Mental Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 515):

Talking is not the only way of using language; we also use language to think. Hence a process of thinking in a ‘mental’ clause also serves to project; the process is typically of the ‘like’ [emanating] type, but the ‘please’ [impinging] type is also possible:

(a) ‘like’ type
||| So you believe || that the short story is better at dealing with real-life, human emotions. |||
||| Mum, do you know || where the scissors are? |||
||| Naval authorities believe || the boat may have capsized || because it was carrying a heavy load of construction materials in choppy waters. |||
||| Therefore, I believe || that the protocol will do absolutely nothing [[ to protect the antarctic region]]. ||| 

(b) ‘please’ type
||| It strikes me || that Eve’s disloyalty and ingratitude must be contagious! |||
||| When I attended at Bombay’s C.J. Hall the Kal Ke Kalakar festival, || it struck me || that, although we did not have the resources, || this particular festival had the potential of an Avignam Nervi or Spoletto. |||
||| It did not occur to him || that I might want to stay on and watch the cricket. |||
||| Then it dawned on me || that I was talking to a cricketer [[ who had so recently been crucified at the altar of expediency ]]. |||

Verbal Quoting Clauses: Verbs With The Circumstantial Feature Of Manner Specifying Connotation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 515):

A very wide range of different verbs can be pressed into service under this heading, verbs which are not verbs of saying at all but serve in ‘behavioural’ clauses, especially in fictional narrative, to suggest attitudes, emotions or expressive gestures that accompanied the act of speaking, eg sob, snort, twinkle, beam, venture, breathe; e.g.

‘It is a great thing, discretion,’ mused Poirot.

Here the implication is that Poirot is trying to give the impression of thinking aloud, while making sure the listener ‘overhears’.

Verbs Used In Quoting Propositions And Proposals

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 514, 515):

Verbs used in quoting ‘verbal’ clauses include those listed in the ‘proposition’ column in Table 7-20. … Verbs used in clauses quoting proposals — offers and commands — are also listed …

26 In addition, we find the verb go used in quoting clauses. This verb is also used to project representations of non-linguistic semiosis, as in the tires went [sound of screeching]. A more recent addition to quoting verbs in casual speech is be like; for example: I was like ‘Are you in the right show?’; ‘My friends were like, “Eddie, you’re drinking too much, you’re out too much, you’ve got to, like, slow down.” And that was true,’ he said...

The Projection Of A Verbal Process: A Lexicogrammatical Metaphenomenon

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 514):

The projected clause here stands for a ‘wording’: that is, the phenomenon it represents is a lexicogrammatical one. Take for example ‘I’m not so sure,’ replied the Fat Controller. While the projecting clause replied the Fat Controller represents an ordinary phenomenon of experience, the projected clause I’m not so sure represents a second-order phenomenon, something that is itself a representation. We will refer to this as a ‘metaphenomenon’. If we want to argue, the issue is not ‘is he or is he not, so sure?’ – that is a separate question; it is ‘did he, or did he not, say these words?’ The total structure, therefore, is that of a paratactic clause complex in which the logical-semantic relationship is one of projection; the projecting clause is a verbal process, and the projected clause has the status of a wording.

The Main Function Of The Projecting Clause Of A Quoting Nexus

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 512):

In written English, the projection is signalled by quotation marks (‘inverted commas’; for the significance of double and single quotation marks see below). In spoken English, the projecting clause is phonologically less prominent than the projected: if it comes first, it is often proclitic (non-salient and pre-rhythmic, while if it follows all or part of the projected, instead of occupying a separate tone group, it appears as a ‘tail’, a post-tonic appendage that continues the pitch movement of the preceding projected material … .

The reason for this is that the main function of the projecting clause is simply to show that the other one is projected: someone said it. There is nothing in the wording of a paratactic projected clause to show that it is projected; it could occur alone, as a direct observation.

A Quoting Nexus

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 512):

In a quoting nexus the ‘tactic’ relationship, the type of dependency, is parataxis; the two parts have equal status. The projected clause retains all the interactive features of the clause as exchange, including the full mood potential (with the option of mood tagging in ‘declarative’ and ‘interrogative’ clauses), vocatives and expletives, tone selections, and (textual) continuatives.

