Degree Of Involvement: Subject

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 173):

The difference in the degree of involvement is also reflected in the extent to which an element is available for a critical role in the interpersonal metafunction. Prototypically, as we have noted, participants can be assigned the status of Subject, being made to carry the burden of the argument, whereas circumstances cannot. This distinction is however being obscured in Modern English, where although the prepositional phrase as a whole cannot function as Subject, the nominal group inside a prepositional phrase often can; e.g. the grass shouldn't be walked on.

Blogger Comments:

The obvious exceptions are circumstantial relational clauses, which are metaphorical.

Degree Of Involvement: Participant vs Circumstance

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 173):

Sometimes some entity can be construed in a figure either as a participant or as (an element in) a circumstance; in that case, construing it as participant means that it is being treated as more directly involved. Compare pairs of examples such as:

The pianist is more likely to escape unscathed as a circumstance than as a participant; likewise, the answer seems more impenetrable if guessed at than if guessed.

The Status Of Macro Circumstances

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 172-3):

What is the status of these "macro circumstances"? They are really reduced or minor figures, functioning as elements inside other figures. The preposition is a kind of miniverb; the line between circumstances and figures is a very fuzzy one, and we often find agnate expressions where one is a prepositional phrase and the other a non-finite clause: cf. I washed it using sugar soap, she came accompanied by her children. The entity that occurs inside the macro circumstance is therefore already entering into a relationship with a reduced form of a process; its participation in the main process is thus mediated and oblique. We can thus contrast the different statuses of two entities where one is a direct participant and the other enters in circumstantially; e.g. this dictionary was published in two volumes, where this dictionary is Goal while two volumes enters into the publishing process indirectly in a circumstance of Role.

Degree Of Involvement: Reflections In The Grammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 172):

The different degrees of involvement are reflected in the way the figure, and its elements, are realised in the grammar of the clause. A participant is realised as a nominal group, and is typically placed next before or next after the verbal group realising the process. Circumstances typically occur further away from the process, and are of two distinct types. Type 1, simple circumstance, represents a quality; this type is realised as an adverbial group … . Type 2, macro circumstance, is realised as a prepositional phrase, which in turn consists of preposition + nominal group. The nominal group, as we have seen, construes an entity — something that could function directly as a participant Here however the entity is functioning only as a circumstantial element in the process: a location, or an instrument, or an accompanying entity, or so on (e.g. don't walk on the grass, I washed it with sugar soap, she came with her children); it enters into the clause by courtesy of the preposition, only indirectly so to speak.

Degree Of Involvement: Participant vs Circumstance

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 172):

As we have already noted, a figure consists of a process, participants involved in the process, and associated or attendant circumstances. Of these, the process can be seen as the organisational centre — the element that reflects the relative arrangements of the other parts in the configuration. These other parts (participants and circumstances) are more or less closely involved in the actualisation of the process. Broadly speaking, participants are directly involved in the process; circumstances are more peripherally attendant on it.

Summary: Degree Of Participanthood: Goal vs Range

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 171-2):

We have summarised the features of two participant roles, Goal and Range, which vary considerably in their degree of participanthood, lying as it were at the two ends of this continuum. We saw earlier that the Medium is the element that is most closely bonded to the Process, the two together forming the nucleus of the figure. Thus the highest degree of participanthood is that of whichever element, in each particular type of figure, is conflated with the generalised function of Medium; in the case of a figure of doing, this is the Goal, the element that is impacted (moved, changed, created or destroyed) by the Process.

At the other end of the cline are those elements whose status as participant is highly precarious, those which conflate with the generalised function of Range. These, as we have seen, are closely agnate to other types of figure, either those consisting of Process alone or those with Process + circumstantial element. 

We can thus extend the continuum further, outside the status of participant altogether, into the realm of circumstances. In the next subsection we discuss the circumstantial roles; and we can order these also in terms of their degree of involvement in the process.

Degree Of Participanthood: Interpersonal Potential

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 171):

The Range element is not very likely to function as Subject in the clause: that is, to be entrusted with the interpersonal function of carrying the burden of the argument. This means that passive clauses with Range as Subject are very much rarer than those where Subject is Goal; and where they do occur, the participant that is functioning as Medium (Actor, Senser or Sayer) also tends to be of a generalised kind. Thus tennis is played by everyone is not uncommon, whereas tennis is played by Sharon is a highly marked construction.

