Why Natural Logic & Propositional Logic Differ

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 105):

Both the difference in scope and the difference in ‘definability’ can be explained in functional terms. Sequences have evolved in the interpretation of human experience in general; consequently, they have to be flexible and powerful enough to cope with a large amount of variation, and the implicit ‘definition’ of each relation (i.e., its location in the semantic system along various dimensions) is the evolving distillation of innumerable instances where it is invoked […]. In contrast, the truth-functional connectives of propositional logic have been designed for a restricted purpose — the kind of deductive reasoning western philosophy came to focus on — and their definitions are fixed by reference to values of “true” and “false” (by means of truth tables.

Propositional Logic Vs Natural Logic

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 104n, 105n): 

Propositional logic is interpersonally invariable. Unlike natural logic, it is only concerned with statements, or rather — since language is concerned with validity rather than truth — with the philosophical version of what are statements in natural language. […]

Projecting figures of the ‘think’ type — ‘know’, ‘believe’, ‘want’ — have been represented outside standard logic within intensional logic.

Evolved Natural Logic Vs Designed Propositional Logic

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 104):

Sequences might be said to constitute the  ‘natural logic’ equivalent of propositional logic — that is, the evolved system for reasoning about relations of cause, conditionality, etc from which propositional logic has been derived by design. […] Since propositional logic is a designed system, its relations are codified and defined (typically in truth-functional terms). In contrast, sequential relations have evolved. A certain type of relation will have a core — the prototypical representatives of that type; but there will also be peripheral representatives and ‘grey areas’ where one type shades into another. There is another important difference between propositional logic and natural logic of sequences. While there is only a very small handful of truth-functional connectives in propositional logic (conjunction, disjunction [exclusive or non-exclusive], implication), there is a very wide range of sequential relations in language — all the more specific varieties of projecting and expanding.

Sequence Models The Logical Relations Between Figures

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 104):

A sequence constitutes a model of how figures can be related. One prominent form of this relationship, which has been foregrounded in various guises in science and logic, is that of cause & effect, whereby experience is given causal interpretation. But that is only one among many such possible relationships, which taken together can be said to constitute the logic of natural language.

The Effect Of The Special Subcategories Of Participant & Circumstance

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 102):

These special subcategories have the effect of construing other elements as “referable” — that is, of enabling them to retain their semiotic identity for subsequent access and hence as it were authenticating them (e.g. Don’t give me any more of that peanut butter! I can’t stand the stuff.) This applies primarily, though not exclusively, to participants. At the same time, it allows us to recognise not only of the ‘simple’ type but also ‘larger’ elements known as macro- and meta-phenomena. Macro-phenomena are figures downranked to function as ordinary elements; meta-phenomena are figures projected as elements of a second order.

Subcategories Of The Elements Participant & Circumstance As Viewed From The Grammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 99, 102):

The view from the grammar brings into relief a number of relevant factors relating to participants and circumstances. There are certain special subcategories of these, in the grammar, which are distinguished by the fact that they embody features of interpersonal or textual meaning:

(1) interpersonal: questioning 

interrogative: who, what, when, where, how far, how long, how, why 

(2) textual: cohesive

(i) referring, personal: he, she, it, they; demonstrative: this, that, now, then, here, there, thus 

(ii) generalising: lexical items such as person, creature, thing, stuff, affair

These are significant in their own right because they are critical to the construction of discourse: the textual ones provide internal cohesion, while the interpersonal ones construe dialogic speech rôles. They have further significance in that they reveal by reactance the major subclasses within the general classes of participant and circumstance.

The Three Types Of Element Constructed Within The Grammar — Textual Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 99):

Relating to the textual metafunction: participants and circumstances can both readily serve as Theme (though there potentials differ); processes only rarely, other than in imperative clauses. Participants and (more restrictedly) circumstances can serve as referables identified by referring expressions, but processes cannot — as with WH- interrogation, they have to be construed as a Range together with the pro-verb do as Process: do it/that.

The Three Types Of Element Constructed Within The Grammar — Interpersonal Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 99):

Relating to the interpersonal metafunction: participants can serve as Subject; circumstances* and processes cannot. Furthermore, participants and circumstances can serve as WH- elements, but processes cannot (if the process is being questioned, a participant element has to be construed as a Range: What … do?).

[*Note that circumstances can serve as Subject in circumstantial relational clauses.]

The Three Types Of Element Constructed Within The Grammar — Ideational Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 99):

Within the ideational component, they are realised by different classes of units:

• process ( verbal group,
• participant ( nominal group,
• circumstance ( adverbial group; prepositional phrase.