System Network Of Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 511):

This is represented systemically in Figure 7-19 below. The fact that minor clauses cannot be reported is represented by means of a conditioning relationship: ‘if minor, then quoting’.

The Speech Function Of Quoted Vs Reported Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 510-1):

… paratactic projection allows for a greater [speech functional] range: we can quote not only propositions and proposals but also minor speech functions such as greetings and exclamations … . This is part of the general principle whereby reporting reduces the potential for projecting dialogic features. For example, while Vocative elements can be quoted … they cannot be reported. … Adding this third systemic variable to our account, we can now expand Table 7-17: see Table 7-18.

Relative Probabilities Of Four Kinds Of Projection Nexus

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 510, 510n):

… all combinations of taxis and mode of projection are not equally probable; while some are very frequent in text, others are relatively rare. As the numbers in Table 7-17 indicate, out of 1,392 instances of projection nexuses in a sample of texts from a range of spoken and written registers, there were only 15 instances of paratactically projected ideas; in other words, 97.5% of all 595 projected ideas in the sample were reported rather than quoted. In contrast, projected locutions were more evenly balanced between quoting and reporting in the total sample – around 46% and 54%, respectively. The sample contains more projection nexuses from spoken texts (845) and from written texts (557); but it is still interesting to note that in spoken discourse paratactic locution (quoting: 53%) is favoured over hypotactic locution (reporting: 47%)*, whereas in written discourse it is the other way around: paratactic locution (quoting: 39%) is significantly less common than hypotactic locution (reporting: 61%).

* In spoken casual conversation, this difference is even more marked: quoting accounts for two thirds (65%) and reporting for one third (35%). In written news reports, the ratio is almost the reverse.

Four Kinds Of Projection Nexus

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 509-10):

Level of projection and mode of projection intersect to define four kinds of projection nexus … see Table 7-17.

Modes Of Projection: Direct & Indirect Speech & Thought

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 509):

The distinction between these two modes of projection was recognised in traditional accounts as the contrast between direct and indirect speech; but as we have already noted, we need to take account of direct and indirect thought as well.

Mode Of Projection: Quote Vs Report

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 509):

… projection combines with the same set of interdependencies that have been shown to occur with expansion – (1) the two tactic interdependency relations of parataxis and hypotaxis and (2) the constituency relation of embedding. 

For instance, ‘We really have to have mandatory child safety trigger locks, and photo license IDs for the purchase of new handguns,’ is projected paratactically by Gore told the crowd. This means that the projection is represented as a quote. 

In contrast, she saw one young man open fire after a feud between youths became violent is projected hypotactically by Nakisha Johnson, 17, said. This means that the projection is represented as a report – as something that is dependent on the projecting clause and thus cannot serve on its own. … 

In addition to the two tactic modes of projection – paratactic projection of quotes and hypotactic projection of reports, there is one further environment in which projected clauses occur – that of embedding: the witness’s claim that she saw one young man open fire seems plausible.

Level Of Projection: Meaning Vs Wording

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 509):

Through projection, one clause is set up as the representation of the linguistic “content” of another — either the content of a ‘verbal’ clause of saying or the content of a ‘mental’ clause of sensing. … There are thus two kinds of projections.  On the one hand, the projection may be a representation of the content of a ‘mental’ clause — what is thought; we call such projections ideas.  On the other hand, the projection may be a representation of the content of  ‘verbal’ clause — what is said; we call such projections locutions.  Projection may thus involve either of the two levels of the content plane of language — projection of meaning (ideas) or projection of wording (locutions).

Kinds Of Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 509):

There are in fact three systems involved in the differentiation of different kinds of projection:

(i) the level of projection (idea vs locution),

(ii) the mode of projection (hypotactic reporting vs paratactic quoting), and

(iii) the speech function (projected proposition vs projected proposal).

Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 508):

… Projection [is] the logico-semantic relationship whereby a clause comes to function not as a direct representation of (non-linguistic) experience but as a representation of a (linguistic) representation.

Different Environments In Which Expansion Is Manifested

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 507-8):

The different environments in which expansion is manifested are summarised in Table 7-16.

