The Effacement Of Sensers In The Mainstream Cognitive Science Model

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 598):

The mainstream cognitive science model is thus basically derived from a variety of the commonsense model. It creates a metaphorical distance from experience as construed in our congruent grammar, so that the conscious processing that we experience can be reconstrued as a 'subconscious' domain that we do not have access to — an abstract space where figures of doing & happening and of being & having are the ones that operate, rather than figures of sensing. This would seem to be at one remove (at least) from the folk model, which might reasonably be seen as one of experientialist cognition in Lakoffs (1988) sense — one that is in direct contact with the everyday, embodied experience of Sensers. 

Thus, the metaphorical reconstrual of mental processes effaces the Sensers involved in these processes — the conscious beings, prototypically human, who are thinking, knowing, believing, remembering and so on. 

This effacement of the Sensers is of course not accidental: in fact, one central feature of the way in which cognitivists reconstrue mental processing in metaphorical terms is that the grammatical metaphor makes it possible to distance the account from our everyday experience.

The Central Motif In The Metaphorical Reconstrual Of Sensing

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 596, 597):

Figure 14-10 represents the central motif in the metaphorical reconstrual of sensing: sensing is 'extracted' from figures of sensing as a domain, and reified to become one of a variety of participants that take on roles in figures of being & having and doing & happening, taking place in the mind construed as a container.

The Ontogenesis Of Construing Mental Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 580):

Painter (1993) documents how one child first learned to construe mental projection: he began with figures in which he himself was the Senser. The system made it possible for him then to generalise his own experience of consciousness by construing other persons in the Senser role, as he built up a model in which this role could be occupied by any conscious (prototypically human) being.

Why Projected Clauses Are Not Constituents Of Projecting Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 578-9):

In the grammar, the 'idea' is a separate clause that combines with the 'sensing' clause in a clause complex, through the relation of projection; see Figure 14-4 for a structural interpretation.

In our analysis (unlike that of the mainstream grammatical tradition), the projected clause is not a constituent part of the mental or verbal clause by which it is projected. There are numerous reasons for this; some of them are grammatical — for example, 

• it cannot be the focus of theme-predication [we do not say: it is that they're absolutely horrible that I think]; 
• it cannot be the Subject of a passive mental clause [we do not say: they're absolutely horrible is thought by me]; 
• it is presumed by the substitute so, which is also used to presume conditional clauses in clause complexes: I think they're absolutely horrible and my husband thinks so too]. 

But these, in turn, reflect the semantic nature of projection: this is a relationship between two figures, not a device whereby one becomes a participant inside another. We can thus show the difference between these and 'fact' clauses, those where the idea clause is a projection but it is not the accompanying mental clause that is doing the projecting; such readymade projections do function as constituents. An example here is I don't care whether they are devoted or not; compare it's not whether they are devoted or not that I care about.

Consciousness As A Complementarity Of Change And Persistence Through Time

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 578):

The figure of sensing is a configuration of a Process (think) and the participant engaged in sensing, the Senser (I); that is, consciousness is construed as a complementarity of change through time and persistence through time — as a conscious participant involved in an unfolding process.

Token + Value Structures "Having Things Both Ways"

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 561):

There are of course many different contexts for all these indeterminacies, in different regions of the total semantic space. Certain types of ambiguity appear to be not so much artefacts of the realisation (not just grammatical puns, so to speak) but rather another kind of complementarity, where the grammar is as it were "having things both ways" — both interpretations have to be accepted at one and the same time. This is sometimes the case with Token + Value structures, in figures of being. These clauses are always ambiguous, if the verb is be, since this verb does not mark the passive; yet some depend on being interpreted both ways — particularly, perhaps, some proverbial sayings, Thus, one man's meat is another man's poison is both Token ^ Value 'what one person likes may displease another' and Value ^ Token 'what one person dislikes may please another'; contrast what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, which can be interpreted only as Token ^ Value.

