Cause Expressed By Clause

Halliday (1994: 401-3):

Here ends 14 years of unpaid and unacknowledged daily service to the SFL community by an unwaged member.

Un/Marked Information Focus And Un/Predicated Theme

Halliday (1994: 301-2):

Blogger Comments:

Importantly, this last instance exemplifies Identified/New, instead of the typical Identifier/New.

Beneficiary And Range

 Halliday (1994: 165, 167):

Agent In Relational Clauses

Halliday (1994: 165, 167):

Token And Value In Circumstantial Identifying Clauses

 Halliday (1994: 132):

A Way To Be Sensitised To The Token-Value Relation

 Halliday (1994: 128):

Determining Token vs Value

Halliday (1994: 127-8):

Determining Voice In Intensive Identifying Clauses

Halliday (1994: 127):

Thematic Equative Identifying Clauses

Halliday (1994: 127):

The Token–Value Structure

Halliday (1994: 126-7):

Token And Value, Identified And Identifier, And Subject And Complement

Halliday (1994: 124, 125):

Token And Value: Form And Function

Halliday (1994: 124):

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.

Metaphor As Identifying Relations Between Semantic Domains

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 293, 294, 289):

This diagrammatic sketch is also intended to show that metaphor involves a mapping from one ideational domain to another, construing a value-token relation between the two (cf. Figure 6-16 above). 

For instance, the whole semantic domain of sequences may be mapped onto the domain of figures. The token domain may in turn be the value in a further metaphorical move, such as the move from figures to participants. The metaphorical expansion thus can thus involve multiple planes. …

We also need to take account of local mappings: some more delicate type of figure must be able to be represented by some more delicate type of participant. Thus figures of quality ascription will typically be represented by participants with the quality rather than the process reified as the thing: her speech was brilliant' => 'the brilliance of her speech'.

Figures Of Being: Semantic Characterisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 151-2):

In the limiting case, there is only one participant, the Existent; but generally there are two participants, the one being related by the process to the other. They may be being related by ascription, as Attribute to Carrier; or by identification, a rather complex relationship involving two pairs of participant roles: Identifier and Identified, and Token and Value. These latter intersect with each other, so there are two possible role combinations: 

(i) Identified/Token and Identifier/Value ['decoding']; 

(ii) Identifier/Token and Identified/Value ['encoding'].

Transitive And Ergative Equivalents

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: ):

By using the ergative standpoint to complement the transitive one in our interpretation of English, we can match up the functions in the various process types. The table of equivalents is given as Table 5-41.

Blogger Comment:

Note that, in the case of identifying clauses, for simplicity, this table presents the transitive equivalents only for decoding clauses, where Token conflates with Identified, and Value with Identifier.  In encoding clauses, it is the Identified Value that corresponds to the Medium, whereas the Identifier Token corresponds to the Agent.

In other words, it is actually the Identified that always corresponds to the Medium, whether Token or Value, and the Identifier varies according to whether the clause is decoding or encoding, corresponding to Range (decoding: Value) or Agent (encoding Token).

Note also that identifying relationals can also afford a Beneficiary (in possessive benefactive clauses).

Rôle: Definition & Subtypes

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 326):

This category construes the meanings of ‘be’ and ‘become’ circumstantially; the Rôle corresponds to the Attribute or Value of an ‘intensive relational’ clause. Rôle includes the subcategories of Guise (‘be’) and Product (‘become’). … A circumstance of Rôle usually relates to a participant in the clause — more specifically, to the Medium; but we also find circumstances of Rôle that do not.

Circumstantial Identifying Clauses: Circumstance As (Both) Participants

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 292):

In this type, it is the participants — Identified and Identifier — that are circumstantial elements of time, place and so on. For example, in tomorrow is the tenth, tomorrow and the tenth are both time elements. Similarly in the best way to get there is by train, both the best way and by train express manner; in the real reason is that you’re scared, Identified and Identifier are both expressions of cause. The Token can be quite varied in grammatical class — a nominal group, an adverbial group, a prepositional phrase or an embedded clause, whereas the Value is often a nominal group with the name of a class of circumstance as Thing.

Identifying Mode: Naming & Defining Vs Calling

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 287-8):

Most problematic of all are clauses of naming and defining, which lie exactly at the crossover point between the the two types of ‘identifying’ clause … Naming and defining are linguistic exercises, in which the word is Token and its meaning is Value. In calling, on the other hand, it is the name that is the Value.

Adjectival Attribute <-> Nominal Attribute <-> Value

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 287):

Nominal Attributes are closer to Values than adjectival ones; and these, in turn, are very close to the ‘is an example of’ type of ‘identifying’ clause, like those missiles constitute a threat to our security.