Again, the category of Range/Attribute provides the limiting case. An Attribute can never serve as Subject in the clause.

Degree Of Participanthood Of Range: Degree Of Individuation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 170-1):

… participants are located at some point along a scale of individuation, ranging from most generalised (e.g., diamonds are forever) to most individuated (e.g., Elizabeth's diamonds were stolen). The Range element tends towards the generalised end of the scale. This is especially the case with those of the elaborating type, where the Range usually represents a general class; and it is always the case if the figure is one of being, with Range as Attribute. For example:

Peter plays tennis (cf. is a tennis-player)

Peter plays the piano (cf. is a pianist)

His opinion is not important (cf. does not matter)

As a corollary to this, when some element that has functioned as Range is carried through the discourse, being picked up either by a lexical repetition or by a pronominal reference, it is more likely to be being picked up as a class, rather than as individuated:

Sharon plays tennis at the same time every other day .... Tennis is a wonderful game, but tennis-players tend to be very obsessive.

Peter spends a lot of time at the piano ... It is a difficult instrument.

Hence a form of reference such as the following is somewhat improbable:

Peter used to play the piano; but he sold it.

Blogger Comments:

Again, this assumes that the reference of the piano is usually homophoric. There is nothing improbable about the following instance, where the Range is individuated, not generalised, and acknowledged as such by pronominal reference:

We've always had a range of keyboard instruments. Peter used to play the piano, but he sold it.

Other examples of individuated Ranges, acknowledged as such by pronominal reference:

We climbed the mountain yesterday. It was very steep in places.
We are playing the match tomorrow. It'll be a war of attrition.

Relationship Of The Range To The Process: Projected vs Enhancing

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 170):

[The projected type of Range] is like [the enhancing] type in that in both types the agnate expression takes the form of a circumstantial element (grammatically, a prepositional phrase). But in the projected type the circumstance is one of Matter, whereas in the enhancing type it is typically one of Extent or Location. This corresponds in process type to the distinction between saying and sensing on the one hand and doing and being on the other.

Relationship Of The Range To The Process: Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 170):

Where the relation is one of projection, the Range represents the subject matter (either as a general term, e.g. issue, matter, or as the specific domain of the Process, e.g. politics, your holiday). As with enhancement, there is often an agnate circumstantial form.

Relationship Of The Range To The Process: Enhancing

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 170):

… where the relation is enhancing, the Range specifies some entity that delimits the scope of the Process; here, therefore, there is often an agnate form where the scope is construed as a circumstantial element. For example:

Relationship Of The Range To The Process: Elaborating

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 169-70):

… where the relation is elaborating, the Range simply restates the Process or else further specifies it in terms of its class, quality or quantity. Here, we often find related pairs of 'Process : Process + Range'; the latter may involve nominalising the process (a form of grammatical metaphor). Examples:

In type (3), being (more particularly, ascriptive being), the Range is the Attribute that is ascribed. This construction, Process + Range/Attribute, is much more common that the agnate form with Process only (that is, 'be + important' is the preferred model rather than 'matter'). The Process just embodies the category meaning of ascriptive being — 'be a member of' — and the Range carries the specific information about the experiential class. It is interesting to note that the ranged construction sorts out the ambiguity of the simple present tense between habitual (doing) and occupational (being): she dances/does a dance every night, she dances/is a dancer (by profession).

Relationship Of The Range To The Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 168-9, 169n):

The Range is not some entity that is impacted by the Process; it either

(i) expands the Process, or 

(ii) is projected by it.

Where the relationship is one of expansion, this take one of two forms: the Range either 

(a) elaborates the Process in an objectified form, or

(b) enhances it by delimiting its scope.¹⁴

 

¹⁴ The Range elaborates the Process, whereas the circumstantial element Rôle elaborates a participant in its particular participation in the process.