Participants tend to be inherent elements of a figure; circumstances are typically optional.

The Four Types Of Figure Constructed Within The Grammar — Textual Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 98):

Relating to the textual metafunction: different types of figure are presumed in different ways and have different potential for textual prominence; e.g. only material clauses are substituted by the pro-verb do (to/with).

The Four Types Of Figure Constructed Within The Grammar — Interpersonal Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 98):

Relating to the interpersonal metafunction: in any given register there may be typical correspondences between the type of figure and speech function; e.g. in procedural registers, material clauses are typically imperative, relational ones indicative.

The Four Types Of Figure Constructed Within The Grammar — Ideational Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 98):

Within the ideational metafunction, each is realised congruently by one particular transitivity type: doing & happening ( material, sensing ( mental, saying ( verbal, and being & having ( relational.  These have various reactances, such as the number and nature of participants and the unmarked present tense selection.

The Ideation Base As A Semantic Space

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 97-8):

The semantic categories are themselves construed by means of realisation; they are constructed within the grammar and lexis of a language. If we model the ideation base as a semantic space, we are foregrounding one aspect of the construction of meaning in language, namely the way in which lexicogrammar construes our experience of the world in the guise of multidimensional matrices or grids. This is an important feature of language as a semiotic system, an inevitable consequence of the principle of arbitrariness: since the forms of expression are arbitrary, they impose discontinuity on the content. […] But the semantic categories themselves (seen from above, as it were) are much more fluid and indeterminate than their realisations in wording imply. The notion of semantic space allows us to adopt a complementary standpoint from which we can view these phenomena topologically, bringing out the inherently elastic quality of the dimensions involved, and gaining a deeper insight into the semogenic processes by which the meaning potential is ongoingly remoulded in the history of the system [phylogenesis], of the user [ontogenesis], and of the text [logogenesis].

Why & How Children Are Able To Construe The Semantic System

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 97):

Children are able to construe the semantic system because they start in situations with a material setting that is shared. As they build up their ideation base, they can begin to construe categories internal to the system out of existing ideational values; and they can begin to move into abstract domains of a purely symbolic world, where the significations of semantic categories are abstract categories in social and socio-semiotic systems. But precisely because these abstract categories are construed as meanings, they can still be built up, negotiated and validated in collaboration with other members of the meaning group. The move from the realm of concrete phenomena to the various realms of abstract phenomena is made possible through the homogenising power of meaning.

Construing Experience As Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 96-7):

… young children will typically construe concrete phenomena that are part of the field of visual perception they share with their interactants. In other words, they are construing into linguistic meanings their experience of the material world as it is construed in the categories of another semiotic system, viz. (visual) perception. These extra-linguistic categories are construed as the signification of the semantic categories of the ideation base — always in some particular situation when the child first engages with them. To construe experience of concrete phenomena as meaning is thus to construe some signification which lies outside the ideation base as a value which is internal to the ideation base system. Part of the power of categorisation is that extra-linguistic phenomena that are quite varied in signification can be construed as alike in value.

Construing Categories: Valeur & Stratification

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 96):

A phenomenon of experience is construed as a category in the ideation base by being given a location in the three semantic networks […]. This taxonomic, meronymic and eco-functional location is the category’s value (valeur) in relation to the other categories in the ideation base. By being assigned a value internal to the ideational system, a semantic category is also being related to categories that lie beyond semantics itself. On the one hand it is being related to categories within systems that lie outside language but which the semantic system interfaces with; on the other hand it is being related to the grammatical categories in terms of which it is realised.

The Semogenic Strategy Of Opening Up The Phenomenal Domains Of Selection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 95):

… the fact that a participant serves a participant rôle in a figure can be viewed either from the perspective of the figure or from the perspective of the participant (i.e. as a property of the participant). If cats kill mice, the ideation base accommodates the view from the angle of the figure: ‘cats kill mice’; but it also accommodates the view from the angle of the participant: ‘animals that kill mice’. Here the figure in which cats participate as actors has been construed as if it was a property, so that the category of cats might be construed within the ideation base by means of the definition ‘cats are animals that kill mice’. … 

There is a general semogenic strategy at work here. We referred to ‘sequences’, ‘figures’ and ‘elements’ as three orders of complexity […] . The shift in perspective means that configurations of meanings that are of a particular order of complexity can be accessed through selection not only in their normal environment (within phenomena of the next higher order of complexity) but also within phenomena of lower orders of complexity. Through this semogenic strategy of opening up the possible domains of selection, a great deal of experiential complexity can be imported into the construal of a participant.

