Whorf's Cryptotypes

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 569):

It is only in more recent times that the more covert areas of grammar have been systematically studied — those that, following Whorf, we have referred to as "cryptogrammar". Whorf (1956) distinguished between overt and covert categories and pointed out that covert categories were often also "cryptotypes" — categories whose meanings were complex and difficult to access. Many aspects of clause grammar, and of the grammar of clause complexes, are essentially cryptotypic. It is the analysis of some of these more covert features embodied in the everyday grammar, in particular the theory of mental processes, that throws light on the domain of cognitive science.

Medium As The Only Obligatory Element Of Experiential Clause Structure

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 156):

In the grammar therefore the Medium appears as an obligatory element — the only element that has this status in the clause. This does not mean that we will find a nominal reflex of the Medium made explicit in the syntagm of every clause; there are various ways in which the Medium may be present as a cryptotypic feature rather than as an overt form. Nevertheless its presence is required in some guise or other; and this distinguishes the Medium from all other participants in the figure.

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For example, the use of the 'medio-passive' in mental and targeting verbal clauses:

you were seen, you were accused

and in impersonal projection nexuses: 

it was thought…, it was said… .

Relating Types Of Figure To Clause Transitivity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 134, 136):

We have characterised the distinctions among the different types of figure in semantic terms. Let us now relate them to the grammar of TRANSITIVITY — the ideational grammar of the clause where the semantics of figures is construed. The different semantic types, sensing, saying, doing & happening and being & having are realised in the grammar of transitivity as shown in Figure 4-4. Thus doing & happening are realised as material clauses, sensing as mental ones, saying as verbal ones, and being (at, etc.) & having as relational clauses. The different process types are not signalled overtly in the grammar; they are covert or cryptotypic categories and emerge only when we consider their reactances, shown in italics in Figure 4-4. 

The Gateway To Semantics Is The Clause Rather Than The Word

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 28):

The gateway to semantics is the clause rather than the word. Consequently, grammatical categories will typically be interpreted 'from above', within their context in the clause or the group, rather than 'from below' within their context in the word. This has rather far-reaching consequences for the understanding of the semantic systems realised by the grammar. Systems that are approached 'from above' in this way include:

projection — clause complex: traditionally a form of 'subordination' within clause; reinterpreted as distinction between hypotaxis in clause complex vs. rankshift in clause, laying the foundation for a semantic distinction between reports and facts.

transitivity — clause: traditionally a word category, transitive = verb taking object/ intransitive = verb not taking object; reinterpreted as (i) process types (material/ mental/ verbal/ relational) and (ii) an ergative system (middle/ effective) in the clause.

tense — group: traditionally a mixture, because the model was taken over from Latin with richer word-rank realisations than English, but more recently in this century often a word category, past/ non-past; reinterpreted (relative to this) as (i) past/ present/ future and (ii) recursive, with secondary tense.

Taking the clause as starting point facilitates the exploration of cryptotypes: the chain of realisation often starts cryptotypically in the clause, whereas the final stages of realisation at word and morpheme rank are more oven — although, as noted in connection with tense and number, the oven marking is seldom the only factor involved.

Examples Of Cryptotypes (Cryptoclasses And Cryptosystems)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 27):

There are many examples of cryptotypes in this sense, both as classes and as systems (i.e., cryptoclasses and cryptosystems), in our ideational semantics. For example:

process types: doing & happening/ sensing/ saying/ being & having
transitivity model: ergative/ transitive
projections: locutions/ ideas
expansions: elaboration/ extension/ enhancement
number: plural/ non-plural; singular/ non-singular

Overt Categories (Phenotypes) vs Covert Categories (Cryptotypes)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 26-7):

The understanding of covert categories in the grammar is due to Whorf (1956: 88 ff), who made the distinction between overt categories or phenotypes and covert categories or cryptotypes; he is worth quoting at some length:

An overt category is a category having a formal mark which is present (with only infrequent exceptions) in every sentence containing a member of the category. The mark need not be part of the same word to which the category may be said to be attached in a paradigmatic sense; i.e. it need not be a suffix, prefix, vowel change, or other 'inflection', but may be a detached word or a certain patterning of the whole sentence. ...

A covert category is marked, whether morphemically or by sentence pattern, only in certain types of sentence and not in every sentence in which a word or element belonging to the category occurs. The class membership of the word is not apparent until there is a question of using it or referring to it in one of these special types of sentence, and then we find that this word belongs to a class requiring some sort of distinctive treatment, which may even be the negative treatment of excluding that type of sentence. This distinctive treatment we may call the reactance of the category. ... 

