The Text Base As Patterns Stated Over The Ideation Base

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 403):

The principle of the deployment of ideational metaphor by the textual component also applies to the bases of the semantic stratum.  The text base both sets up information states within figures (presents them as messages organised around quanta of information) and guides the movement from one figure to another. In the former capacity, the text base can be interpreted as patterns stated over the ideation base. That is, the representation of ideational meaning in the ideation base constitutes the first order of representation in terms of which second–order, textual meaning can be specified.

The Typical Discourse Function Of Ideational Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 401):

These two clause systems, theme identification and theme predication, are components of the overall system of theme in English grammar. They produce structures in which identifying relational processes are used to reconstrue figures as equations (the two together are referred to as “thematic equatives” in Halliday 1985: 41-4). But ideational grammatical metaphors typically have a discourse function of this kind; they are as it were pressed into service by the textual metafunction, to provide alternative groupings of quanta of information.

Experiential Metaphor As A Second-Order Resource For Creating A ‘Carrier’ Of Textual Meanings

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 399-400):

What is significant here is that the textual organisation is realised by the second-order resource of grammatical metaphor. That is, the grammar is as it were turned back on itself: it reconstrues itself with a particular effect in the discourse. We can see, then, that experiential grammatical metaphor is a strategy for creating a ‘carrier’ of textual meanings.

Grammatical Metaphor As A Manifestation Of The Second–Order Nature Of The Textual Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 398-9):

One manifestation of the second–order nature of the textual metafunction that is important for our purposes is grammatical metaphor. Grammatical metaphor is a ‘second-order’ use of grammatical resources: one grammatical feature or set of features is used as a metaphor for another feature or set of features; and since features are realised by structures, one grammatical structure comes to stand for another.

The Second–Order Nature Of The Textual Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 398): 

This second–order enabling nature of the textual metafunction is seen both at the level of context, where mode (the functions assigned to language in the situation) is second–order in relation to field and tenor (the ongoing social processes and interactant rôles), and the level of content — the semantics and the lexicogrammar, where the systems of theme and information, and the various types of cohesion, are second–order in relation to ideational and interpersonal systems of transitivity, mood, and the rest.

The Second–Order Nature Of The Textual Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 398): 

The textual metafunction second–order in the sense that it is concerned with semiotic reality: that is, reality in the form of meaning. This dimension of reality is itself constructed by [the] other two metafunctions: the ideational, which construes a natural reality, and the interpersonal, which enacts an intersubjective reality. … The function of the textual metafunction is thus an enabling one with respect to the rest; it takes over the semiotic resources brought into being by the other two metafunctions and as it were operationalises them …

The Textual Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 398): 

The textual metafunction differs from the ideational one in a number of fundamental respects — its mode of syntagmatic progression is wave–like, with periodic prominence; it is inherently dynamic in that it organises text as process; and it is a second–order mode of meaning.

Ideational Semantics: Instantiation x Delicacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 392):

Logogenesis: The Relation Of Instantiation To Stratification

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 385-6):

The strata are ordered in symbolic abstraction, but they are not ordered in instantiation time. The process of instantiation can shunt up and down the stratal hierarchy. However, the general tendency in instantiation is one of stratal descent. First systemic features are instantiated (selected) at the highest stratum and their associated realisation statements are also instantiated (executed). Then the instantial specifications at this stratum are realised at the stratum below. 

Within this overall stratal descent, there is interleaving: higher-stratal systems need not be fully instantiated until lower-stratal ones have been instantiated. This means that selections at higher strata can be made in the logogenetic environment of preceding selections at lower strata. This reflects the general theoretical principle that the relationship between two strata is a solidary one, with instantiation proceeding “dialogically”.

Instantial System & Register

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 385):

An instantial system may fall entirely within the registerial system it instantiates; in other words, the meanings created within it may all have been created before. However, it may also create new meanings — new to the speaker and/or listener. In either case, the instantial system is built up successively by the generation process; but as it is developed, it in turn becomes a resource for further instantiation.

Logogenesis: Instantiation & Instantial System

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 385):

Logogenesis — creation of meaning in instantiation, maintained as a changing instantial system.

Instantial System [Definition]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384): 

If we look at logogenesis from the point of view of the system (rather than from the point of view of each instance), we can see that logogenesis builds up a version of the system that is particular to the text being generated: the speaker/writer uses this changing system as a resource in creating the text; and the listener/reader has to reconstruct something like that system in the process of interpreting the text — with the changing system as a resource for the process of interpretation. We call this an instantial system.