Eco-Functional Selection Is Inter-Axial

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 94):

The network of selection is inter-axial in that it relates syntagmatic specifications to paradigmatic ones; it ‘cuts across’ the paradigmatic organisation of the ideation base, establishing correspondences between paradigmatic types through syntagmatic functions associated with them …

Eco-Functional Selections Are Bi-Directional

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 94):

… functions associated with paradigmatic types constitute ‘structural properties’ by which these types are distinguished and […] selections provide further information about these properties. […] Conversely, semantic types which are selected are characterised by the functional environment in which they are selected.

Why Eco-Functional ‘Selection’ Rather Than ‘Preselection’?

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 94):

Such selections have been referred to as “pre-selections”, but in order to avoid any connotations of temporal sequence, we prefer the term “selection” for such relations in the ideation base.

The Third Type Of Network Involved In The Organisation Of The Ideation Base: Eco-Functional Selection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 94):

Taxonomic elaboration and meronymic extension form complementary networks of relations that together make up the paradigmatic organisation of the ideation base. They define, as we have noted, options in delicacy of categorisation and in delicacy of focus. The third type of network involved in the organisation of the ideation base which we identified above serves to relate paradigmatic organisation and syntagmatic organisation. Specifically, it relates syntagmatic functions or rôles associated with paradigmatic types to the paradigmatic types that can serve these functions. For example, the syntagmatic function ‘Senser’ is associated with the paradigmatic type ‘sensing’, and it is related to the paradigmatic type ‘conscious being’, since only participants of this subtype can serve as Sensers. […] We shall refer to such a network relations as eco-functional selection in order to indicate that they specify the syntagmatic environment of semantic types by showing them as selections for syntagmatic functions.

Hyponymic Elaboration Vs Meronymic Extension

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 92): 

While the choice of ‘level’ in hyponymic elaboration is the choice in delicacy of categorisation, the choice of level in a meronymic taxonomy is the choice in delicacy of focus.  The focus is typically on the whole (i.e. the most inclusive region within the meronymy) even if a specific part is particularly important.

Meronymic Taxonomies As Local To Particular Regions Of The Hyponymic Taxonomy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 90-1):

There would seem to be far too many discontinuities to create a global meronymy; meronymies tend to occur only where there are contiguous parts of an independent whole. Thus while concrete objects are regularly construed meronymically (with the human body as both a representative example and a model for other meronymies), substances are not; substances are extended through measure (‘unit of’) rather than through part (‘part of’). Similarly, taxonomies tend to be more extended meronymically for concrete regions than for abstract ones (although even things in an abstract region can have parts, e.g. aspect of an idea). Thus there is a generalised set of categories such as part, element, component, aspect; and also a generalised set of ‘facets’ of spatial and temporal orientation, top, bottom, side, front, back, middle, centre; beginning, middle, end.

Meronymic & Hyponymic Taxonomies: Extension & Elaboration

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 89):

The ideation base construes phenomena as organic wholes that may take on rôles in other kinds of phenomena; but it also deconstrues many such organic wholes into their component parts. When these component parts are phenomena of the same type […] this is known as meronymy (or meronymic taxonomy; cf meros ‘part’). We find local taxonomies of this kind, often interlocked with hyponymies. Taxonomies thus embody the two types of expanding relationships […] extension and elaboration. The meronymic type of taxonomy is extension, whereas the hyponymic type is elaboration.

Semantic Delicacy Is Construed Lexicogrammatically

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 87):

In general, then, we can say that the move in delicacy in the ideation base from ‘most general’ to ‘most delicate’ is construed lexicogrammatically as the move from ‘grammar’ to ‘lexis’. This is of fundamental significance in the construal of semantic categories. The early part of the scale of delicacy is construed in the grammatical ‘zone’. This zone provides the resources of grammatical schematisation for construing more delicate categories: those categories are realised lexically but construed according to the systemic parameters of the grammar.  For example, the grammar of the nominal group provides a schema for construing various delicate categories of things, by classifying, describing, ordering and other such strategies.

[Note that 'construe' means to intellectually construct, and that 'realise' is the relation between different levels of symbolic abstraction, such as between the strata of semantics and lexicogrammar.  Thus, the lexicogrammar intellectually constructs the semantics and, as a lower level of symbolic abstraction, the lexicogrammar realises the semantics.] 

