Friday 3 January 2020

Fact As Phenomenon In Impinging Mental Clauses


Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 543):
In fact, the ‘emotive’ type with a fact clause as Phenomenon is more common in the ‘effective’ variant of agency (the ‘please’ type) than the ‘middle’ one (the ‘like’ type): the Phenomenon is explicitly construed as an Agent bringing about the Medium/Senser’s involvement in the process of emotion.
It did not surprise him very much [[to find [[that the door opened on the latch]] ]], for it was so old and worn that it offered little security. 
She had never reconciled herself to things which hurt her, and sometimes he was frightened [[[that when bad things began to happen || she would have so little habit of optimism to support her ]]]. 
The evidence against him was by no means decisive, but both judge and jury seem to have been influenced by the fact [[that the doctor himself was a morphine addict]].