Modality System

Halliday (1994: 359-61):

The System Of Voice

Halliday (1994: 168, 169):

Blogger Comments:

The terms 'active' and 'passive' are now reserved for the verbal group system, and have been replaced by 'operative' and 'receptive' in the clause system.

The Formalism Of Systemic Theory

Halliday (1994: xxvi-xxvii):

The Tradition Of Systemic Theory

 Halliday (1994: xxvi):

Systemic Theory: Meaning As Choice

Halliday (1994: xiv-xv):

Taxonomic Elaboration

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 83):

Any option (category, semantic type) is thus located in the network relative to other options, first within its own system, and secondly in terms of the location of that system relative to others. For example, 'participant' is one option in the system 'participant/process/circumstance'; and that system is a more delicate elaboration of 'element'. We noted above in reference to Painter's work that the resources of figures of being are deployed in construing taxonomic relations. There is also a generalised set of nominal categories for construing steps in the delicacy hierarchy — e.g. type, kind, class; and some taxonomic regions have specific categories of their own, for example: brand, model, make, issue; genus, species, family.

Construing As Locating In A Network Of 3 Types Of Relations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 82-3):

From the typological point of view, construing experience in terms of categories means locating them somewhere in this network of relations. When we examine this network more closely, we find that there are actually three types of network involved: 

(1) taxonomic in the strict sense (i.e. based on hyponymy, 'a is a kind of x/ x subsumes a, b, c'), 

(2) taxonomic in the extended sense (i.e. based on meronymy, 'd is a part of y/ y has parts d, e, f'), and 

(3) eco-functional (i.e. based on selection, 'g has function m in environment z/ environment z comprises functions m, n, p, and function m may be filled by g, h, j'). 

Of these three, the first provides the global organising principle of elaboration in delicacy; while the third relates paradigmatic organisation to organisation on the syntagmatic axis.

Summary Of The Ontogenetic Perspective On Construing Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 81-2):

We can now sum up what can be learnt about construal from the ontogenetic perspective:

(i) Initially the child construes experience of phenomena that are in, or are brought into, a shared visual field; once constituted into meaning, the experience can be shared, validated and scaffolded dialogically in collaboration with other members of his/her meaning group.

(ii) The earlier experiences are clearly situated by virtue of the child's perception. But once the process of construal has been established, experience can be generalised in the form of semantic classes, and classes of classes; it can be further explored in terms of the semantic system itself; it can be developed vicariously through discourse, and extended to include purely abstract categories.

(iii) Categories are construed in the network of the ideation base in terms of different kinds of relations they enter into:

[1] globally, they are construed in terms of taxonomic elaboration: they form part of a system that is located somewhere in delicacy within the meaning base; 

[2] locally, they may be construed in terms of meronymic extension: they may form part of a local meronymic taxonomy, such as the cat and its body parts; 

[3] transcategorially, they may be construed in terms of the roles they play in some other type of category, such as the cat serving in certain participant roles of figures.

(iv) Categories are thus located within the ideational network. The network defines a multidimensional, elastic space; and locations within this space are not fixed, clearly bounded regions but rather regions with core or focal areas and more peripheral areas that shade into one another.

(v) The ideation base is a resource for construing extra-linguistic experience (such as visual experience). But it is also a semogenic resource for construing itself, since it is built up out of the kinds of relations it itself construes — relations such as intensive ascription. Once critical semantic mass has been built up, new categories can be construed internally within the system of the ideation base.

General Options For Sequence, Figure And Element

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 65, 67):

Plate 10 below shows the lattice as described up to this point, incorporating all the categories introduced above (but still omitting those embodying any grammatical metaphor).

Element: Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 64-5):

Processes serve in the most central or nuclear rôle in a figure; they embody the temporal properties of a figure unfolding in time: see Plate 9. Other than metaphorical processes, the process element is either polar (positive/negative) or modal (some intermediate degree between positive and negative); it may embody phase, or aspect; and it will refer to past, present or future time. Polarity and modality derive from the interpersonal perspective on the process.

Element: Circumstance

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 63-4):

Circumstances fill circumstantial rôles in figures. We can recognise two simultaneous distinctions; see Plate 8. One concerns the type of circumstantial relation construed; the primary contrast is between circumstances of projection and circumstances of expansion and within the latter we distinguish those of elaboration, extension and enhancement The other concerns the experiential complexity of the circumstance; circumstances are either 'simple' or 'macro', the former being more truly elemental while the latter are more like figures. …

Among simple circumstances, the most usual are those of time, place, manner-quality and intensity, all of which are circumstances of enhancement. Examples: [skies will be partly cloudy] today (locative: time), increasingly (manner: intensity), widespread (locative: place), easily, carefully (manner: quality).

