These are processes of (typically human) physiological and psychological behaviour, like breathing, coughing, smiling, dreaming and staring. They are the least distinct of all the six process types because they have no clearly defined characteristics of their own; rather they are partly like the material and partly like the mental.
We can then go on to recognise three subsidiary process types, located at each of the boundaries: behavioural at the boundary between material and mental, verbal at the boundary between mental and relational, and existential at the boundary between relational and material.
They are the principal types in that they are the cornerstones of the grammar in its guise as a theory of experience, they present three distinct kinds of structural configuration, and they account for the majority of all clauses in a text (‘material’ and ‘relational’ seem to be roughly balanced in frequency over the language as a whole, followed by ‘mental’, although the pattern varies considerably among different registers).
In principle, possession can be thought of as another kind of circumstantial relation, which could be embodied in some such expression as ‘at Peter is a piano’, ‘the piano is with Peter’. Many languages [e.g.Irish] typically indicate possession by circumstantials of this kind. The nearest English is the verb belong; compare the dialectal form is along o’me.
Some verbs combine the feature of possession with other semantic features; for example
- exclude ‘[negative] + have’,
- owe ‘have on behalf of another possessor’,
- deserve ‘ought to have’,
- lack ‘need to have’.
(Most verbs meaning ‘come to have’, on the other hand, function as Process in ‘material’ clauses; for example get, receive, acquire — compare the tense forms in You deserve a medal. – I’m getting one.)
In addition to possession in the usual sense of ‘owning’, this category includes abstract relationships of containment, involvement and the like. Among the verbs commonly occurring in this function are include, involve, contain, comprise, consist of, provide.
Here the possession is encoded as a process, typically realised by the verb own as in Peter owns the piano. (Notice we do not normally say Peter has the piano, in the sense of ownership; have is not used as an identifying verb of possession.) The participants are possessor Peter and possessed the piano; in this case Peter is Token and the piano is Value.
Here the participants embody the notion of possession, one signifying property of the possessor, e.g. Peter’s, the other signifying the thing possessed, e.g. the piano. Thus in the piano is Peter’s, both the piano and Peter’s express ‘that which Peter possesses’, the relationship between them being simply one of identity. Note that here the piano is Token and Peter’s is Value.
In the ‘identifying’ mode, the possession takes the form of a relationship between two entities; and again this may be organised in two ways, with the relationship being expressed either
(a) as a feature of the participants, as in the piano is Peter’s, or
(b) as a feature of the process, as in Peter owns the piano.
If the relationship of possession is construed as the Process, then two further possibilities arise.
Either (1) the possessor is the Carrier and the possessed is the Attribute (we will call the thing possessed the ‘possessed’ rather than the ‘possession’, to avoid ambiguity; ‘possession’ refers to the relationship), as in Peter has a piano. Here piano-ownership is an attribute being ascribed to Peter. Verbs other than have combine the sense of possession with other features, e.g. lack ‘need to have’, boast ‘have as a positive feature’.
Or (2) the possessed is the Carrier and the possessor is the Attribute, as in the piano belongs to Peter. Here Peter-ownership is an attribute being ascribed to the piano. Neither of the two, of course, is reversible; we do not say a piano is had by Peter, or Peter is belonged to by the piano.
These are not, in fact, syntagmatically distinct from ‘identifying’ clauses; the clause the piano is Peter’s could be either ‘attributive’, ‘the piano is a member of the class of Peter’s possessions’ or ‘identifying’, ‘the piano is identified as belonging to Peter’. (Note that the reversed [form] Peter’s is the piano can only be ‘identifying’.)
If the relationship is construed as the Attribute, then it takes the form of a possessive nominal group e.g Peter's; the thing possessed is the Carrier and the possessor is the Attribute.
In the ‘attributive’ mode, the possessive relationship may again be construed either as attribute, e.g. Peter’s in the piano is Peter’s, or as process, e.g. has, belongs to in Peter has a piano, the piano belongs to Peter.
