Types Of Receptive Clause

Halliday (1994: 169, 170):

Transitive Equivalents Of Medium

 Halliday (1994: 165):

Nucleus

Halliday (1994: 164):

Medium As Obligatory Direct Participant

 Halliday (1994: 164):

Medium

Halliday (1994: 163-4):

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.

The Process As The Central Element Of A Figure

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 213):

The key to the construal of experience is the perception of change; the grammar construes a quantum of change as a figure (typically one clause) and sorts out figures in the first instance into those of consciousness (sensing and saying), those of the material world (doing & happening) and those of logical relations (being & having). The central element of a figure is the process; 'things' are construed as entities participating in processes, having different roles, of which one is 'that participant in which the process is actualised' (if there is 'flying', there has to be something that flies or is flown: birds fly, people fly kites); hence the grammatical nucleus of the clause is the configuration of Process with Medium.

Summary: Degree Of Participanthood: Goal vs Range

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 171-2):

We have summarised the features of two participant roles, Goal and Range, which vary considerably in their degree of participanthood, lying as it were at the two ends of this continuum. We saw earlier that the Medium is the element that is most closely bonded to the Process, the two together forming the nucleus of the figure. Thus the highest degree of participanthood is that of whichever element, in each particular type of figure, is conflated with the generalised function of Medium; in the case of a figure of doing, this is the Goal, the element that is impacted (moved, changed, created or destroyed) by the Process.

At the other end of the cline are those elements whose status as participant is highly precarious, those which conflate with the generalised function of Range. These, as we have seen, are closely agnate to other types of figure, either those consisting of Process alone or those with Process + circumstantial element. 

We can thus extend the continuum further, outside the status of participant altogether, into the realm of circumstances. In the next subsection we discuss the circumstantial roles; and we can order these also in terms of their degree of involvement in the process.

Summary Of Generalised Participant Roles

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 158):

Figure 4-11 summarises the generalised participant roles in diagrammatic form. It shows Process and Medium as a complementarity — the Process is actualised through the Medium; and it represents the other participants as external to this nucleus, indicating the type of role relationship that obtains (x enhancing, + extending and = elaborating).

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, omitted from the diagram is the role relationship of projection, which obtains, for example, between the nucleus and the Range of a figure of sensing or saying (i.e. Phenomenon or Verbiage).

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.

Blogger Comments:

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… .

The Nucleus Of A Figure

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 156):

Semantically, the nucleus construes the centre of gravity of a figure, the focal point around which the system of figures is organised. When we describe the Medium as "actualising" the Process, we are really saying that the unfolding is constituted by the fusion of the two together — there can be no Process without an element through which this process is translated from the virtual to the actual.

Manifestations Of The Close Bonding Of Medium And Process As Nucleus [3]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 156):

The manner of performance of a process may vary, in which case it is the Medium by which it is typically determined. This may be a major variation in the mode of actualisation, for example 'open + door, open + account, open + eye' where the process is respectively mechanical, verbal or physiological; or simply a minor difference in the means that is employed, e.g. "brush + teeth, brush + clothes'. Some examples:

In many cases, the difference in the manner of performance is the basis of a lexically codified taxonomic distinction; for example:

Manifestations Of The Close Bonding Of Medium And Process As Nucleus [2]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 155):

In the taxonomy of figures, the nature of the Medium is more criterial than that of any other participant or circumstance. For instance, if we consider processes such as 'strew, spill, pour, sprinkle', it is the Medium, not the Agent which enables us to differentiate among them (cf. sprinkle + salt, spill/ pour + water, coffee; strew + flowers); similarly with 'bend, straighten, flatten; melt, freeze, evaporate, condense; crack, break, shatter' and so on.

Manifestations Of The Close Bonding Of Medium And Process As Nucleus [1]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 155):

Of all the participants, the Medium is the most restricted in terms of the range of phenomena that may function in that role. We can see this in relation to the general types of figure:

We can also see this in relation to more delicately specified subtypes such as:

In other words, whatever the type of figure, the participant that is most closely bonded with the Process is the one that takes on the generalised role of Medium; it is this that is in a relation of mutual expectancy with the Process. This is not to say that only horses can neigh, but rather than anything that neighs is thereby endowed with horse-hood.