Macro circumstances are those which are made up of a special type of figure having another participant inside it, for example (circumstances of enhancement): (locative: place [abstract]) in the low to mid 60s, (locative: place) from the northeast, (manner: quality) at 15 to 25 m.p.h., (locative: place) throughout the northern Rockies, (locative: place) in a casserole, (locative: place) in a hot oven, (extent: duration) for 10-15 minutes, (manner: means) with a clean absorbent cloth.

Element: Participant: Simple Quality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 62-3):

Qualities characterise things along various parameters, as in green cabbage : red cabbage: see Plate 7.

Again, a number of simple qualities are metaphorical; of the remainder, the "ordinary" qualities, one subtype is qualities of projection and the other is qualities of expansion. (As we will show in subsequent chapters, the categories of projection and expansion are very prevalent in the organisation of the ideation base.)

Element: Participant: Simple Thing

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 60-1):

Some 'simple things' are metaphorical; the remainder are referred to as 'ordinary', and these are either conscious or non-conscious (this is the distinction that is actually made in the semantic system, not animate/inanimate or human/non-human): see Plate 6.

Non-conscious ordinary things are distinguished along more than one dimension, but the categorisation given here can be taken as primary, in the sense that it is the one that seems to have the clearest reactances in the grammar.

Blogger Comments:

When we construe any organism as being able to see, for example, we are construing it as conscious, since perception is a type of mental process.

Element: Participant

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 59-60):

Participant rôles in figures are filled by elements of the type 'participant'; they are phenomena capable of taking on a participant rôle in a process configuration, e.g. bringing it about or being affected by it. They are further differentiated according to two parameters: see Plate 5. Macro-participants are all metaphorical and will be left out of consideration for the time being. Simple participants may be things or qualities.

Types Of Element

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 58-9):

As we have seen, elements fill the roles of figures. Participant roles are filled by participants (things or qualities), circumstance roles by circumstances (times, places, causes, etc.), and the process role by a process. There are correlations here between the taxonomy of configurational phenomena and that of simple phenomena … . 

The elements of a figure are of three kinds:

(i) the process itself (action/event, process of consciousness, or relation),
(ii) a participant in that process, or
(iii) a circumstantial element or circumstance. …

As already noted above, processes are realised by verbal groups, participants by nominal groups, and circumstances by adverbial groups or prepositional phrases. In addition to the three types of element that serve in figures, there is one further type of element — the relator: see Plate 4. Relators serve to construe logico-semantic relations of expansion between figures in a sequence; they are realised by conjunction groups.

Subtypes Of Figures And Participant Role Value Restrictions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 57-8):

As already mentioned, there is a typology of figures based largely on the nature of the particular types of the process, participant, and circumstance roles; the most general part of this is shown in Figure 2-6.

 

Each type of figure has its own set of more delicately specified roles with particular value restrictions. For example, figures of doing have an Actor, which in turn is a participant (rather than some other kind of phenomenon). (Notice that the specification of the filler of the Phenomenon role in a sensing figure is more general than 'participant' — any type of phenomenon can be sensed.)

Types Of Figure

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 52-3):

A figure is a representation of experience in the form of a configuration, consisting of a process, participants taking pan in this process and associated circumstances. There are, of course, indefinitely many kinds of process in the non-semiotic world; but these are construed semiotically, according to the way in which they configure participants, into a small number of process types — being, doing, sensing, and saying. The first three of these have clearly defined subcategories: see Plate 3.

Then, each figure may be either projected (by another figure, or in some other way) or else not; and if projected, it may be an idea or locution or [fact] …

Types Of Sequence

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 50-1):

A sequence is a series of related figures. Consequently, sequences are differentiated according to the kinds of relations figures can enter into — temporal (x happened, then y happened, etc.), causal (x happened, so y happened, etc.), and so on; in the most general terms, the relations yield the following type of sequence: see Plate 2.

In any pair of figures related in sequence, one figure may (i) expand the other, by reiterating it, adding to it or qualifying it; or (ii) project (report, quote) the other by saying it or thinking it. In either case, the two may be either equal or unequal in status, or semantic weight. … Sequences are organised by interdependence relations and they are indefinitely expandable.

Ideational Semantics: The Phenomena Of Human Experience As Three Orders Of Complexity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 48, 49):

A phenomenon is the most general experiential category — anything that can be construed as part of human experience. The phenomena of experience are of three orders of complexity: elementary (a single element), configurational (configuration of elements, i.e. a figure) and complex (a complex of figures, i.e. a sequence) — see Plate 1.

Representation Stratum Of SFL Metalanguage Exemplified

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 44):

Figure 1-12 shows an example of a systemic representation, with the graphic conventions for the system network. Preselection is shown by means of a pointer leading from the function (role) being restricted to the feature that it is restricted to.