Transitive-Ergative Complementarity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 559-60):

In those figures where there is a second direct participant, some form of agency runs through all the different types of process; but agency is such a complex aspect of human experience that the grammar does not delineate it by a single stroke, but construes it by means of a fundamental complementarity, that between the transitive and the ergative perspectives. Thus figures involving two direct participants, such as Actor + Goal in the material, are aligned along two different axes: the transitive one, based on the potential extension of force (mechanical energy) from a doer to another entity; and the ergative one, based on the potential introduction of agency (causal energy) from another entity as external source. Thus the earthquake shook the house is construed both as 'earthquake + shake' plus optional Goal 'house', and as 'house + shake' plus optional Agent 'earthquake'. As always in cases of complementarity, certain parts of the region are more strongly aligned to one perspective, other parts to the other, but the total picture requires the confrontation of the two.

Behavioural Process As Mixed Category

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 559):

As we saw, the grammar distinguishes a number of types of process, material, mental, verbal and relational; the distinctions are made by a cluster of syntactic variables — the valency of associated participant roles, the class of entity that takes on each role, the potential for combining with other figures, the associated tense systems and the like. But since these variables "draw the line" at different places, there are areas of overlap, with mixed categories that share some characteristics with one group and some with another. 

We gave the example of behavioural processes; these are a mixed category, formed by the overlap of the material, on the one side, and the mental or verbal on the other. Behaving is construed as a type of figure that (like the mental) typically has a conscious participant as the central role, and does not extend beyond this to a second participant; but, on the other hand, it does not project, and it has a time frame like that of the material. Thus behavioural processes lie squarely athwart a fuzzy borderline.

Fawcett's Model Of Relational Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 504):

And even within our own configurational model of English there is often considerable 'play'. A good example of this is Fawcett (1987). … 

Fawcett incorporates into the "relational: possessive" category, processes of giving and acquiring; reduces the circumstantial to locational processes only; and includes within these, processes of going and sending (for discussion of this area, see Davidse, 1996b). As is to be expected, this alternative analysis embodies certain generalisations that are not made in our account of figures, and ignores certain others which are. 

(His abandonment of the distinction between attributive and identifying seems harder to motivate, since this cannot in fact be explained as a textual (thematic) system in the way that Fawcett proposes; cf. Davidse, 1996a.)

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this is a tactful identification of some of the inconsistencies in Fawcett' model.

The Semantics And Grammatics Of Intentionality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 478):

To the extent that intentionality enters into the semantic system of a language, it could in principle be construed ideationally as some aspect of the overall system of figures or be enacted interpersonally as a modality of inclination. If it is construed ideationally, it could in principle be a global property of a figure as a whole or a local property of the process or a participant.

In English, intentionality can be enacted within the interpersonal system of imperative modality (modulation) in the form of inclination, as in he won't be ordered around ('refuses to be'). It is independent of ideational agency; inclination is oriented towards the Subject, i.e. the modally responsible element of the clause, rather than (say) the Actor or Agent (as our passive example illustrates).

Intentionality can be construed in the clause as circumstances of Manner ('according to plan', e.g. he found the book by chance; he turned left by mistake; he turned left intentionally) and as verbal group complexes of projection or enhancement realising the Process (e.g., she intended to leave at 4; she happened to be in the neighbourhood). It may also be a factor in certain lexical contrasts within delicate process types; but we have no evidence that intentionality is a primary variable in the semantic system of figures and its grammatical construal in transitivity. Rather, whether an example is read as construing something as intentional or non-intentional will depend on a variety of factors, such as the consciousness of the most active participant.

The Transitivity And Temporal Files Of The Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 468-9):

As we have seen, the two perspectives represent two different kinds of profile. One is the configuration of process, participants, and circumstances — the transitivity profile; and the other is the occurrence or unfolding of an event through time — the temporal profile.

The two perspectives are not unrelated, of course. As we shall see, the specification of an element of transitivity structure may determine the temporal profile: the created Goal that constitutes the completion of the performance of the process (as in Mr. Standings built a house), a Range that constitutes its finite scope (They sang two Hungarian folk songs), a destination that gives its spatio-temporal endpoint (He walked to the store), a resultative Attribute that constitutes the (qualitative) endstate (He was shot dead), and so on. But the mere presence of such an element is not sufficient to determine the temporal profile; it is also influenced by the 'boundedness' of the elements: are they in infinite supply or not — a definite number of units, or an indefinite number? In general, then, the temporal profile is determined by other factors such as the presence, and the boundedness in quantity, of participants and circumstances.