Three Respects In Which The Range Is Not A Prototypical Participant

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 168):

Like other participants Range is realised grammatically by a nominal group, but it does not participate in the process operationally: it does not bring about or act out the process, nor is it affected by it materially or mentally. It specifies the domain over which the process is actualised. For instance, if a process of walking ranges over Manhattan, it can be represented as Process + Range: They walked the streets of Manhattan. There are three respects in which the Range is not a prototypical participant:

(I) its relationship to the Process, 

(II) its degree of individuation, 

III) its interpersonal potential.

Degree Of Participanthood: Impacting And Degree of Individuation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 167-8):

Representatives of a class can be impacted (regardless of whether they are specific or non-specific at the point in the discourse at which they occur); but it is harder to impact the general class itself. Consequently, if the Goal is a general class rather than a set of specifiable representatives, it has a lower degree of participanthood. This appears iconically in the grammar in the limiting case of a clause where the Goal is simply that class of phenomenon that can serve as Goal of that particular type of figure: the grammar allows us to select 'goal-intransitive', which means that the Goal is simply not specified — for example:¹³

he drinks heavily [alcohol]

he eats all the time [food]

they've gone to the hills to hunt [game]

he buys and sells [any commodity]

Such examples are typically either habitual (the process unfolds repeatedly) or durational (the process unfolds over time): this generalisation across time correlates with the generalisation across potential participants — both are ways of generalising from experience. In some special cases the generalisation of the Goal across a class of entities is shown by treating it as a mass, dispensing with the plural marker:

They often shoot duck during the winter months.

Such a Goal may even be incorporated into the Process, as in he is baby-sitting (and even who's baby-sitting me this evening?)', this is a restricted option with figures realised as ranking clauses, but not uncommon where the figure is used to qualify an element and is realised by a pre-modifying clause, e.g. a fun-loving colleague, a wood-burning stove.

 

¹³ Here, because of its generality, the Goal is predictable experientially. The Goal may of course be predictable textually, which is the reverse case: so specific at that point in the discourse that it can be anaphoricaliy presumed. Typically in such cases an explicit pronoun is used to refer back; but it can be omitted in certain registers, especially instructional ones such as recipes: when all the pancakes are made, garnish the dish and serve _ with cheese and egg sauce.

Degree Of Participanthood: Degree Of Individuation

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 167):

(i) Prepare the sauce according to your favourite recipe 

(ii) Fry the aubergines for 5-10 minutes

Skin the tomatoes

Heat the ollve oil

Boil the eggs hard

Beat all the items together

Shape the lentil puree into cakes

There is a further contrast between Goal and Range in the degree of individuation that is typical of each. In the examples above, what is impacted is a specific representative of a class, or specific set of representatives; and this is typical of the degree of individuation of the Goal. Compare in this respect the contrast between move the piano, where the piano is Goal, and play the piano, where the piano is Range:

move the piano Process + Goal: specific representative of class

play the piano Process + Range: general class of instrument

Blogger Comments:

This assumes that the reference item the in play the piano is homophoric, but importantly, it can also be exophoric to the environment of the text, or endophoric to the text itself. In both these latter cases, the piano may be a specific representative of the class, like a Goal.

Degree Of Participanthood: Impacting

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 167):

As we have seen, the Goal in the particularistic model corresponds to the Medium in the generalised model wherever the figure is one of doing to or doing with. The Goal is impacted in some way by its participation in the Process; the "impact" either (i) brings a participant into existence or else (ii) manipulates one that already exists.

(i) Prepare the sauce according to your favourite recipe 

(ii) Fry the aubergines for 5-10 minutes

Skin the tomatoes

Heat the ollve oil

Boil the eggs hard

Beat all the items together

Shape the lentil puree into cakes

If the Goal is something that already exists, the result of the Process is to bring about some change — in its location, make-up, temperature, shape, &c.; and the result may be construed as a separate element, with the function Attribute (hard) or Rôle (into cakes).

These examples highlight the participant status of the Goal, showing the senses in which the Goal can be said to be impacted. There is no such impacting in the case of the Range.

Degree Of Participanthood

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 167):

We are using the term participanthood to suggest that the status of participant in the grammar is not absolute, but rather is a matter of degree. Among the various functional roles that the grammar construes as participants, we will discuss here two that are at opposite ends of the scale: Goal, which is has a clear status as prototypical participant, and Range, whose status as participant is much less clearly established.

