Dissociation Of Sequence & Clause Complex: Sequence Realised Beyond The Clause Complex

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 125):

On the one hand, a sequence may extend beyond a single clause complex […]. That is, the general potential is simultaneously semantic and grammatical; but in the creation of […] text, this potential may be taken up semantically to create a sequence that is more extensive than the clause complexes realising it. […] 

In other words, once sequence and clause complex have become partly dissociated so that one sequence does not automatically imply one clause complex, the decision how to associate them in realisation becomes a meaningful, significant choice.  (This significance may vary from one register to another, but the principle that the choice is meaningful is quite general.)

Sequences (Semantics) And Clause Complexes (Grammar) Evolve Together

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 124-5):

… semantics and grammar evolve together (in all three senses of semohistory …).  In the present context that means that sequences and clause complexes evolve together.  The basic principle is that a sequence is realised by a clause complex. But the two may become dissociated from one another.

Interactional Sequences

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 124):

We can generalise as follows: the logical resources for forming sequences have evolved in the environment of ideational meaning as sequences of figures. But these highly generalised resources can then also be applied in an interpersonal environment to form interactional sequences. (We should note here, however, that evidence from language development studies suggests that the logico-semantic relations are first construed in interpersonal contexts). In producing a text, we may use either or both, depending on the nature of the text.

Text & The Interaction Base: Interpersonally-Oriented Sequences

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 123):

As already noted, text organisation also draws on the interaction base; and there are certain parallels with the ideation base with respect to sequences. The interaction base certainly has text forming resources that are uniquely interpersonal. In particular, it has the resources for the collaborative exchanges that are embodied in the notion of interaction — for producing dialogue jointly by means of coordinated moves alternating between the interlocutors. But these interpersonal moves may also form sequences of moves in a way that is similar to the formation of sequences in the ideation base. Typical examples involve motivating condition (‘I invite you to accept x, if you want x’; for example: If you’re thirsty, there’s a beer in the fridge) and evidence (‘I think, infer / you should believe x because y’; for example: John’s in Germany because I just talked to him).

Text & The Ideation Base: ‘Macro-Figures’

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 123):

Many text types are heavily influenced by patterns in the meaning base — they can be seen as ‘macro-figures’, i.e. as expansions of figures by means of logico-semantic relations. This is not to say that that the relationship between organisation in the meaning base and the discoursal organisation is always one-to-one even when a text is organised according to an ideational sequence. In particular, a text may leave to be inferred certain steps that would be specified in the sequence in the meaning base (e.g. to make explicit the inferential processes involved).

Sequences & Text

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 122-3):

Texts and sequences are of the same order of abstraction; both are semantic phenomena. A text is a piece of language that is functional in context. It draws on the ideational meaning base but it involves the full metafunctional spectrum; i.e. there are interpersonal and textual contributions as well. Since text draws on the ideational meaning base, sequences are one principle for organising text.

Sequences & Text Type

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 122):

Sequences impose a certain order on our experience in terms of the relations that connect [one] happening with another. Hence sequences can be used to store information about the world in the form of organised text — ‘this is how to change tyres on your car’, ‘this is how to make cauliflower surprise’, etc.. Such texts often fall into a clearly recognisable text type, such as procedures, proofs, explanations, and episodic narratives. Not all texts are as highly regulated as these; but it is usually possible to make some prediction about the kinds of sequence, and the complexity to which sequences extend, in most our culturally recognised modes of discourse.

Sequences: Constraints

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 122):

Thus sequences are formed by binary logico-semantic relations which may relate either single figures or sequences of figures [i.e. internal nesting]. Certain relations may impose constraints on the phenomena being related; for example, a projecting relation can only obtain when the first figure is one of sensing or saying. But the range of different logico-semantic relations is highly varied, so that constraints tend to be specific to particular subtypes.

Relational Organisation Vs Configurational Organisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 119-20):

In contrast to figures, sequences are not constructional units.  We can specify the range of projecting and expanding relations available for further developing a sequence, but we cannot specify where a sequence has to come to an end — that is, we cannot specify a sequence as a unit whole with a conventional configuration of parts.  Thus if we have expanded one figure we can always repeat the operation … .  In contrast, a figure is a unit with a finite number of elements … .  Hence a sequence can be indefinitely complex, whereas a figure cannot.