Folk & Scientific Taxonomies Relative To Semantic Delicacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 86):

… in the overall meaning base, lexically construed folk and scientific taxonomies do not start at the highest degree of generality in delicacy; they are ordered in delicacy after those systems that are construed grammatically. For example, while ‘plant’ is the “unique beginner” of a particular folk taxonomy, there are several steps in the construal of things that are more general than this — steps that are constructed in the grammar, in categories such as ‘thing’, ‘conscious/non-conscious thing’, ‘countable/non-countable thing’ and the like.

Folk Vs Scientific Taxonomies

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 85):

The ideation base embodies not only folk taxonomies but also a range of taxonomic models such as those used by experts and by scientists. These are all variants within the overall ideational system. […] The move from folk taxonomies towards scientific ones involves both an increase in steps in delicacy and a change in the criteria used for classification.

Basic Level Categories & The Cline Of Instantiation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 84):

… from the perspective of the system, we can observe that the basic degree of delicacy is most highly elaborated; from the perspective of the instance, we can observe that it is the most frequent. However, we have to allow for considerable variation within a language — in particular, functional or registerial variation within the system according to the context of use, as in the variation between the spoken system of everyday life and the written system of science …

Delicacy: Basic Level Categories

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 84):

The most favoured ‘band’ in delicacy is that of the basic level: it is taxonomically most highly elaborated, it tends to be learnt first by children, and it construes categories with syndromes of usually salient functional and perceptual properties. […] It has been pointed out that basic level categories are most distinct in terms of how human beings interact with them.

Delicacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 83):

Delicacy is a uniform ordering from most general to most delicate; but along this scale, semantic systems differ both in the number of distinctions at any one degree of delicacy and in the overall delicacy that is achieved. There are specific differences associated with particular taxonomic regions. For instance, humans and higher animals are much more highly elaborated than lower animals. But there are also general differences in the nature and degree of taxonomic elaboration associated with different ‘bands’ in delicacy.

Features In System Networks

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.

Construing As Locating In A Network Of Relations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 82-3):

From a 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 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.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 95):

Construing a category thus includes locating it not only taxonomically and meronymically but also eco-functionally …

The Ideation Base As Semogenic Resource For Construing Itself

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 82):

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.

Construing Categories As System Network

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 82):

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.

Construing Categories Globally, Locally And Transcategorially

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 82):

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 rôles they play in some other type of category, such as cat serving in certain participant rôles of figures.

Construing Perceptual Experience As General And Abstract Meanings

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 82):

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.

Construing Perceptual Experience As Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 82):

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.

Figure As Property

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 81):

As well as being figures in their own right, such configurations can also be used as qualifications of a class of participant, such as cat — as figures serving to qualify that category with respect to its own rôle in the figure. Here the figure is being viewed in a participant perspective; this is achieved by downranking the figure so that it acquires the status of a property. Grammatically, this perspective would be realised in the nominal group as a Qualifier of some Thing …

Definitions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 76):

… the definition construes a token-value relation between a fairly delicate semantic type that is lexicalised within the lexicogrammar and a restatement of this type by means of other resources in the ideation base. The restatement draws more on the resources towards the grammatical end of the scale, so that in the definition a lexicalised token is construed as a grammaticalised value. This entails a shift from construing experience through depth in the experiential taxonomy towards construing experience through expansion in a logical sequence.

Construing The Organisation Of Meaning: From Ascriptive To Identifying Mode

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 75):

… in his fourth year [the child] begins to extend his deployment of figures of being to include not only the ascriptive mode (‘a is a member of x’) but also the identifying mode (‘y equals x’) so that he can explicitly relate meanings in his ideation base in the form of definitions. […] He is now in a position to construe new meanings in terms of the semantic system itself; that is, they do not necessarily have to be ‘imported’ from direct extra-linguistic experience.

Construing The Organisation Of Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 74):

When [the child’s] meaning potential has gained critical semantic mass, he begins to construe its own internal organisation explicitly in an effort to sort out taxonomic relations within the system. … Again, the resource for construing ‘categories’ is the intensive ascriptive figure of being; but now both the Carrier and the Attribute are meanings internal to the semantic system.

What 'Construing Experience As Meaning' Entails

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 73):

Construing experience as meaning means locating classes such as squares and circles somewhere in the semantic system, both locally as terms in systems and also more globally in the ordering of these systems in delicacy.

Construing Categories: Ontogenetic Perspective

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 73):

The first stage in categorisation is naming individuals as members of classes; instances of visual experience shared by the young child and his father or mother are ascribed to some general class of experience by means of a figure of being. … Here some perceived phenomenon of experience is brought “into intersubjective focus” by being referred to exophorically — pointing verbally, so to speak, to some feature of the material setting, sometimes accompanied by or replaced by a pointing as a gesture. This phenomenon is construed by [the child] as the Carrier of a figure of being, and is ascribed as a member of some general class of experience, construed as the Attribute of the figure. [The child] is ‘importing’ experience of instances into the semantic system by ascribing them to general classes in that system. This is an act of naming, and later this act itself gets named by call.