General Principles Guiding Patterns Of Construal

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 166):

While there is potential for variation, however, the variation is not arbitrary or random. The semantic system embodies certain general principles which guide the choice of one or other pattern of construal. These include:

process: 

(a) whether the process is non-actualised ('irrealis') or actualised ('realis'); 

(b) how the process unfolds in time (its eventuation profile);

participants & circumstances: 

(a) whether they are 

(i) general class, 

(ii) nonspecific representatives of a class or 

(iii) specific representatives; 

(b) how far, and in what ways, they are involved in the process.

We shall take the notion of degree of participanthood as an example of the general principle that the phenomena of experience may be construed as having more, or less, independent status within the semantic system.

Cline From Compositionally Unanalysed To Analysed Experience

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 165-6):

To cite just one example, the phenomenon of precipitation from clouds is typically construed in Italian as a figure with a process alone piove 'rains', in Akan as figure with process + one participant nsuo retø 'water + fall', and in one local variety of Cantonese as a figure with process + two participants tin lok sui 'sky + drop + water'. …

As the examples illustrate, there are numerous points at which the system allows for alternative semanticisations of the flux of experience. These may differ in the extent to which the 'quantum' of experience is analysed into separate components. There is a cline from unanalysed and continuous to analysed and discrete; from example, from 'it's raining' (one phenomenon) to 'the sky's dropping water' (a configuration of three phenomena): see Figure 4-13.

Figure As Creative Act Of Construal

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 165):

A figure embodies both analysis and synthesis of our experience of the world: an analysis into component parts, and a synthesis of these parts into a configuration. That is, process, participants and circumstances are separated out analytically and are thus given independent phenomenal statuses. This is a creative act of construal. The world is not seamless and amorphous; it is highly variable in the way it presents itself to us as experience — in its perceptual salience, physical impact and material & psychological benefit. But it is not "given" to us as an established order, we have to construe it. Not surprisingly, there is a great deal of variation in the way that different languages do this.

Doing And Being Complementarity: Elaboration vs Extension & Enhancement

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 162-3):

In the case of elaboration, both 'coming into being' and 'causing to be' can be construed either as forms of doing or as forms of being. However, in the case of extension and enhancement, there is no comparable multiplicity of perspectives: they can only be construed as forms of doing. Table 4(9) sets out the patterns for the three types of expansion.

Happening And Becoming Complementarity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 160-2):

In the simple constructed examples used above, we contrasted doing: happening with pure being; but being also includes 'coming into being', i.e. 'becoming'. In such cases doing and being both construe change leading up to an outcome, but they use different models: Process and Process + Range respectively, For example:

Here the first transition in the state of the lava is represented as doing: happening — Medium/Actor: 'lava' + Process: 'cool'. Coolness is construed as a process; consequently, it is something that is unfolding and which cannot readily be intensified. In contrast, the second transition is construed as being: becoming — Medium/Carrier: 'lava' + Process: 'become' + Range/ Attribute: Very hard*. Coolness is construed as a quality rather than as a process; consequently, it is something which can come into being — which can be attained. The second transition is more closely related to the third: 'it becomes very hard : igneous rock'.However, the two options in construing coolness, as process and as quality, are very close, which is shown by a parallel text associated with an accompanying picture of a volcano:

Here the transition in hardness is construed as a process within a figure of doing rather than as a process + quality within a figure of being. Consequently, the hardness is not represented as an intensified "destination" coming into being. Further it can be construed as part of a complex process of cooling-&-hardening within a single figure, as indicated in the analysis above.

Doing And Being Complementarity: Source vs Outcome Of Change

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 160):

Doing and being thus focus on different phases of a quantum of change; but either can be extended in the direction of the other to indicate (with 'being') the source of change or (with 'doing') the outcome of change. When this happens, the wordings that realise a figure of doing and a figure of being may come to resemble one another. For example, take the two wordings he drove his car hot and he drove his friends crazy. They could both be interpreted as Agent + Process + Medium + Range to show them as related to his car drove hot and his friends were crazy respectively. But at the same time they are differentiated as doing versus being: Actor + Process + Goal + Attribute versus Attributor + Process + Carrier + Attribute. This shows that they are related respectively to he drove his car (without the Attribute) and to his friends were crazy (without the Attributor; but not to he drove his friends)', and explains why we get his car drove hot but not his friends drove crazy, and why his car drove hot is agnate with his car ran hot (and his car moved, rolled, travelled) as another kind of happening but his friends were crazy is agnate with his friends seemed crazy as another kind of being.