Metaphenomena And Process Types

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 506-7):

Metaphenomena – projections – can be associated only with certain types of process, essentially saying and sensing, plus in certain circumstances being. Macrophenomena – expansions – can enter into material processes. Thus you can say [[ = crushing him like that]] broke his bones. But you cannot say it broke his bones that you crushed him like that, because finite that (‘indirect’) clauses can only be projections, not expansions. (You can on the other hand say it broke his heart that you crushed him like that, because heart-breaking, unlike bone-breaking, is a mental process.)

Complication arises because the names of metaphenomena, nouns such as belief and fact, can sometimes enter into material processes where the metaphenomena by themselves cannot. For example, although we cannot say it destroyed his life that the experiment had failed, we can say the knowledge that the experiment had failed destroyed his life – not the idea as such, but his knowledge of it, was the destroyer. We may also note abstract material processes used metaphorically to construe mental phenomena:

The passage of time, romantic travellers’ tales – of which Marco Polo’s supply the classic example – and wishful thinking, all combined to build up the late medieval belief [[ that Prester John was a mighty, if probably schismatical Christian priest-king ]].

We might also say the fact that the experiment had failed destroyed his life; here fact stands for a state of affairs, rather than for a projected metaphenomenon as in its prototypical sense. In other words, although projections cannot participate in processes other than those of consciousness, the names of projections can, because they can be used to label events or states of affairs. Here we have reached the borderline between expansion and projection; the two come together under conditions of nominalisation, where there is metaphor in the grammar and many of the semantic distinctions expressed in the clause tend to be neutralised.

Act (Macrophenomenon) vs Projection (Metaphenomenon)

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 505-6):

(2) Projections: we saw that the boats had been turned. If I say I can see the boats turning, this is an event. A process ‘the boats are turning’ is being treated as a single complex phenomenon – a ‘macrophenomenon’. If I say I can see that the boats are turning, this is a projection. The process ‘the boats are turning’ is being treated as the projection or idea of a phenomenon – a ‘metaphenomenon’, something not just bigger but of a different order of reality. So we can say I can see that the boats have been turned but not I can see the boats having been turned – because you cannot see a past event. You can see the state of affairs resulting from that past event; but the past event itself can only be treated as a projection. In the present, both are possible; but the meaning is slightly different. If the ‘seeing’ is understanding, or what is seen is a report in writing, then again the relationship must be one of projection.

Process Nominal Groups

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 505):

We have now reached a point where we can relate these clauses to their close relatives that lie just beyond the bounds of expansion, on different frontiers. [i.e. process nominal groups and projections]

(1) Process nominal groups: we saw the turning of the boats. Here the process has been nominalised at the word rank, with turning as noun; cf. the departing/departure of the boats. The structure is that of a nominal group having a prepositional phrase with of as Postmodifier; the Complement of the of phrase corresponds to what would be the Complement if the process was realised as a clause. Examples:

| The building [ of [ the bridge ] ] | presented a problem.
Devaluation is taken to be | a humiliation [ akin to [ the defacing [ of [statues [ of [national heroes ] ] ] ] ] ] ] |

Where there would be an explicit Subject, if the process was realised as a clause, what corresponds to this is the ‘possessor’ of the process serving as Deictic in the structure of the nominal group, as in his handling of the situation, nobody’s peeling of potatoes is as careful as mine, or as Qualifier, marked by either by or of, as in Letters to the press indicate a ground-swell of rejection of this display, by catholic and non-catholic members of church communities and Yet another contributory factor is the disappearance of the horse from our farms.*

 ∞

* Since a possessor can also be realised as an of phrase, this leads to the well-known ambiguity of expressions such as the visiting of relatives: going to visit relatives, or having relatives come to visit?

Perceived Acts: Imperfective vs Perfective

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 505):

Here what is being perceived is again some action or event; the clause is typically imperfective, but sometimes perfective (without to) to highlight the end state as distinct from the process (cf. Kirsner & Thompson, 1976):

[imperfective:]
I saw the boats turning/(passive) being turned 

[perfective:]
I saw the boats turn/(passive) turned

If the embedded clause is used as Postmodifier the Head noun is usually one of sight or sound: I heard the noise of ... , I had a view of ... , etc. (cf. the smell of something burning); …

In this case the clause is always imperfective.