Construing Categories: Elaboration & Ascription

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 72-3):

Here one of the questions has been what resources are available in the semantic system for construing new meanings — for ‘category development’, both in the ontogenetic time frame and in the logogenetic time frame. One central semantic motif that has emerged from these studies is that of elaboration: both in relational clauses (realising figures of being & having) and in complexes, especially nominal ones (the traditional notion of apposition, realising sequences of participants). Here elaboration is at work ‘distilling’ new meanings over extended passages. That is, the semantic system includes a theory of how meanings are construed; and this theory is itself a resource for construing new meanings. 

Thus when a young child says cats also aren’t people, he is using a type of figure of being & having to construe a taxonomic relationship in the ideation base, so that the membership of ‘cats’ (construed as Carrier) in the class of ‘people’ (construed as Attribute) can be probed, in this case to ‘outclassify’ cats from the class of people. Figures of being & having of the intensive and ascriptive kind thus construe, among other things, the taxonomic relation among classes or types in the semantic system. The ideation base is thus a resource both for construing experience and for construing its own construal of experience. It has the potential for expanding itself precisely because it includes a theory of how meanings are construed.

A Topological Perspective On Systemic Probability

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 68):

The types in the semantic system are instantiated according to probability values; these are manifested as relative frequencies in text. The equivalent in the spatial interpretation of meaning would be curvature or ‘chreodisation’. Chreodisation embodies time and represents the change of systemic probabilities over time.

The Topological Perspective

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 68):

Here meaning is construed in terms of a spatial metaphor; we can view the ideation base as an elastic, multidimensional semantic space. […] The notion of a vowel space (with it ‘cardinal vowels’) provides a familiar analogy. As a material construction, it is limited to the three dimensions of physical space; but as physiological space, it accommodates variation along a number of dimensions, and brings an elasticity to the expression plane that is in some extent analogous to the metaphorical elasticity that we are ascribing to the plane of the content.

The Typological Perspective

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 68):

This is one theoretical perspective on the organisation [of the ideation base] — a perspective realised in certain conventional systems of representation, such as the system network. It allows us to bring out quite clearly the global organisation of the ideation base as a resource for construing experience; and it also allows us to show how the semantic types in this global organisation are interrelated …

The Orientations Of Our Categorising

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 68):

Naturally our categorisation tends to be oriented towards phenomena on a particular scale, those that lie within the bandwidth of those phenomena which are most readily accessible to our senses and which we engage with in day to day existence. This is the realm which impinges most closely on our physical, biological and social being; the semantic system has evolved with this as its primary semogenic environment. Lying beyond this are the micro- and macro-worlds that are accessible to us only by instrument and by inference. It is a powerful demonstration of the potential of the semantic system that it readily fashions new meanings that model these experientially remote domains. What is less obvious, perhaps, is that it has had to be equally resourceful in modelling the ongoing changes in our social environment, where both the overall social order and our local interpersonal networks are constantly being modified and realigned.

What Our Semantic Resources Enable Us To Do

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 68):

There would be indefinitely many ways of construing analogies among different elements in the total flux of experience; what our semantic resources enable us to do is to construe those analogies which yield categories resonating with what as a species, and as members of a particular culture, we have found to carry material and symbolic value.

Categorising Transforms Our Experience Into Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 68):

Categorisation is often thought of as a process of classifying together phenomena that are inherently alike, the classes being as it were given to us by the nature of the experience itself. But this is not what really happens. Categorising is a creative act: it transforms our experience into meaning, and this means imposing a categorical order rather than putting labels on an order that is already there.

Semantic Types: Delicacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 66):

These semantic types are categories to which phenomenological instances are ascribed; they thus embody the fundamental principle of generalising across phenomenological variation. And they are located somewhere in delicacy between the most general type, the all-inclusive class of ‘phenomenon’, and the most delicate types we can recognise as being codified lexically in English.

Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 64):

Processes serve the most central or nuclear rôle in a figure; they embody the temporal properties of a figure unfolding in time. 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 the past, present or future time. Polarity and modality derive from the interpersonal perspective on the process.

