Identity vs Class Membership

Halliday (1994: 122):

'Categorisation' In Ontogenesis

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 73):

Painter (1996) provides a key to the understanding of how linguistic resources are deployed in 'categorisation' in language development, drawing on her longitudinal case study of one child, Stephen, between 2 1/2 and 5 years.

The first stage in categorisation is naming individuals as members of classes; instances of the visual experience shared by the young child and his father or mother are ascribed to some general class of experience by means of a figure of being. At about 2 1/2, Stephen produced examples such as: Stephen (examining pattern on a rug): That's a square. What's that? — Mother: That's a circle. Here some perceived phenomenon of experience is brought "into intersubjective focus" by being referred to exophorically — pointing verbally, so to speak, to some feature of the material setting, sometimes accompanied by or replaced by a pointing as a gesture. This phenomenon is construed by Stephen as the Carrier of the figure of being, and is ascribed as a member of some general class of experience, construed as the Attribute of the figure. Stephen is 'importing' experience of instances into the semantic system by ascribing them to general classes in that system. This is an act of naming, and later this act itself gets named by call (see also Halliday, 1977, on calling as an early example of language being turned back on itself).

Children thus build up experience as meaning, in contexts such as the one exemplified above.

Indeterminacy In Possessive Attributive Clauses: Possession As Attribute

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 295):

These are not, in fact, syntagmatically distinct from ‘identifying’ clauses; the clause the piano is Peter’s could be either ‘attributive’, ‘the piano is a member of the class of Peter’s possessions’ or ‘identifying’, ‘the piano is identified as belonging to Peter’. (Note that the reversed [form] Peter’s is the piano can only be ‘identifying’.)

Circumstantial Relational Clauses: Attributive Vs Identifying Mode

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 293):

The line between ‘attributive’ and ‘identifying’ modes is less clear in the ‘circumstantial’ than in the ‘intensive’ type of ‘relational’ clause. This is natural, since it is less obvious whether an expression such as on the mat designates a class (that has members — the class of things on the mat) or an identity (the thing that is identified by being on the mat). Nevertheless there is a distinction …

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.

Identifying Vs Attributive Mode

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 277):

Class membership [attribution] does not serve to identify … One way of looking at the ‘identifying’ clause would be to say that here we are narrowing down the class in question to a class of one … only one member in the class, a single instance.

Membership Specification: Entity Or Quality

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 268):

The class is specified either

• by naming the class itself by reference to the entity that constitutes the class, as in What did your father do? – He was an architect, or 
• by naming a criterion for class-membership by reference to a quality or qualities of the entity that constitutes the class, as in The New Yorker is very generous.

Types Of Intensive Attribution

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 268):

Within clauses of intensive attribution, we can distinguish three simultaneous contrasts:

(i) the class denoted by the Attribute may be defined by reference to an entity or to a quality;

(ii) the process of attribution may be neutral or phased; and

(iii) the domain of attribution may be either material or semiotic.

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.

Identifying Clauses: ‘Exhaustive’ Class Membership

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 263):

Identifying clauses are also used to construe ‘exhaustive’ class membership where a class is identified with its members, as in: The fuels of the body are carbohydrates, fats and proteins.

Relational Clauses & Semiotic Dimensions

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 263):

… we can see how the grammar models the realisational relationship between two strata in the form of ‘relational’ clauses of identity. … In this way, the grammar of relational clauses is based on the dimensions of a semiotic system.

Relational Clauses: Instantiation And Realisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 263):

In her account of ‘relational’ clauses, Davidse (1992, 1996) adopts a semiotic approach, interpreting class–membership by reference to the semiotic relation of instantiation and identity by reference to the semiotic relation of realisation.

Relational Clauses: Class–Membership And Identity

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 262):

The configuration of Process + ‘Be-er1’ + ‘Be-er2’ opens up the potential for construing the abstract relationships of class–membership and identity in all domains of experience. Class–membership is construed by attributive clauses and identity by identifying ones. These two ‘relational’ clause types cut across the inner and outer experience of ‘mental’ and ‘material’ clauses …

Two Versions Of The Intensive Relation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 461):

… ascriptive intensive relations … represent a relation of inclusion … Identity and inclusion are two versions of the intensive relation: identity is the limiting case of inclusion and inclusion is partial identity.

Being & Having: Extension Relations Between Participants

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 145):

One participant extends another in a relation of composition, possession, or association. As with elaboration, there is also the intersecting variable of either identity or membership.

Being & Having: Elaboration Relations Between Participants

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 144-5):

One participant elaborates another one along the dimensions of delicacy, realisation, or instantiation. In other words, the elaboration sets up a relationship either of generality (delicacy), of abstraction (realisation), or of token to type (instantiation). There is another variable whereby elaboration involves either identity or membership along the dimension in question.