Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 154):
The model thus construes a nuclear figure consisting of a process unfolding through the medium of a participant. This then makes it possible to construe a further variable: namely, the causal origin of this unfolding. The Medium's actualisation of the Process may be construed as being brought about by a further participant — the Agent: see Figure 4-10. If the figure is construed with an Agent, it is other-agentive; if it is construed without an Agent, it is self-agentive.
Blogger Comments:
Mythology typically construes the origin of creation as other-agentive, whereas cosmology construes the origin of the universe as self-agentive.