Environments Of Acts

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 506):

Blogger Comments:

Mental: emotive examples:

I enjoy [[exposing the charlatan]] / [[exposing the charlatan]] pleases me

I hate [[him getting away with fraud]] / [[him getting away with fraud]] outrages me

Typical Grammatical Environments Of Acts

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 504):

[relational: attributive]

It was careless of him [[ = to put another man’s helmet on ]]

[relational: identifying]

[[ Not being much of a reader]] hardly affected the ascent of George W. Bush or his father.

These examples show typical contexts for such nominalisations: relational clauses, especially attributive ones where the attribute is an evaluative term and identifying ones where they are related to a nominalisation. There is one other common environment, namely that of clauses of perception, either mental (inert perception) or behavioural (active perception). Examples:

[behavioural + mental: perceptive]

We were watching [[ = the catch being brought in]] and you could see [[[ = the boats turn || × as they rounded the headland]]]

[behavioural: perceptive]

We went and watched [[ = these kids try to produce ‘Hair’ ]] .

[mental: perceptive]

Here you can see [[ = beer being brewed ‘on sight’]]

Embedded Clauses: Acts

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 503):

There is one further function of embedded clauses which is related to expansion in that, although there is no Head noun (so the embedded clause itself functions as ‘Head’), the embedded clause is the nominalisation of a process. For example, [[threatening people]] will get you nowhere.  Such a clause is the name of an action, event or other phenomenon.  It represents a ‘macro-phenomenon’ … ; let us call it an act.

An ‘act’ clause may also occur as Postmodifier to a Head noun of the appropriate class, for example the act [[= of threatening people]].  Hence it is reasonable to treat these as elaborations.

A Typical Context For A Nominal Group With Embedded Enhancing Clause

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 503):

A typical context for a nominal group with embedded enhancing clause is as Value in an identifying clause; cf. Figure 7-18. In this example the Token is also an embedded enhancing clause, this time functioning as Head. Such clauses often display a similar variation; for example:

Another reason is [[ that the quantity of the literature is not overwhelming yet]] .
Now the reason [[ they hired me]] is [[[ because they knew || I didn’t know anything about food]]] .

Identifying clauses of this kind, with nouns of expansion as the Head of the nominal group realising the Value, make an important contribution to the creation of discourse, making it possible to distribute information. Thus the textual impact of the time to leave is when people start to yawn is very different from that of you leave when people yawn: the former sets up the relationship as an exclusive identity, with the Value/Identified as Theme and the Identifier/Token as New (cf. the discussion of thematic equatives in Chapter 3, Section 3.2).

Circumstantial Feature In Noun Serving As Head: Non-Finite Clause As Qualifier: Imperfective vs Perfective

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 502-3 ):

There is the same difference between imperfective and perfective as with dependent clauses: other things being equal (that is, if occurring simply with their respective structure markers of and to), the imperfective is associated with the actual (e.g. the time of planting), the perfective with the potential, or virtual (e.g. the time to plant); sometimes the difference is minimal, as with the best way of finding out/the best way to find out – although even here can still be recognised. But the specific semantic force of the Head noun, or the conjunction or conjunctive preposition, will always dominate; e.g. the purpose of raising funds, the best occasion for trying out new methods.

Circumstantial Feature In Noun Serving As Head: Non-Finite Clause As Qualifier

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 502):

The non-finite clauses may occur with or without explicit Subject, e.g.

I just don’t see the point [[ × of having three or four different lists of people]] .
That’s the reason [[ × for keeping the sheets]] .
Soon the time came [[[ × for Kukul to take his place among the men of his nation]]] .

Sometimes the enhancing relation is marked by an explicit binder, e.g. why, where, when; here the Subject has to be implicit:

Chinchilli day is a reason [[ why to go to Las Vegas]] .
Carrasco, a place [[[ × where to return from work || and feel on holidays]]]

Expressions Beginning 'The Time ...'

