Process Type Summary

Halliday (1994: 143-4):

Existential Clause Analyses

Halliday (1994: 143):

Existent

Halliday (1994: 142-3):

Verbs Serving As Existential Processes

 Halliday (1994: 142):

Existential vs Circumstantial Relational Clauses

Halliday (1994: 142):

Circumstantial Attributive vs Existential Clause

 Halliday (1994: 130):

Intermediate Process Types: Behavioural, Verbal And Existential

Halliday (1994: 107):

Existential Processes: Between The Relational And The Material

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 514):

Finally, there is the phenomenon of existing — still construed, grammatically, as a type of process. What is said to exist may be an entity, something that persists through time, like there's a letter for you; but it may also, in many languages, be a happening, as in there was a fight. Here we have something that could alternatively be construed as a material process (people were fighting ), which suggests that "existential" processes are another intermediate type, something between the relational and the material.

Facts Embedded In Existential Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 542):

Another, minor but significant, environment in which fact clauses occur is that of ‘existential’ clauses (an environment favoured by evidence):

There is evidence [[that the Russians were just as surprised as anyone else at the suddenness and violence of them]], but it is, of course, a situation ideal for exploitation. 

If the serum of a D negative individual agglutinates the D positive but not the D negative control cells, there is a high probability [[that the serum contains anti-D]], but the specificity should be confirmed by testing against several more examples of D-positive and D-negative red cells.

Summary Of Process Types

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 310, 311):

Table 5-27 gives a summary of the types of process that we have identified in the grammar of English, together with their general category meaning and the participants that are associated with each.

Meteorological Processes: Material Clauses Without Participants

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 310):

This last type [construed as it + a verb in the ‘present in present’ tense] is unique in English, in that it has no participant in it.  The it serves the interpersonal function of Subject, like the there in an ‘existential’ clause, but has no function in transitivity — if you are told that it’s raining, you cannot ask What is? and the it cannot be theme–predicated (we cannot say it’s it that’s raining) or serve as an identified Theme or Rheme (we cannot say it is what’s raining/what’s raining is it). On the other hand the tense is clearly that of a ‘material’ process.  These clauses can be analysed as consisting of a single element, the Process; they are the limiting case of a ‘material’ process clause.

Existent & Existential-Material Topology

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 309):

The entity or event which is said to exist is labelled, simply, Existent.  In principle, there can ‘exist’ any kind of phenomenon that can be construed as a ‘thing’: person, object, institution, abstraction; 

but also any action or event, as in is there going to be a storm?, there was another robbery in the street. And here the ‘existential’ merges into the ‘material’ type of clause: there is little difference in meaning between ‘existential’ there was a robbery and ‘material: creative’ a robbery took place (note the present tense a robbery is taking place).

Existential Clause Complexes

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 309):

Another common way of ‘locating’ the process in space–time is to follow it with a non-finite clause, e.g. there was an old woman tossed up in a basket, there’s someone waiting at the door, there’s a patient to see you; the two together form a clause complex.

Existential Clauses Without Subjects

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 309):

Frequently an ‘existential’ clause contains a distinct circumstantial element of time or place … If the circumstantial element is thematic, the Subject there may be omitted — but it will turn up if there is a tag: on the wall (there) was a Picasso painting, wasn’t there? …

Existential Clauses: Verbs

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 309, 310):

‘Existential’ clauses typically have the verb be; in this respect also they resemble ‘relational’ clauses. But the other verbs that commonly occur are mainly different from either the ‘attributive’ or the ‘identifying’: see Table 5-26. …

Existential 'There' vs Circumstantial 'There' [Diagnostic]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 309):

Phonologically there is non-salient, and the vowel is often reduced to schwa (hence identical with the); it is thus distinct from the Adjunct there which is a circumstantial element. Contrast (i) existential there’s your father on the line, with reduced there [ðə] as Subject, and response Oh, is there?, and (ii) circumstantial relational there’s your father, with salient there [ðɛə] as Adjunct, and response Oh, is he? In (ii), but not in (i), there’s is in contrast with here’s.

Existential ‘There’: Experiential & Interpersonal Functions

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 308):

The word there in such clauses is neither a participant nor a circumstance — it has no representational function in the transitivity structure of the clause; but it serves to indicate the feature of existence, and it is needed interpersonally as a Subject. Unlike participants and circumstances this existential there cannot be queried, theme–predicated or theme–identified …

Existential ‘There’: Textual Function

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 308):

Textually the Theme is just the feature of existence (there), allowing the addressee to prepare for something that is about to be introduced; and this something is presented as New information.

Three Subsidiary Process Types

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 300):

We can then go on to recognise three subsidiary process types, located at each of the boundaries: behavioural at the boundary between material and mental, verbal at the boundary between mental and relational, and existential at the boundary between relational and material.

Circumstantial Attributive Vs Existential [Diagnostic: Mood Tag]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 291):

However, note that clauses such as on the north wall …  hangs a Union Jack … are not ‘attributive’ but ‘existential’.  The thematically unmarked form of these clauses is that beginning with existential there: there is (hangs) a Union Jack on the north wall.  The prepositional phrase then appears initially as a marked Theme; in that case the existential feature may be left implicit, although the there may still be present and will appear in any case in the mood tag: on the north wall (there) is a Union Jack, isn’t there?.  In contrast, in a ‘circumstantial attributive’ clause, the Subject/Carrier is picked up in the mood tag: the sounds and smells of the ocean hang in the air — don’t they? …