The Complementarity Of The Two Models Of Participation: Doing And Being

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 158, 159, 160):

A good place to illustrate the complementarity of the two models of participation is in the area of doing and being. Here the two models also bring out the complementarity of doing and being as modes of construing a quantum of change in the flow of events. …

Figure 4-12 brings the two models together to show (i) how they complement one another, the generalised one showing how doing and being are based on the same configuration of Agent + Medium + Range and the particularistic one showing how doing and being are different configurations of roles; and (ii) how doing and being serve as complementary perspectives on a quantum of change, construing it either as happening/coming into being or as outcome of happening/ being. …

The Two Models Of Participation As Complementary Perspectives

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 158):

The two models of participation that we have described in this section thus differ in degree of generality. The particularistic model construes figures into a small number of distinct types, sensing, saying, doing and being, with different participants in each; while the generalised model construes figures as all being alike, having a Process that is actualised through a Medium. These two models embody complementary perspectives on participation, the one transitive, the other ergative. Note that there is no necessary tie-up between the switch of perspective and the degree of generality: it is a feature of English that the generalised model is construed in ergative terms.

Summary Of Generalised Participant Roles

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 158):

Figure 4-11 summarises the generalised participant roles in diagrammatic form. It shows Process and Medium as a complementarity — the Process is actualised through the Medium; and it represents the other participants as external to this nucleus, indicating the type of role relationship that obtains (x enhancing, + extending and = elaborating).

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, omitted from the diagram is the role relationship of projection, which obtains, for example, between the nucleus and the Range of a figure of sensing or saying (i.e. Phenomenon or Verbiage).

Generalised Model of Figures: Beneficiary

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 158):

The Beneficiary role is more restricted: it occurs in certain subtypes of figures of doing as Recipient (e.g. they awarded her the Pulitzer Prize : they awarded the Pulitzer Prize to her) or Client (e.g. she designed them a vacation home : she designed a vacation home for them), in figures of saying as Receiver (e.g. they told her a story : they told a story to her) and in a couple of subtypes of figures of being (e.g. he made her a good husband).

Generalised Model of Figures: Range

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 157):

The Range role is quite pervasive, as indicated in Figure 4-7 and Table 4(8) above; it can occur in all types of figure that are construed as self-agentive, and also in certain figures of being that are construed as other-agentive. The Range construes the range or domain of the actualisation of the Process, with reference to taxonomic scope (as in play : play tennis/'volley ball), spatial scope (as in climb : climb mountains/hills), etc.

 

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, these are assigned figures of being — those with an Attributor (ascriptive) or Assigner (identifying).

Correspondences Between Participant Roles In The Generalised And Particularistic Models Of Figures

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 150, 157):

As Figure 4-7 above shows, the generalised participant roles of Medium and Agent correspond to different sets of roles in the particularistic model — one or more for each type of figure. For example, in a figure of saying the Medium corresponds to the Sayer, whereas in a figure of sensing it corresponds to the Senser. We summarise the correspondences in Table 4(8), where the generalised participant roles are represented in columns.

Blogger Comments:

Note that, for encoding identifying figures, Agent corresponds to Token, and Medium to Value. This is because, in all identifying figures, Medium corresponds to Identified, and Identified conflates with Token in decoding figures (as in the table), but conflates with Value in encoding figures (not shown in the table). See Figure 4-7.

Medium As The Only Obligatory Element Of Experiential Clause Structure

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 156):

In the grammar therefore the Medium appears as an obligatory element — the only element that has this status in the clause. This does not mean that we will find a nominal reflex of the Medium made explicit in the syntagm of every clause; there are various ways in which the Medium may be present as a cryptotypic feature rather than as an overt form. Nevertheless its presence is required in some guise or other; and this distinguishes the Medium from all other participants in the figure.

Blogger Comments:

For example, the use of the 'medio-passive' in mental and targeting verbal clauses:

you were seen, you were accused

and in impersonal projection nexuses: 

it was thought…, it was said… .