Circumstances: Circumstantial Relations & Experiential Complexity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 63):

We can recognise two simultaneous distinctions. 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 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. … Macro circumstances are those which are made up of a special type of figure having another participant inside it …

Simple Participants: Things & Qualities

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 60, 62):

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). … 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.

Elements: Grammatical Realisations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 59):

… 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. Relators serve to construe logico-semantic relations of expansion between figures in a sequence; they are realised by conjunction groups.

The Rôle Restrictions For Sensing, Saying And Doing

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 58):

These rôle restrictions represent a kind of metaphysics of English transitivity. For example, according to English, ideas and locutions cannot act on things, but there is no general restriction on what kinds of things may act on other things. Not only persons, but also inanimate things and abstractions may kill people (a figure of doing): the rifleman/the rock/his stupidity killed cousin Henry.

Circumstances

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 54):

Circumstances are typically less closely associated with the process and are usually not inherent in it. They specify the spatial or temporal location of the process, its extent in space or time (distance or duration), its cause, the manner of its occurrence, and so on.

Participants Vs Circumstances

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 54):

The distinction between participants and circumstances is a cline rather than a sharp division, but it is semantically quite significant.

Participants

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 54):

Participants are inherent in the process; they bring about its occurrence or mediate it. There are a number of specific ways in which a participant may take part in a process, it may sense it, it may receive it, it may be affected by it, it may say it, and so on. The different configurations of participants are the bases for a typology of process types.

Figures: Principle Of Organisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 53-4):

… a figure is constructed as an organic configuration of parts. Each part stands in a specific relation to the figure as a whole. The parts of a given configuration are (i) a nuclear process, (ii) one to three participants of different kinds taking part in the process, and (iii) up to around seven circumstances of different kinds associated with it.

Figure [Defined]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 52):

A figure is a representation of experience in the form of a configuration, consisting of a process, participants taking part 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. 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 something else [which embodies grammatical metaphor] …

Sequence [Defined]

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 any pair of figures related in a 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 interdependency relations and they are indefinitely expandable.

Relations Between The Three Orders Of Phenomena

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 48):

While figures are said to consist of elements and sequences are said to consist of figures, the ‘consist of’ relation is not the same: elements are constituent parts of figures, functioning in different rôles; but figures form sequences through interdependency relations.

The Phenomena Of Experience: Three Orders Of Complexity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 48):

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).

Semantic Features

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 46):

The semantic types represented by the features of systems in the system network do not constitute discrete Aristotelian categories; they are values on semantic clines — core regions to use the metaphor of semantic space.  We can bring this out by adopting a topological view on meaning; we can also explore the possibility of interpreting features as names of fuzzy sets.

The Cline Of Instantiation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 45):

However, instantiation also defines a scale between the potential and the instance, with intermediate patterns of instantiation.

The Instance [Definition]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 45) 

The instance is thus a set of features selected, with associated realisational specifications — an instantial pattern over the potential.

How To Represent Instantiation As A Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 45):

As a process, instantiation can be represented as involving traversal of the system network and activation of realisation statements.

Realisation Statement [Definition]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 43): 

A realisation statement is a minimal specification of a piece of structure or configuration of rôles presented in a paradigmatic context; it is always associated with a particular systemic feature. … The general form of a realisation statement is ‘realisation operator + one or more realisation operands’ … The operators … are insert, conflate and preselect.

Non-Logical System Vs Logical Recursive System

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 42n):

Non-logical systems are purely declarative — terms such as “choice” and “entry condition” do not imply a procedural interpretation; they merely indicate that the system network can be traversed.

System Network [Definition]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 41-2):

A system network is an acyclic directed graph, consisting of systems partially ordered in delicacy. Each system constitutes a choice (alternation, opposition) between two or more terms. These terms are represented by features, and a system as a whole is a Boolean combination of features:

1. It has an entry condition, the condition under which the systemic choice is available. The entry condition may be a single feature or a complex of features, conjunct and/or disjunct. These features must serve as terms in other systems [except in the case of a logical recursive system].
2. It has a set of terms, the options that are available given the entry condition. The terms are represented by features, which are related by exclusive disjunction.

Collectively, a set of related systems for a system network (since features in the entry conditions to systems must be terms in other systems).