The Participant-Organising Perspective On The Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 467-8):

In the participant-organising perspective, it is the nature of the participants involved in the process that determines the different process types. Relevant variables include the following:

1. Is some participant created, brought into existence, by the process?

2. Is some participant restricted to conscious being?

3. Can some participant be a metathing as well as a thing?

4. Is the process directed towards some participant?

5. Does the process benefit some participant?

6. Does the process occur spontaneously or does it need an input of energy?

7. Does the process affect some participant materially or does it impinge on its consciousness?

8. Is the process symmetric?

9. Is the process reflexive?

Questions such as these lead to typologies with terms like action, transaction, happening, sensing, saying, relation, existential, ambient, and so on. In the typology presented here as part of the ideation base, there are two very general considerations:

1. process type: what kind of reality does the figure or process configuration pertain to (the material world, the world of consciousness, the world of symbolisation, the world of abstract relations)?

2. agency: is the occurrence of the process (in conjunction with the medium) caused by an entity that is external to it (an agent)?

Two Perspectives On A Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 466, 467):

… a process is both an organiser of participants and an event that is instantiable in time. These two perspectives lead to different criteria for establishing process typologies. For example, will have left is the Process part of they will have left the house by now, where it organises the participants they and the house; but it also has internal organisation as an event will —> have —> left: see Figure 12-1.

The two perspectives are associated with different grammatical units, the clause (for the participant organising perspective) and the verbal group (for the temporal instantiation).

Syndromes Of Features That Occupy A Region Of Semantic Space

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 466):

For example, if we recognise figures of saying (usually overlooked as a distinct type), this goes together with certain other features: with the distinction between phenomena and metaphenomena, and between ideas and sayings, with the organisation of projections as sequences rather than as figures, with the identification of symbol sources as a kind of participant, and with the recognition of circumstances of matter. In other words, we have to consider syndromes of features that occupy a region of semantic space.

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.

Interpersonal Semantics: Move

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 376-7):

The interaction base provides the resources for enacting social roles and relations as meaning, (prototypically) in dialogue. The interaction base includes the strategies for adopting and assigning speech roles, for giving and demanding assessments, and the like. The locus of these strategies is a unit of interaction or move. A move is typically mapped onto a figure from the ideation base: a speaker construes a quantum of experience as a figure and enacts this figure as a move in dialogue, either as a proposition or as a proposal. This mapping between figure and move is a central feature of the way we jointly construct and negotiate experience.

The Semantic System Or "Meaning Base"

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 376, 377):

The semantic system, or "meaning base", thus consists of the three familiar metafunctional contributions: the ideation base, the part of the meaning base that we have focussed on, but also the other two bases, the interaction base and the text base. All three bases are extended along the cline of instantiation from potential to instance. … Table 9(1) summarises those aspects of the three bases to be discussed.

The Overall Effect Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 258-9):

The overall effect of the grammatical metaphor is that semantic relations between one element and another, and between one figure and another, become progressively less explicit as the degree of metaphoricity increases. We can illustrate this by taking a text example and relating it to more congruent and more metaphorical variants:

Notice how the semantic information construed by the grammar in the most congruent version is gradually lost at each step in the course of metaphoric rewording.

Elemental Metaphor Syndrome: Figure With Process ==> Figure With Process As Thing

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 254-5):

(III) Figure With Process ==> Figure With Process As Thing

They surveyed the property ==> (They) did a survey of the property

They started to survey the property ==> (They) started a survey of the property

They discussed in the early afternoon ==> Their discussion took place (in the early afternoon)

Elemental Metaphor Syndrome: Sequence ==> Figure

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 252-4):

(II) Sequence ==> Figure

Here the syndrome occurs in a more general environment, that of construing a sequence on the model of a figure — grammatically, the sequence is construed not as a clause complex but as a clause.

They shredded the documents before they departed for the airport ==> (They shredded the documents) before their departure for the airport

They shredded the documents before they departed for the airport ==> Their shredding of the documents preceded their departure for the airport

These examples of a 'sequence ==> figure' metaphor both involved a sequence of the expansion type. However, this type of metaphoric shift also occurs with projection sequences; for example:

The colonel declared his innocence.

— where the congruent form would be a projection, either hypotactic or paratactic:

The colonel declared that he was innocent.

The colonel declared, "I am innocent".