Condition & Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 119):

… the distinction between expansion and projection is less determinate than we have suggested.  The logico-semantic relation of condition, which is prototypically construed as a form of enhancement, could also be construed as a kind of projection; and this is also brought out in the grammar. Conditions specify a potential and actualisable but non-actual situation.  This potential situation can also be set up through projection:

If the power supply fails, what’s the best thing to do? 

Supposing the power supply fails, what’s the best thing to do? 

Say the power supply fails, what’s the best thing to do?

Words such as supposing and assuming are verbs of projection which have come to function as conjunctions in conditional figures; while other words such as imagine and say retain more of their projecting force. Sometimes even variants of the same word have come to differ a little in their locations on this cline: for example, suppose and assume seem closer to projection than their corresponding participial variants.  This is an uncertain region in which a figure hangs in the air, so to speak, suspended between the hypothetical material plane and the semiotic one.

Expansion Relations: Lexicogrammatical Realisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 119-20):

Relations of expansion are typically realised in the grammar by conjunctions or conjunctive expressions linking a pair of clauses, either paratactically or hypotactically (e.g. that is, in other words; and, but, or, also, besides; so, yet, then, when, if, because, unless).  Some of these may realise more than one category; for example, but may be adversative ‘and yet’ (extending), or concessive ‘and in spite of this’ (enhancing); while may be additive ‘and in addition’ (extending), or temporal ‘and at the same time’ (enhancing); or may be alternative ‘or else’ (extending: alternatives in the external world, like take it or leave it), or restating ‘in other words’ (elaborating: alternatives in the world ‘internal’ to the discourse, like they are reduced to the smallest size, or micro-miniaturised.).  Overlaps of this kind show that the primary categories we have set up do in fact shade into one another; in particular, extending in some sense occupies a space intermediate between elaborating and enhancing, and shares a fuzzy borderline with each.

The Cline From Sequence To Figure

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 118):

There is no sharp line between a figure and a sequence of figures: a quantum of experience is not defined before it is construed, and the grammar rather sets up a cline from sequence to simple figure. […] For example:

1 sequence of 2 figures:   Tarzan pulled the rope; so it broke.
                                          Tarzan made the rope break (by pulling it).
                                          Tarzan broke the rope.
                        1 figure:    The rope broke.

Elaboration Sequences: Repetition As The Other Limiting Case Of Expansion

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 118):

And there is a third type of accumulation where the logical relation is that of ‘equals’: x is the same figure as a. Here at this end the limiting case is a simple repetition; this may be further elaborated in such a way that one figure is reworded as another, or else further clarified or brought out by an example.

Extension Sequences: No Logical Priority

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 117-8):

But figures may also be added to one another, making them part of the same story without assigning any kind of logical priority to either: x as well as / instead of / in contradistinction to a’. We have referred to these as extensions.

Enhancement Sequences: Temporality As One Limiting Case Of Expansion

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 117):

From one standpoint the limiting case of expansion would be accumulation in a temporal sequence (hence our general term “sequence” for the product of this construal): ‘a happens, then x happens’. This gives value to a as the temporal circumstance of x. From this we could derive a wide range of more complex enhancing relations: variations on the simple temporal sequence (‘after’, ‘before’, ‘at the same time’, ‘immediately after’, &c.) and further circumstances such as cause, condition, concession and their subcategories. […] These are ‘enhancements’, multiplying one figure by another, as it were.

Expansion

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 117):

Expansion can be thought of as construing another dimension of experience, so that superimposed, as it were, on the construal of a figure — a basic fragment of experience in the form of a quantum of change (event, action, behaviour &c.) — is the construal of a nexus between two figures, such that one fragment is non-randomly (i.e. meaningfully) cumulated with another.

