Cause Expressed By Clause

Halliday (1994: 401-3):

Here ends 14 years of unpaid and unacknowledged daily service to the SFL community by an unwaged member.

The Typical Environment For A Fact

Halliday (1994: 266):

Mental Quality As Attribute

Halliday (1994: 121):

Intensive Relational Processes: Attributive

Halliday (1994: 120):

The Semantics Of Attributive Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 450):

More generally, the Medium is related as a member of a set, which is defined either by a quality or by a class. The relation is a composite of the participants (the Carrier and the Attribute) and the nuclear relation. The nuclear relation is not necessarily a state; it can be either a being or a becoming, both of which are located in time, as are processes in general.

But its participants are static things; the Carrier is an individual or class, and the Attribute is a lasting quality or a wider class. The Attribute of the relation of becoming applies to the Carrier in the final state of the becoming; it is a resultative Attribute.

Participant Defined As A Potential Carrier Of An Attribute

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 182-3):

We have already set up the general theory of participants, defining them in relation to ascriptive processes of being, being at, and having, in a process-participant configuration. There are three elements in such a configuration: the Process, intensive, possessive or circumstantial; the Attribute, which is being ascribed by one or other of these processes; and the Carrier. It is the role of Carrier which defines the concept of a participant. A participant, according to this theory, is that which may have assigned to it, in the discourse, properties, parts or circumstantial features. For example:

(a) properties (Process of 'being')

some dishes are very tolerant

the grain looks orange and full

a kitchen should be a cheerful place

the swede is more nutritious than the turnip

(b) parts (Process of 'having')

it has branching stems covered with a green succulent flesh

spinach has a decided flavour which some people dislike

they have a pleasant fresh flavour

(c) circumstantial features (Process of 'being at')

this plant is like chicory

these mangoes are from Mexico

the seeds will be inside long coffee-coloured pods

this effect might be because of over-heating

This analysis reveals two important aspects of a participant: 

(i) that it is a thing that can 'carry' or be ascribed attributes, and 

(ii) that the ascription may be of different kinds — intensive (elaborating), possessive (extending), circumstantial (enhancing).

Figures Of Being: Semantic Characterisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 151-2):

In the limiting case, there is only one participant, the Existent; but generally there are two participants, the one being related by the process to the other. They may be being related by ascription, as Attribute to Carrier; or by identification, a rather complex relationship involving two pairs of participant roles: Identifier and Identified, and Token and Value. These latter intersect with each other, so there are two possible role combinations: 

(i) Identified/Token and Identifier/Value ['decoding']; 

(ii) Identifier/Token and Identified/Value ['encoding'].

Ontogenesis: Construing Categories Externally And Internally

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 73-5):

Construing experience as meaning means locating classes such as squares and circles somewhere in the semantic system, both locally as terms in systems and also more globally in the ordering of these systems in delicacy. 

Painter comments: "... through the naming utterances where Stephen was practising signification, he was also necessarily construing the things of his experience into taxonomies". So Stephen also construes the attributes of semantic classes, attributes that will help him sort out the organisation of the semantic system. …

When Stephen's meaning potential has gained critical semantic mass, he begins to construe its own internal organisation explicitly in an effort to sort out taxonomic relations within the system. … Again, the resource for construing 'categories' is the intensive ascriptive figure of being; but now both the Carrier and the Attribute are meanings internal to the semantic system. That is, Stephen construes a taxonomic relationship between e.g. 'seal' and 'animal' by construing them as Carrier + Attribute:

Painter comments: "The importance of this development is that it constitutes a move on Stephen's part from using language to make sense of non-linguistic phenomena to using language to make sense of the valeur relations of the meaning system itself." We can diagram the contrast between these two steps in construing experience as categories of meaning as in Figure 2-10.

Blogger Comments:

Relating this to Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, 'visually shared experience' can be understood as the meaning that perceptual (semiotic) systems construe of experience. On the SFL assumption of immanence, domains outside semiotic systems are not meaningful of themselves.

Importantly, the 'external' ascriptive relation here is the subtype 'instantiation' which is a token to type relation (op. cit.:145), so construing categories 'externally' is relating perceptual tokens to semantic types.

Facts Embedded In Personal Attributive Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 542):

However, we also need to take note of ‘attributive’ clauses where the Carrier is realised by a nominal group denoting a person and the Attribute is a nominal group with an embedded fact clause, either ‘possessive’ with a noun as Head (e.g. idea, notion, inkling [[that ...]]) or ‘intensive’ with an adjective as Head of the nominal group (e.g. sure, certain, aware, cognisant, oblivious (of the fact) [[that ...]]); for example:

They would have no idea [[[that the current British theatrical renaissance is having an effect far beyond the West End of London, || so that Broadway is heavily influenced by the highly successful plays of today [[that it has imported from Britain]] ]]]. 

However, I am not sure [[that [[what probabilists and what physicists mean here by ‘fields’ ]] are quite synonymous]].

These ‘personal’ ‘attributive’ clauses are closely agnate with projecting ‘mental’ clauses: they have no idea ~ they don’t know, I’m not sure ~ I don’t know.

Possessive Attributive Clauses: Possession As Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 295):

If the relationship of possession is construed as the Process, then two further possibilities arise. 

Either (1) the possessor is the Carrier and the possessed is the Attribute (we will call the thing possessed the ‘possessed’ rather than the ‘possession’, to avoid ambiguity; ‘possession’ refers to the relationship), as in Peter has a piano. Here piano-ownership is an attribute being ascribed to Peter. Verbs other than have combine the sense of possession with other features, e.g. lack ‘need to have’, boast ‘have as a positive feature’. 