In the ‘possessive’ type, the relationship between the two terms is one of ownership; on entity possesses another … In addition to possession in the narrow sense of ‘owning’, the category of ‘possessive’ clauses also includes possession in a broader, more generalised sense — possession of body parts and other part–whole relations, containment, involvement and the like … Possession thus has to be interpreted quite broadly, in the sense of ‘extension’: one entity is construed as being extended by another.
Just like ‘circumstantial’ clauses, ‘possessive’ ones are construed in both the ‘attributive’ and ‘identifying’ modes.
The line between ‘attributive’ and ‘identifying’ modes is less clear in the ‘circumstantial’ than in the ‘intensive’ type of ‘relational’ clause. This is natural, since it is less obvious whether an expression such as on the mat designates a class (that has members — the class of things on the mat) or an identity (the thing that is identified by being on the mat). Nevertheless there is a distinction …
In this type, it is not the participants that are the expression of time, place or other circumstantial features, but the Process. In examples such as the following the verbs take up, span, cross, cause are so to speak ‘circumstantial’ verbs: US bases take up almost one-fifth of the land of the cramped island; more than 50 years span her age and mine; Turtle Ridge would span maybe three blocks; this situation is apparently caused by anomalous low temperatures; … Circumstantial verbs encode the circumstance of time, place, accompaniment, manner, etc as a relationship between the participants … This means that in terms of the concept of grammatical metaphor … all clauses of this type are metaphorical.
In this type, it is the participants — Identified and Identifier — that are circumstantial elements of time, place and so on. For example, in tomorrow is the tenth, tomorrow and the tenth are both time elements. Similarly in the best way to get there is by train, both the best way and by train express manner; in the real reason is that you’re scared, Identified and Identifier are both expressions of cause. The Token can be quite varied in grammatical class — a nominal group, an adverbial group, a prepositional phrase or an embedded clause, whereas the Value is often a nominal group with the name of a class of circumstance as Thing.
In the ‘identifying’ mode, the circumstance takes the form of a relationship between two entities; one entity being related to another by a feature of time or place or manner etc. As with the circumstantial attributive, this pattern may be organised semantically in one of two ways. The relationship is expressed either
(a) a feature of the participants, as in tomorrow is the tenth, or
(b) as a feature of the process, as in the fair takes up the whole day.
Verbs serving in clauses with a circumstantial process are often derived from a basic use in ‘material’ clauses of motion … The unmarked present tense is the simple present … rather than the present in present of ‘material’ clauses … The Carrier is typically some immobile physical feature, whereas the Actor of a ‘material’ clause of motion is typically an animate being or a mobile entity. Because of the overlap of a large set of verbs, there will of course be cases that are indeterminate …
In (b), therefore, the Process is circumstantial; whereas in (a) it is the Attribute that is circumstantial, the Process being the same as in the ‘intensive’ type.
Here the Attribute is realised by a nominal group and the circumstantial relation is expressed by the lexical verb in the verbal group serving as Process … The verb expresses a circumstantial relation such as ‘be + matter’, ‘be + extent in time’, ‘be + extent in space’. Being attributive, these are non-reversible; there are no ‘receptive’ equivalents …
However, note that clauses such as on the north wall … hangs a Union Jack … are not ‘attributive’ but ‘existential’. The thematically unmarked form of these clauses is that beginning with existential there: there is (hangs) a Union Jack on the north wall. The prepositional phrase then appears initially as a marked Theme; in that case the existential feature may be left implicit, although the there may still be present and will appear in any case in the mood tag: on the north wall (there) is a Union Jack, isn’t there?. In contrast, in a ‘circumstantial attributive’ clause, the Subject/Carrier is picked up in the mood tag: the sounds and smells of the ocean hang in the air — don’t they? …
Unlike the Attribute of an ‘intensive’ clause, the Attribute of a ‘circumstantial’ one is frequently Theme in registers where the thematic status is rhetorically motivated … And unlike intensive Attributes, such circumstantial Attributes frequently have a ‘definite’ nominal group …