A covert category may also be termed a cryptotype, a name which calls attention to the rather hidden, cryptic nature of such word-groups, especially when they are not strongly contrasted in idea, nor marked by frequently occurring reactances such as pronouns. They easily escape notice and may be hard to define, and yet may have profound influence on linguistic behaviour. ... Names of countries and cities in English form a cryptotype with the reactance that they are not referred to by personal pronouns as objects of the prepositions 'in, at, to, from'. We can say 'I live in Boston' but not 'That's Boston — I live in it'.

Traditional Grammar vs Functional Grammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 26 , 28):

In traditional grammar, only certain grammatical categories were taken into consideration; these categories were (i) overt and (ii) word-based. In particular, inflectional categories of the word such as tense, case, and number were described and then interpreted semantically. In a functional grammar, while such categories are not ignored, they tend to play a less significant role, appearing at the end point of realisational chains. 

For instance, it is not possible to base a functional interpretation of number in English simply on the presence or absence of 'plural' as a nominal suffix (as in grammar+s); the category of number is rather more complex, involving two complementary systems (see Halliday, 1985: 161-2). 

Similarly, the general properties of the construal of time embodied in the English tense system are not revealed by only looking at the overt suffixal past tense marker- (as in laugh+ed); again the scope of the semantics of tense in English is far greater than this oven word category would suggest (see Halliday, 1985: 182-4; Matthiessen, 1996). In general our move into semantics from grammar differs from the traditional one along the following lines.

(i) We consider not only overt categories but also covert ones. …

(ii) The gateway to semantics is the clause rather than the word.

A Systemic Grammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 3-4):

A systemic grammar is one of the class of functional grammars, which means (among other things) that it is semantically motivated, or "natural". In contradistinction to formal grammars, which are autonomous, and therefore semantically arbitrary, in a systemic grammar every category (and "category" is used here in the general sense of an organising theoretical concept, not in the narrower sense of 'class' as in formal grammars) is based on meaning: it has a semantic as well as a formal, lexicogrammatical reactance. [The reactance of a category is its distinctive treatment.]

Looked at from the formal angle, of course, this means that it is likely to appear complex; many of the categories are "cryptotypic", manifested only through a long chain of realisations (a "realisational chain"). Hence it takes a long time and a great deal of effort to get such a grammar off the ground in any context (such as natural language processing) requiring total explicitness. Once airborne, however, because it is semantically natural it has considerable potential as the basis on which to represent higher level organisation — provided, that is, such organisation is interpreted in linguistic terms, as meaning rather than as knowledge.

Cryptogrammar Can Illuminate Cognitive Science

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 569):

It is the analysis of some of these more covert features embodied in the everyday grammar, in particular the theory of mental processes, that throws light on the domain of cognitive science.

Cryptotypes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 569):

Whorf (1956) distinguished between overt and covert categories and pointed out that covert categories were often also “cryptotypes” — categories whose meanings were complex and difficult to access. Many aspects of clause grammar, and of the grammar of clause complexes, are essentially cryptotypic.

Grammatical Realisation Of Figures: Transitivity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 134):

… doing & happening are realised as material clauses, sensing as mental ones, saying as verbal ones, and being (at, etc.) & having as relational clauses. The different process types are not signalled overtly in the grammar; they are covert or cryptotypic categories and emerge only when we consider their reactances.

Examples Of Cryptotypes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 27):

There are many examples of cryptotypes in this sense, both as classes and as systems (i.e. cryptoclasses and cryptosystems), in our ideational semantics. For example:

• proces types: doing & happening / sensing / saying / being & having
• transitivity model: ergative / transitive
• projections: locutions / ideas
• expansions: elaboration / extension / enhancement
• number: plural / non-plural; singular / non-singular

Covert Categories: Cryptotypes

Whorf (1956: 88ff) apud Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 27):

A covert category may also be termed a cryptotype, a name which calls attention to the rather hidden, cryptic nature of such word-groups, especially when they are not strongly contrasted in idea, nor marked by frequently occurring reactances such as pronouns. They easily escape notice and may be hard to define, and yet may have profound influence on linguistic behaviour.

The Distinctive Treatment Of Covert Categories: Reactances

Whorf (1956: 88ff) apud Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 27):

A covert category is marked, whether morphemically or by sentence pattern, only in certain types of sentence and not in every sentence in which a word or element belonging to the category occurs. The class membership of the word is not apparent until there is a question of using it or referring to it in one of these special types of sentence, and then we find that this word belongs to a class requiring some sort of distinctive treatment, which may even be the negative treatment of excluding that type of sentence. This distinctive treatment we may call the reactance of the category.

Cryptotypes Vs Phenotypes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 26):

We consider not only overt categories but also covert ones. The understanding of covert categories in the grammar is due to Whorf (1956: 88ff), who made the distinction between overt categories or phenotypes and covert categories or cryptotypes …