What Jakobson Did To Trubetzkoy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 39, 40):

The problem of multi-dimensional organisation in phonological systems was solved by the introduction of oppositions that can intersect (such as front/back, open/closed, and rounded/unrounded for vowels); in Trubetzkoy’s (1939) theory, the oppositions were treated as classificatory dimensions and the values as ‘sound properties’. In the late 1940s, however, Roman Jakobson (1949) reinterpreted these properties as components or distinctive features of the phoneme; this was in effect a reification of the earlier sound properties. Phonemes were said to consist of components (just as longer phonological sequences consisted of phonemes) instead of being said to realise terms in phonological systemic oppositions. In other words, a paradigmatic abstraction (sound property in an opposition) was given a syntagmatic status (component of a phoneme). Jakobson’s notion of component or distinctive feature was then taken over into generative phonology. … 

Many of the problems with componential analysis arise from misinterpreting the 'components' as if they were constituents of some structure, rather than being paradigms of abstract features; …

Representing The Model Of Ideational Semantics Diagrammatically

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 34):

… the representational semiotic may also be a diagrammatic one — e.g. network graphs, tree diagrams, our circle diagrams. […] diagrams will only serve us as ‘visualisations’ as long as they construe a metaphor of abstract space at the theoretical stratum.

Representing The Model Of Ideational Semantics Through Language

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 34):

As we have already noted, the representational semiotic may be language itself — the theory may be represented discursively in the register(s) of linguistics. In this case, the relationship between theory and language is […] a relationship where theory might be construed as a connotative semiotic (in Hjelmslev’s, 1943, conception: a semiotic system whose expression plane is a semiotic system) …

The Model Of Ideational Semantics: Expansion Through Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 33):

At the same time, this overall ideation base can be expanded by various semogenic strategies, among which we are foregrounding that of grammatical metaphor.

The Model Of Ideational Semantics: Cline Of Instantiation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 33):

The meaning potential itself is one pole on the dimension of instantiation: it is instantiated in the unfolding of text, with patterns of typical instantiation (specific domains of meaning) lying somewhere in between the potential and the instance.

The Model Of Ideational Semantics: System And Structure

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 32-3):

From a systemic-functional point of view, this means that the ideation base is construed as a multidimensional, elastic semantic space. This space is organised as a meaning potential, with an extensive system of semantic alternatives; these alternatives are ordered in delicacy. Each set of alternatives is a cline of semantic space rather than a set of discrete categories, and any alternative may be constituted structurally as a configuration of semantic rôles. The meaning potential is thus differentiated axially into (i) systems of options in meaning and (ii) structural configurations of rôles by which these options are constituted.

The Stratification Of Metalanguage

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 30):

Metalanguage has the same basic properties as any semiotic system. This means that it is stratified. It construes language in abstract theoretical terms; but this construal is in turn realised as some form of representation — either language itself, in discursive constructions of theory, or some form of designed semiotic (system networks, constituency rules, conceptual networks, logical formulæ, and so on).

Metalanguage: Language Turned Back On Itself

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 30):

We have noted above that the semantics/lexicogrammar of natural language is itself a ‘realisation’ (an abstract construction) of daily experience. Likewise, the system we use to explore the semantics/lexicogrammar — our theory of semantics and our grammatics — is a ‘realisation’ of that part of daily experience that is constituted by semantics and lexicogrammar; that is, it is an abstract construction of language. This system is itself a semiotic one — a metalanguage; in Firth’s more everyday terms, it is language turned back on itself.  So whereas a language is (from an ideational point of view) a resource for construing our experience of the world, a metalanguage is a resource for construing our experience of language.

The Abstractness Of Phonology

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 30):

The phonological representations are still abstract; they have to be manifested in bodily movements — in the ongoing movement of the parameters of the articulatory system. The sound system thus categorises bodily processes; and in this respect, it is similar to the semantic system: both are ways of construing human experience. Meaning is thus represented by modes of organisation that are similar to its own.

The Relationship Between Grammar And Phonology: Ideational Domain

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 29-30):

In the ideational domains, the representation is usually conventional; but even here there is a relationship of analogy, where we find in the sounding, modes of organisation similar to those of wording (and therefore of meaning). Systemically, we find that the system construes a phonetic space — notably the vowel space; and that this provides a model for semantic space. Structurally, we find that sound is structured both as [logical] chains of segments (e.g. rhythmic units interpreted as syllable complexes) and as [experiential] configurations of segmental constituents (e.g. syllables interpreted as configurations of phonemes).

The Relationship Between Grammar And Phonology: Interpersonal & Textual Domains

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 29):

In the interpersonal and textual domains of content, it is often natural; thus interpersonal content tends to be represented prosodically by movements or variant levels in pitch, and textual content tends to be represented by prominence achieved phonologically (e.g. by the major pitch movement in an intonation contour) or sequentially (e.g. by using distance from initial position in the clause as a scale of prominence).