Enhancement Sequences

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 117):

enhancement is a circumstantial or qualifying relation between figures: it is, in a sense, extension plus a circumstantial feature — ‘and’ + time (‘and then’, ‘and at the same time’, etc.), ‘and’ + manner (‘and in the same way’, ‘and likewise’), ‘and’ + cause (‘and therefore’, etc.), etc.: it is autumn, so the leaves are turning brown.

Extension Sequences: Addition

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 117):

extension is an additive relation between figures: a sequence is made bigger by the addition of another figure. This may involve pure addition (‘and’: he is too young and he doesn’t speak the language) or addition with an adversative feature (‘and yet’: he speaks the language but he is too young). As a variant of addition, we also have alternation (he is too young or else he is just immature).

Elaboration Sequences: Identity & Inclusion

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 117):

elaboration is a (partial) identity relation between figures: one is identified with another with a difference in perspective (it matters a lot; it plays an important rôle) or one is included under another as an example (it plays an important rôle; e.g., it provides the infrastructure).  These are clearly related to one another: identity is the limiting case of inclusion and inclusion is partial identity.

Expansion Sequences

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 117):

Expansion is a highly generalised type of relation, whereby one figure is joined logico-semantically to another figure by a relator to form a sequence of the same order of reality. […] immediate subtypes: elaborate (reiterate), extend (add) and enhance (qualify).

Proposals Realised As Modulated Indicative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 115-6):

We saw that quoted offers may be realised by modulated indicative clauses. This would seem to be an exception to the generalisation that indicative clauses realise propositions. However, it is a principled one: the type of indicative clause involved is precisely the type that lies closer in the interpersonal clause grammar to imperative clauses — modulated indicative clauses, i.e. those with an imperative modality. As can be expected, this is then also a possible realisation of commands; it is a metaphorical strategy for expanding the meaning potential, typically to vary the tenor between speaker and listener.

Reported Offers: Grammatical Realisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 115):

However, reported offers can always be realised in the same way as reported commands — as in the case of reported propositions, the distinction in orientation between giving and demanding is realised by the projecting clause; for example:

command: she told him —> to do the laundry

offer: she offered (promised; threatened) —> to do the laundry

The category of reported proposal is thus realised generally as a perfective non-finite clause when it is reported.

Quoted Offers: Grammatical Realisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 115):

Quoted offers naturally retain the property of being variously realised in the mood system:

declarative: She said: “I can do the laundry.”

interrogative: She said: “Shall I do the laundry?”

imperative: She said: “Let me do the laundry!”

Offers: Grammatical Realisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 115):

There is thus a parallel between reported propositions/proposals and quoted ones. But with offers (proposals: giving goods–&–services) there is a difference in respect of realisation. Offers, in English, are not grammaticalised in the mood system; that is, while the other categories, statements, questions and commands, have corresponding mood categories in the grammar (declarative, interrogative and imperative) offers do not. They may be realised by any of the mood categories; for example:

declarative: I can do the laundry.

interrogative: Shall I do the laundry?

imperative: Let me do the laundry!

Significantly, the indicative clauses realising offers are modulated; they select for an imperative modality of readiness or obligation.

Quoting Vs Reporting: Speech Function & Mood

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 114-5):

… in quoting, where the projected clause retains its mood, the general verb say can be used whatever speech function is being projected. In reporting, on the other hand, the projected clause is no longer specified for mood; its speech function is signalled by the verb in the projecting clause (asked, ordered, etc.). This gives the projected element more of an ideational status (c.f. its treatment in traditional grammar as “object” of the projecting verb), and opens up the way to a series of agnate expressions such as (the king ordered) “Execute him!” / that he should be executed / him to be executed / him executed / his execution.

Quoted Proposition Vs Quoted Proposal: Grammatical Realisations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 114):

When the projection is quoted, propositions are realised by indicative clauses, i.e. clauses that select for primary tense or modality; and proposals are realised by imperative clauses:

(he said) “I have done the laundry” : (she said to him) “do the laundry”.