Blogger Comments:

Clearly, the Medium of a 'shine' figure is not limited to 'heavenly body', but includes artificial light sources and phenomena with reflective surfaces, such as black shoes.

Generalised Model of Figures: Medium

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 153-4, 155):

The particularistic model, then, comprises a set of submodels: (i) impacting, (ii) conscious processing, (iii) symbolic processing, (iv) relational ordering. The model that generalises across these various domains of experience is different from any one of these particular submodels. It sets up one central participant that is common to all processes. This is the participant through which the process comes to be actualised. We refer to it as the Medium: see Figure 4-9.

Semantically, the Medium is the participant through which the process is actualised. It is in the combination of Medium + Process that we find the complementarity we spoke of earlier between the temporal unfolding (the Process) and the atemporal persistence (the Medium).

Representation Stratum Of SFL Metalanguage: Types Of Realisation Statement

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 43-4):

The general form of a realisation statement is 'realisation operator + one or more realisation operands', as in 'insert Senser' and 'conflate Medium and Senser'. The operators used to specify functional structuring are insert, conflate, and preselect. The first operand is always a semantic function (role); additional operands may be functions or features. The realisation statements we will make use of in our representation of ideation base information are as follows:

(1) Presence of functions in the structure: the presence of a function in a function structure is specified by inserting the function into the structure; the operation of insertion is symbolised by '+'; e.g. +Actor, +Senser, etc.

(2) Conflation of one function with another: one function from one perspective is conflated with a function from another perspective — they are identified with one another. Conflation is symbolised by '/'; for example, Medium/Senser means that Medium (ergative perspective) and Senser (transitive perspective) apply to the same element of a figure.

(3) Restriction on the type of phenomenon that can serve a particular function: this is stated by preselecting one or more features from the unit serving that function; preselection is symbolised by ':', e.g. Senser: conscious being, which means that the participant serving as Senser is restricted to the type 'conscious being'. (Since 'conscious being' is more delicate than 'participant', the fact that a participant serves as Senser can be inferred from the statement 'Senser conscious being'. In general, it is only necessary to state the most delicate or specific restriction along any subsumption path in the system network.)

Transitive Variants Viewed Ergatively

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 351):

By interpreting processes ergatively as well as transitively we are able to understand many features of English grammar that otherwise remain arbitrary or obscure. We will take up just one such example, that of clauses such as the police exploded the bomb, the sergeant marched the prisoners, where — as suggested by the agnate clauses the bomb exploded, the prisoners marched – the meaning is not so much ‘do to’ as ‘make to do’ (what the sergeant made the prisoners do was march). Ergatively, there is no difference between these and clauses like the lion chases the tourist. Transitively, these appear as different configurations; we have to introduce the function of Initiator to take account of the executive rôle. But in modern English they are very much alike; and the ergative analysis expresses their likeness — both consist of a Medium and an Agent.  In ergative terms, ‘a does something to x’ and ‘a makes x do something’ are both cases of ‘x is involved in something, brought about by a’.

Receptive Voice [Function]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 349):

If the clause is effective, since either participant can then become Subject there is a choice between operative and receptive. The reasons for choosing receptive are as follows:

(1) to get the Medium as Subject, and therefore as unmarked Theme … and
(2) to make the Agent either

(i) late news, by putting it last … or
(ii) implicit, by leaving it out.

Middle & Effective Agency; Operative & Receptive Voice

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 349):

The way the voice system works is as follows.  A clause with no feature of ‘agency’ is neither active nor passive but middle. One with agency is non-middle, or effective, in agency. An effective clause is then either operative or receptive in voice. In an operative clause, the Subject is the Agent and the Process is realised by an active verbal group; in a receptive [clause] the Subject is Medium and the Process is realised by a passive verbal group.

The Clause Nucleus

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 341-2):

The Process and the Medium together form the nucleus of an English clause; and this nucleus then determines the range of options that are available to the rest of the clause. Thus the nucleus … represents a small semantic field which may be realised as a clause either alone or in combination with other participant or circumstantial functions.