Attributor And Assigner

Halliday (1994: 171):

Agent In Relational Clauses

Halliday (1994: 165, 167):

Initiating Materials, Inducing Mentals And Attributed/Assigned Relationals

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 352):

From a transitive point of view, in these initiating structures there is a feature of cause added.  This is also possible with (i) mental clauses and with (ii) relational ones. 

(i) Corresponding to the initiating structure in material clauses, we find an inducing structure in mental clauses; for example, remind can be interpreted as ‘induce to remember’ 

(ii) Corresponding to the initiating structure in material clauses, we find attributed and assigned structures in relational clause. As we have seen, for the transitive analysis we have to recognize the additional functions of Attributor and Assigner; but from the ergative point of view, these clauses simply add a feature of agency.

Agent In Encoding Identifying Relational Clauses: Assigner

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 343):

By contrast, in an encoding identifying clause, passive• is more or less as frequent as active, e.g. (‘which is the leader?’—) active Tom is the leader, passive the leader is Tom; but only the active will accommodate a further* agency – we do not say they elected the leader Tom. Hence in an active/passive pair such as (‘who are now the main suppliers?’—) active our company are now the main suppliers, passive the main suppliers are now our company, the agentive form is this decision leaves our company the main suppliers; the passive does not readily expand to this decision leaves the main suppliers our company.

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• Note that the active/passive distinction at clause rank is now termed 'operative/receptive'.

* Note that in an encoding clause, the Identifier/Token is the Agent.

Agent In Decoding Identifying Relational Clauses: Assigner

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 343):

In the identifying type, it is normally possible to add a feature of agency (an Assigner) provided the clause is operative (Token as Subject): thus, to (‘which is Tom?’—) Tom is (serves as) the leader corresponds an agentive such as they elected Tom the leader; and, with second order Agent, they got Tom elected the leader. We have seen that, with such decoding clauses (those where Token = Identified) the receptive is in any case rather rare.

Assignment

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 288):

Both ‘identifying’ and ‘attributive’ clauses of the ‘intensive’ kind have the option of assignment: they may be configured with a third participant representing the entity assigning the relationship of identity [or] attribution … In the case of ‘identifying’ clauses, this is the Assigner; in the case of ‘attributing’, this is the Attributor.  In a ‘receptive’ clause, this participant may be left implicit …