Reported Proposition Vs Reported Proposal: Grammatical Realisations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 114):

Grammatically the distinction between propositions and proposals is constructed as follows. When the projection is reported, propositions are realised by finite bound clauses, i.e. clauses that select for primary tense or modality; and proposals are realised by irrealis (infinitival) non-finite bound clauses: 

(he said) that he had done the laundry : (she told him) to do the laundry.

Projected Proposals Vs Projected Propositions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 114): 

The interpersonal system for dialogic interaction thus creates a fundamental distinction between ‘content’ as proposition and ‘content’ as proposal. This distinction is then reflected in the ideational system of projection: a figure is projected in one or other of these two modes, as a proposition or as a proposal. The two categories combine freely with ideas and locutions. Projected proposals are non-actual, or uninstantiated: that is, the occurrence of a projected proposal is always future in relation to the figure that projects it. In contrast, propositions are actual, or instantiated: that is, the occurrence of a proposition is located in actual time (which may be past, present or future).

Propositions & Proposals

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 113-4):

Information is either given or demanded; in either case it is encoded as a proposition. Similarly, goods and services are either given or demanded, but the linguistic act is a mediating one, specifying the (typically non-linguistic) action that embodies the exchange, as an offer to do or a demand that something should be done. This is a proposal for a deed, one that commits either the speaker (giving) or the addressee (demanding); together with a third type, which is a combination of these two, viz. suggestion: Let’s do the laundry.

Interpersonal Semantics & Orders Of Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 113):

Interpersonal semantics is centrally concerned with varieties of symbolic exchange. Here, as in other places in the meaning base, the system is organised in such a way that it creates a difference between non-symbolic reality and symbolic reality, between phenomena and metaphenomena. The “commodity” that is being exchanged in interpersonal dialogue is either semiotic or material: it is either one that is construed by language itself — information — or it is one that exists independently of language — goods & services. In the first case, language constitutes the exchange; in the second, it facilitates the exchange of a non-linguistic commodity.

Projecting & Projected Figures: Temporal Implications

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 112):

In general, there is no temporal constraint between the projected and projecting figures: the projected figure may be past, present or future relative to the projecting one. The dimension affected by projection [is] order of reality, not time. However, there is a major dichotomy between two types of projection which does have temporal implications. To explore it, we have to look briefly at a fundamental interpersonal category, that of mood.

Projections Of Ideas And AI & Computational Linguistics: Hearer Modelling & Interpersonal Distance

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 112):

The projection of ideas has also played an important rôle in hearer modelling in AI and computational linguistics. From a systemic-functional point of view, hearer modelling corresponds to one aspect of the interaction base: the interactants in a dialogue have to be able to assess and model the way their experiences diverge. This is one measure of overall interpersonal distance between them. In hearer modelling, this tends to be construed ideationally by means of cognitive projection, where the projected idea is represented as a separate partition or space within overall knowledge: ‘the speaker believes —> the hearer knows —> …’. Such models may involve long projecting sequences (often called “nested beliefs”) …

Projections Of Ideas And Intensional (& Epistemic) Logic

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 112):

Projections of ideas have played a special rôle in the extension of standard logic within intensional logic (or more restrictedly for knowing and believing, within epistemic logic) to allow for reasoning in this domain. One of the features of the projection of ideas that has received special attention in logically-oriented approaches to meaning is its “referential opacity”.   If a speaker knows that Henry is the king, and construes someone else’s belief as Thomas thinks Henry is a nice man, the referring expression Henry cannot be replaced by the king although the speaker knows they have the same referent: ‘Thomas thinks Henry is a nice man’ cannot be inferred from ‘Thomas thinks Henry is a nice man’ since the identity of Henry and the king has not been established in the projected world of Thomas’s consciousness.

Why Quoting Locutions & Reporting Ideas Are The Natural Default Condition

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 111-2):

… although the two variables, locution/idea and quoting/reporting, can combine in either of the two possible alignments, there is a natural default condition, which is that locution goes with quoting and idea goes with reporting. The reason for this is clear: 

where the first-order phenomenon is one of saying (prototypically shared semiosis), the projected figure can be presented as if it was also of the same order: Harriet said + “Shall I feed the cat?” (reversible as “Shall I feed the cat?” + said Harriet). 