Or (2) the possessed is the Carrier and the possessor is the Attribute, as in the piano belongs to Peter. Here Peter-ownership is an attribute being ascribed to the piano. Neither of the two, of course, is reversible; we do not say a piano is had by Peter, or Peter is belonged to by the piano.

Possessive Attributive Clauses: Possession As Attribute

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 295):

If the relationship is construed as the Attribute, then it takes the form of a possessive nominal group e.g Peter's; the thing possessed is the Carrier and the possessor is the Attribute.

Circumstantial Attributive Process Vs Material Process [Diagnostic: Unmarked Tense & Participant Mobility]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 292):

Verbs serving in clauses with a circumstantial process are often derived from a basic use in ‘material’ clauses of motion … The unmarked present tense is the simple present … rather than the present in present of ‘material’ clauses … The Carrier is typically some immobile physical feature, whereas the Actor of a ‘material’ clause of motion is typically an animate being or a mobile entity. Because of the overlap of a large set of verbs, there will of course be cases that are indeterminate …

Carrier & Attribute Differ In Generality Not Abstraction

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 286):

In attribution, some entity is being said to have an attribute. This means that it is being assigned to a class, and the two elements that enter into this relation, the attribute and the entity that ‘carries’ it, thus differ in generality (the one includes the other) but are at the same level of abstraction [unlike Token and Value].

Blogger Comments:

Note that this also, therefore, characterises the difference between instantiation (attribution/generality) and stratification (identity/abstraction).  Language is more general than register; context is more abstract than language.  This is the fundamental theoretical reason why register ≠ context.

Semiotic Domain Of Attribution: Qualities Of Sensing

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 273-4):

Within the semiotic domain of attribution, there is one variety of ‘attributive’ clause in which the Attribute denotes a quality of sensing equivalent to the Process of a ‘mental’ clause. … ‘Relational’ clauses with a quality of sensing fall into two types: those which match the like [‘emanating’] type of ‘mental’ clause, with Carrier equivalent to Senser; and those which match the please [‘impinging’] type of ‘mental’ clause, with Carrier equivalent to Phenomenon. … many of the Attributes are evaluative in nature; this type of clause is an important grammatical strategy in the enactment of appraisal.

Blogger Comment:

For example, from Yes, Minister

Jim Hacker:                      I'm a curious person.               [Carrier equivalent to Senser]
Sir Humphrey Appleby:     You certainly are, Minister.     [Carrier equivalent to Phenomenon]

Inceptive Attribution: Collocation Patterns

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 272):

Clauses of ‘inceptive’ attribution are subject to collocational patterns between Process: verb and Attribute: adjective; for example go + mad, run + dry, turn + sour, fall + ill. And the collocational pattern may also involve the Head noun of the nominal group serving as Carrier, as with Process: run + Attribute: dry, where the Carrier includes a noun such as well, lake, river, sea, water supply, tap; blood bank; mouth

Attributive Mode: Carrier & Attribute

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 267):

In the ‘attributive’ mode, an entity has some class ascribed or attributed to it. Structurally, we label this class the Attribute, and the entity to which it is ascribed is the Carrier — the ‘carrier’ of the ‘attribute’. … This type of clause is a resource for characterising entities serving as Carrier; and it is also a central grammatical strategy for assessing by assigning an evaluative Attribute to a Carrier.

The Attributive Relation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 450):

More generally, the Medium is related as a member of a set, which is defined either by a quality or by a class.  The relation is a composite of the participants (the Carrier and the Attribute) and the nuclear relation.  The nuclear relation is not necessarily a state; it can be either a being or a becoming, both of which are located in time, as are processes in general.  But its participants are static things; the Carrier is an individual or class, and the Attribute is a lasting quality or a wider class.  The Attribute of the relation of becoming applies to the Carrier in the final state of the becoming: it is a resultative Attribute.

Participant [Definition]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 182):

We have already set up the general theory of participants, defining them in relation to ascriptive processes of being, being at, and having, in a process-participant configuration.  There are three elements in such a configuration: the Process, intensive, possessive or circumstantial; the Attribute, which is being ascribed by one or other of these processes; and the Carrier.  It is the rôle of Carrier which defines the concept of a participant. A participant, according to this theory, is that which may have assigned to it, in the discourse, properties [intensive/elaborating], parts [possessive/extending] or circumstantial features [enhancing].

Figures Of Being: Forms Of Participation Involved

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 151-2):

In the limiting case, there is only one participant, the Existent; but generally there are two participants, the one being related by the process to the other. They may be being related by ascription, as Attribute to Carrier; or by identification, a rather complex relationship involving two pairs of participant rôles: Identifier and Identified, and Token and Value. These latter intersect with each other, so that there are two possible rôle combinations: (i) Identified/Token and Identifier/Value [decoding]; (ii) Identifier/Token and Identified/Value [encoding].

Construal Of Emotion As Attribute

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 143):

With many processes of emotion, there is an alternative construal of the emotion as a quality that can be ascribed as an Attribute to a Carrier in a relational clause; and this alternative exists for both the ‘like’ type and the ‘please’ type.  Thus I’m afraid of snakes is an ascriptive alternative to the mental I fear snakes; similarly, in the other direction, snakes are scary and snakes scare me. This relational type of alternative exists for some cognitive and desiderative processes, but is much more productive with emotive ones.  Analogous attributes in the domain of perception seem always to involve potentiality (visible, audible).