Friday, 11 June 2021

Doing & Happening Differentiated By Outcome: Creative vs Dispositive

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 148):
As pointed out earlier, doing is a process of change involving time and energy. Such change implies an outcome; the outcome may be of various kinds, but it is always such that it can be construed as another figure. We can therefore examine what kind of figure emerges as the outcome of the one under investigation. 
(1) If the process is creative, the outcome is that some entity comes into existence: such a figure may be construed as a doing with effectum, as in he baked a cake; but it may be simply a creative happening such as icicles formed. In either case the outcoming figure is one of being (more specifically, existing): 
he baked a cake     outcome: 'there exists a cake' 
icicles formed         outcome: 'there exist icicles'
(2) If the process is dispositive, the outcome is more variable; it may be either (i) a figure of doing (more specifically, doing [to]/happening), or (ii) a figure of being (more specifically, being [at]/having):
(i) the cat chased the mouse      outcome: 'the mouse ran' 
(ii) the boys mended the roof     outcome: 'the roof was whole'
    John gave his sister a violin     outcome: 'John's sister had a violin'