Where the first-order phenomenon is one of sensing (unshared semiosis), the projected figure has no counterpart on the first-order plane of experience and cannot be naturally presented as if it had; so, Harriet wondered + whether she should feed the cat. 

But there is always the possibility of semogenic extension by cross-coupling; so we also find corresponding marked alignments: locution/report Harriet asked + whether she should feed the cat, and idea/quote Harriet wondered + “Shall I feed the cat?” — the latter being again reversible.

Reporting: Wording Marking Second-Order Reality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 111):

… in quoting, the form of wording is still that of the first-order realm of experience: “Shall I feed the cat?” — taken by itself, there is nothing about this to show it is a projection. In reporting, on the other hand, the form of wording is clearly marked as being of the second-order: whether she should feed the cat has lost its first-order semantic features — and hence has to be projected by words that specify its particular speech function: asked/wondered not said/thought.

Quoting Vs Reporting And The Creation Of A Second-Order Reality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 111):

In reporting, the status of the two parts is unequal — the projected figure is dependent on the projecting: hence the projected figure is clearly construed as belonging to a different, second-order plane of reality — a reality that is made up of meaning, as it were. In quoting, on the other hand, the two have equal status as independent figures; the projected figure is thus projected as if it was part of the same first-order reality.

Semantic Weight: Quoting Vs Reporting

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 111):

… whenever two figures are related in a sequence, they may be either equal or unequal in semantic weight. … The projecting and projected figures may have equal status in the sequence: this relation is that of quoting … . Or they may have unequal status: this relation is that of reporting ….

Sensed Ideas Vs Said Locutions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 110-1):

Let us look more closely at these two modes of projecting, in both of which the projecting figure represents symbolic processing, the processing that brings the other figure into symbolic existence. Either the projection takes the prototypical form of semiosis: it is presented as verbal, shared, an exchange or joint construction of meanings; or it is fashioned into a derived semiotic form, unshared, interiorised, and without any meaning being exchanged. In the first, the projecting figure is one of saying; the projected is referred to as locution. In the second, the projecting figure is one of sensing; the projected is referred to as idea. Ideas are projections which are sensed, locutions are projections which are said.

Second-Order Experience: Meaning & Wording

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 108):

We have suggested that the relation of projection sets up one figure on a different plane of reality — we refer to this as the second-order or semiotic level. This second-order level of reality is the content plane of a semiotic system. That is to say, the projected figure is projected in the form of ‘content’. We have seen that the content plane is stratified into two levels — semantics (the level of meanings) and lexicogrammar (the level of wordings). Consequently, we would expect projections to be located at either or both of these levels, and this is indeed what happens: a projected figure is either a meaning or a wording. […] We will refer to these [i.e. meaning and wording] in the context of projection as ideas and locutions.

Non-Human Sayers

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 106-7): 

… typically only humans can project into second-order reality. However, since human consciousness is the locus of semiotic activity, it has the power of interpreting as metaphenomenon that which is manifested by some other, non-conscious symbolic source. Thus while “sensing” (that is semiotic activity that is unmanifested, like thinking) does require a human senser, saying can be ascribed to a non-human as well as to a human sayer …

The Differentiation Of Two Orders Of Reality Embodied In Sequences

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 106):

This differentiation is embodied in relations of sequence in the following way. Either a sequential relation expands one figure by adding another one to it, the two still remaining on the same phenomenal level; or the sequential relation projects one of the two figures onto the plane of second-order, semiotic phenomena, so that it enters the realm of metaphenomena (meanings or wordings).

Language & Orders Of Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 106):

Note that the linguistic processes themselves, as apprehended by our senses, are part of the first-order reality; second-order reality is formed of the meanings and wordings that these processes bring into being.

Construing Material Vs Semiotic Orders Of Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 106): 

Throughout the semantic construal of human experience, there is a differentiation between two orders of reality: between the everyday reality of our material existence on the one hand and on the other hand the second-order reality that is brought into existence only by the system of language. This is a contrast between semiotic phenomena, those of meanings and wordings, and the first-order phenomena that constitute our material environment.

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).