Logogenesis And Instantiation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384):

A text is generated within the logogenetic time-frame. In fact, generation is a logogenetic process: it creates meaning in the course of instantiation as the text unfolds.

Lexicogrammar Instance: Text As Wording

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384):

lexicogrammatical selection expressions (features from passes through lexicogrammatical networks), and their manifestations as wordings; particular texts, spoken or written, with their organisation.

Lexicogrammar Subpotential: Register

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384):

networks of typological regions of lexicogrammatical space.

Lexicogrammar Potential: Lexicogrammatical System

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384):

networks of ideational, interpersonal and textual wordings; their construction as clauses, groups/phrases, words and morphemes.

Semantics Instance: Text As Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384):

semantic selection expressions (features from passes through the semantic networks), and their representations as meanings; particular texts with their organisation

Semantics Subpotential: Register

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384):

networks of topological regions of semantic space.

Semantics Potential: Semantic System (Meaning Base)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384):

networks of ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings; their construction as texts, subtexts, parasemes, sequences, figures & elements.

Context Instance: Situation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384):

instantial values of field, tenor & mode; particular social semiotic situation events, with their organisation.

Context Subpotential: “Subculture” / Situation Type

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384):

networks of regions of social-semiotic space

Context Potential: Context Of Culture

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384):

the culture as social-semiotic system: networks of social semiotic features constituting the systems–&–processes of the culture; defined as potential clusters of field, tenor and mode.

The Cline Of Instantiation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 381):

… these [stratally organised and metafunctionally diversified] resources are extended along the cline of instantiation from potential (language in context of culture) via subpotentials (registers in situation types) to instances (texts in contexts of situation).

The Realisational Relationship Between Semantics And Lexicogrammar: Metafunctional Unification

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 381):

The grammar unifies the different metafunctional contributions; for example, a figure, a move and a message are unified in their realisation as a clause. It achieves this unification by realising combinations of ideational, interpersonal and textual features in the same wording. For example, the wording well unfortunately they must have missed the train is a realisational unification of a figure (of doing & happening), a move (of giving information, assessed as certain and undesirable) and a message.

The Realisational Relationship Between Semantics And Lexicogrammar: Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 381):

… the ideation base is realised by ideational resources: sequences and figures are realised at clause rank by clause complexes and (simple) clauses respectively; and elements are realised at group/phrase rank. In a similar way, interpersonal meanings are realised by interpersonal features in the lexicogrammar, and textual meanings by textual ones.

Lexicogrammar: Syntax & Morphology

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 380n):

In systemic functional theory, lexis is thus interpreted as most delicate or specific grammar. Grammar comprises syntax and morphology; there is no stratal boundary between the two, but merely a move down the rank scale: “syntax” is simply the grammar of clauses and groups/phrases and morphology is the grammar of words and morphemes.

Lexicogrammatical System Networks: Metafunction, Rank & Delicacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 380):

The lexicogrammatical system networks are distributed by metafunction (ideational: experiential & logical — interpersonal — textual) and by rank (clause — group/phrase — word — morpheme) and extend in delicacy from grammar to lexis.

Lexicogrammar [Defined]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 380):

Lexicogrammar is the resource for construing meaning as wording. It is organised as a set of system networks representing options in wording. Systemic options may have realisation statements associated with them; these statements specify how the options are realised in wording (structure & grammatical/lexical items).

The Realisational Relationship Between Semantics And Lexicogrammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 378-9):

Semantic features are realised by lexicogrammatical ones; we have illustrated this relationship within the ideational metafunction at various points in our discussion (e.g. sequence realised by clause complex; figure of doing realised by material clause).  The realisational relationship between semantics and lexicogrammar is one of preselection: semantic features such as 'sequence', 'figure', and 'doing', are realised in lexicogrammar by means of prespecification of lexicogrammatical information, most centrally preselection of lexicogrammatical features.   

For instance, 'doing' is realised by the preselection of the clause feature 'material', which means that the clause that realises a figure of doing is constrained to be a material clause.

The Text Base As Resource For Text Development & Interpretation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 378):

From the speaker’s point of view, the text base is a resource for developing a text, message by message, and for guiding the listener in his/her interpretation of the text; and from the listener’s point of view, it is a resource for constructing such an interpretation (for building up an instantial system …).