Using Modes of Grammatical Representation To Learn About Modes Of Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 29):

We can learn about the different modes of meaning — logical, experiential, interpersonal, and textual — by exploring their different modes of representation in the grammar — chaining, constituency, prosody, and wave. Grammar is thus a hybrid system for representing meaning in the sense of embodying different modes of representation; but it is this that allows it to maintain a natural relationship with respect to semantics, with each mode of representation realising a different mode of meaning.

Using Grammatical Realisations To Learn About Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 29):

Meaning is realised in two cycles. We have noted that the first cycle, the realisation in lexicogrammar, is natural, in the sense of being non-arbitrary: for example, the grammatical constituency structure of a clause provides a natural representation of the semantic configuration of a process, participants and circumstances. By attending to grammatical realisations, we can thus learn a good deal about the more abstract organisation of meaning at the higher stratum of semantics.

The Paradigmatic Orientation Of Systemic Functional Grammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 28):

For instance, while more formally oriented accounts may approach transitivity patterns essentially in terms of sequences of grammatical classes such as ‘nominal group + verb (+ nominal group’ and speak of classes of verb followed by one nominal group (‘monotransitive’) or two nominal groups (‘ditransitive’), a systemic grammar interprets such sequences in terms of systems of distinct and contrasting process types.

System Approached ‘From Above’: Tense

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 28):

tense — group: traditionally a mixture, because the model was taken over from Latin with richer word-rank realisations than English, but more recently in this [20th] century often a word category, past/non-past; reinterpreted (relative to this) as (i) past/present/future and (ii) recursive, with secondary tense.

System Approached ‘From Above’: Transitivity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 28):

transitivity — clause: traditionally a word category, transitive = verb taking object / intransitive = verb not taking object; reinterpreted as (i) process types (material/mental/verbal/relational) and (ii) an ergative system (middle/effective) in the clause.

System Approached ‘From Above’: Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 28):

projection — clause complex: traditionally a form of ‘subordination’ within clause; reinterpreted as distinction between hypotaxis in clause complex vs. rankshift in clause, laying the foundation for a semantic distinction between reports and facts.

The Gateway To Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 28):

[Our move into semantics from grammar also differs from the traditional in that] The gateway to semantics is the clause rather than the word. Consequently, grammatical categories will typically be interpreted ‘from above’, with their context in the clause or the group, rather than ‘from below’ within their context in the word. This has rather far-reaching consequences for the understanding of the semantic systems realised by the grammar.

Reactance Example: Interpersonal Criterion For Ideational Distinction Between Participants & Circumstances

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 27):

The concept of reactance is particularly significant for our purposes where it involves a relationship between an ideational category and features of other metafunctions, interpersonal or textual. For instance, the interpersonal grammar provides for participants, within the ideational dimension of the clause, to function as Subjects; but this potential is not in general open to circumstances, and this is a principal reason for distinguishing these two classes within the ideational metafunction.

Examples Of Cryptotypes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 27):

There are many examples of cryptotypes in this sense, both as classes and as systems (i.e. cryptoclasses and cryptosystems), in our ideational semantics. For example:

• proces types: doing & happening / sensing / saying / being & having
• transitivity model: ergative / transitive
• projections: locutions / ideas
• expansions: elaboration / extension / enhancement
• number: plural / non-plural; singular / non-singular

Covert Categories: Cryptotypes

Whorf (1956: 88ff) apud Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 27):

A covert category may also be termed a cryptotype, a name which calls attention to the rather hidden, cryptic nature of such word-groups, especially when they are not strongly contrasted in idea, nor marked by frequently occurring reactances such as pronouns. They easily escape notice and may be hard to define, and yet may have profound influence on linguistic behaviour.

The Distinctive Treatment Of Covert Categories: Reactances

Whorf (1956: 88ff) apud Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 27):

A covert category is marked, whether morphemically or by sentence pattern, only in certain types of sentence and not in every sentence in which a word or element belonging to the category occurs. The class membership of the word is not apparent until there is a question of using it or referring to it in one of these special types of sentence, and then we find that this word belongs to a class requiring some sort of distinctive treatment, which may even be the negative treatment of excluding that type of sentence. This distinctive treatment we may call the reactance of the category.

Overt Categories

Whorf (1956: 88ff) apud Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 26-7):

An overt category is a category having a formal mark which is present (with only infrequent exceptions) in every sentence containing a member [instance] of the category. The mark need not be part of the same word to which the category may be said to be attached in a paradigmatic sense; i.e. it need not be a suffix, prefix, vowel change, or other ‘inflection’, but may be a detached word or a certain patterning of the whole sentence …