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 501-2):

An expression beginning the time ... may thus have three distinct functional values:

(1) as hypotactic enhancing clause ‘(on the occasion) when ... ’, e.g.

||| [×β:] the time we first met || [α:] he hardly spoke to me at all |||

(2) as nominal group with elaborating embedded clause ‘the time which ... ’, e.g.

||| the time [[ = (which) I like best ]] is the hour before dawn |||

(3) as nominal group with enhancing embedded clause ‘the time when ... ’, e.g.

||| the time [[ × (when/that) you should leave ]] is when the lights go out |||

A hypotactic enhancing clause introduced by the time is agnate with other hypotactic temporal clauses and, by a further step, with paratactic temporal clauses: when we first met, he hardly ... ; we first met in June; then he hardly ... . The expression the time has come to serve as a structural conjunction; and the item time can thus no longer be modified in the way the Head noun of a nominal group can be (an example such as the early time we first met, he hardly spoke to me at all is impossible).* In contrast, the nominal groups in (2) and (3) can be expanded, since they have the full potential of nominal groups: the early time (which) I like best is the hour before dawn; the latest time (when/that) you should leave is when the lights go out. As illustrated by the examples, such enhanced nominal groups typically serve as participants in ‘relational’ clauses.

∞

* However, certain conjunctive features may be included in the nominal expression: the first time we met/the last time we met/the only time we met, he hardly spoke to me at all.

Circumstantial Feature In Noun Serving As Head: Finite Clause As Qualifier

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 501):

The special characteristic of the finite clauses is that, since these nouns are inherently ‘enhancing’ in sense, the circumstantial relation may, or may not, be restated within the clause: we may have either the day when/on which you came, with when, on signalling time, or simply the day (that) you came, with no indication of the temporal relation other than the Head noun day. In other words, the finite clauses are either like those of type (i) above or like elaborating clauses – that is, typical ‘defining relative’ clauses, except that they cannot take which without a preposition (you cannot say the day which you came). Examples:

I don’t see any particular reason [[ × why I should]]
This was the first occasion [[ × that I had to help in doing an experiment on a living man]] .
The only other place [[ × I would want to live ]] (is New Zealand)
The people downstairs – there’s no way [[ × they could have got out]] .
That’s the only reason [[ × I quit with Far Tortuga]] .
We shared a place in Italy the summer [[ × I was working on it]] .

All of these have four variants, two explicitly enhancing (e.g. the reason why/for which I like her) and two like elaborating (e.g. the reason (that) I like her).

Circumstantial Feature In Noun Serving As Head

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 500-1):

There is a second type of embedded enhancing clause in which the circumstantial relation is construed not in the clause itself but in the Head noun to which the clause stands as Postmodifier. These nouns form a distinct class, with two subclasses: those that can take either finite or non-finite postmodifying clauses and those which can take only non-finite – see Table 7-14.

Embedded Clauses Enhancing A Premodifying Element

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 500):

Like elaborating clauses, enhancing clauses of this type may have some premodifying element as their strict semantic domain, typically either Numerative or Epithet in a nominal group or an intensifying Premodifier in an adverbial group; these are clauses of comparison and result used in comparative constructions, e.g.

[comparison:]
I’m as certain of it [[ × as if his name were written all over his face ]] 

The actual formation of shale is somewhat more complex [[ × than indicated in Table 4-3]] . 

[result:]
Another survivor, soaked, wide-eyed with shock and too distressed [[ × to give his name]] , said ‘We were having a wonderful time when it turned into a nightmare.’ 

Within the vortex, temperatures become cold enough [[ × to form stratospheric ice crystals]] . 

Then he told us anecdotes of how he had gone across the Channel when it was so rough [[ × that the passengers had to be tied into their berths, and he and the captain were the only two living souls on board who were not ill]] .

The embedded clauses relate respectively to [the underlined Premodifiers]. Again, however, there is no need to represent this relationship in terms of a different structure.

Non-Finite Embedded Enhancing Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 500):

The non-finite variant corresponds to the dependent enhancing clauses with conjunctive preposition; e.g.

death [[ × by drowning]]
a pain [[ × like having a red-hot needle stuck into you]]
Blu-ray: death [[ × by streaming]]
The trouble [[ × with predicting climate change]]
Children need help [[ × in learning to control their emotions]] .
In Seoul, there seems to be anger [[ × at being taken for granted as an American satellite]]

Since the noun functioning as Head is generally the name of a process or property, these often have close hypotactic parallels, e.g. he was angry || × β at being accused; if you help me || × β in cooking the dinner; it’s difficult || × β with everyone having a part. 

The non-finites could in fact be reworded in the same way as the finites; e.g. the trouble with everyone having a part as the trouble [[[ = which arises || × β with everyone having a part]]]. But there is no need to treat either kind as other than embedded enhancing clauses.