The Text Base: Messages

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 378): 

The text base is oriented towards the ideation base and the interaction base. It provides the resources for constructing meanings from these two bases as information of a kind that can be shared as text. An ideational figure and an interpersonal move are constructed as information in the form of a message. Such a message is related to the preceding discourse and differentiates informational statuses in terms of thematicity and newsworthiness.

Exchange Relationships And Domain Models

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 378): 

A particular domain model within the ideation base correlates with a particular exchange relationship within the interaction base and together they form the ideational and interpersonal aspects of a register. An exchange relationship thus has ideational implications: it involves the exchange of some ideational meanings rather than others and it embodies a division of labour between the interactants in an exchange relationship. … An exchange relationship thus gives interpersonal values to meanings within the domain model it is associated with.

The Interaction Base: Exchange Relationship Protocols

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 377-8): 

Midway between potential and instance, sets of such strategies cluster within ranges of tenor values. Such a cluster is the interpersonal analogue of a domain in the ideation base: it is a region within the overall interpersonal space of meaning, selected according to tenor, just as a domain is a region within the overall ideational space of meaning, selected according to field. The options in interpersonal meaning that make up the cluster together enact a tenor relationship … We might call such a cluster an exchange relationship to foreground that it is semantic (i.e. constituted in meaning through exchanges of meaning) and that it is interpersonal (rather than one-sidedly personal). To indicate that it is analogous to a domain model, we might have called it an exchange or interaction “model”; but we have avoided that term because it suggests a construal of something and construal is the ideational mode of meaning — it is more like a protocol than a model.

The Interaction Base: System

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 377):

At the potential end of the cline of instantiation, the interpersonal strategies that have the move as their domain are defined by all the options persons have in exchanging meanings with one another, adopting speech rôles of giving/demanding information or goods–&–services and assigning complementary rôles of accepting or giving on demand to the addressee. These constitute all the patterns of interaction within a culture.

The Interaction Base: Moves

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 376-7):

The interaction base provides the resources for enacting social rôles and relations as meaning, (prototypically) in dialogue. The interaction base includes the strategies for adopting and assigning speech rôles, for giving and demanding assessments, and the like. The locus of these strategies is a unit of interaction or move. A move is typically mapped onto a figure from the ideation base: a speaker construes a quantum of experience as a figure and enacts this figure as a move in dialogue, either as a proposition or as a proposal. This mapping between figure and move is a central feature of the way we jointly construct and negotiate experience.

The Ideation Base

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 376):

…the ideation base includes both the most general ideational meaning potential and a repertoire of domain models located along the cline of instantiation midway between potential and instance and associated with particular ranges of values within field.

The Meaning Base

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 376):

The semantic system, or “meaning base”, thus consists of the three familiar metafunctional contributions […]: the ideation base, […] the interaction base and the text base.  All three bases are extended along the cline of instantiation from potential to instance.

Different Context Specifications Realised By Different Registers

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 376):

A given contextual specification of field, tenor and mode is thus realised by “preselecting” a register within the semantic system … This contextual preselection within the semantics narrows down the overall potential to a registerial subpotential; a field specification narrows down the ideational potential from that of the overall ideation base to that of a domain model.

Registers: Semantic Stratum

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 376): 

These are, in the first instance, registerial subsystems of the semantic system. A register is a semantic region within the overall semantic space. It is made up of contributions from all three metafunctions: a domain within the ideation base and similar regions within the interpersonal and textual parts of the overall semantic space.

Contextual Regions Co-Evolve With Registers

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 376):

Such contextual regions [‘within the overall system of the context of culture’] evolve together with special functional varieties of the language or “registers”.

Contextual Regions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 375):

There are three sets of contextual systems — field, tenor and mode … Recurrent combinations of (ranges of) field, tenor and mode values define regions within the overall system of the context of culture.

The System Of Context [Defined]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 375):

Context is the ‘semiotic environment’ of language (and other socio-semiotic systems such as image systems [maps, diagrams, etc]); its systems specify what demands may be placed on language and what rôle it may play in responding to those demands.

Inter–Stratal Realisation: Preselection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 375):

More specifically, inter-stratal realisation is specified by means of inter-stratal preselection: contextual features are realised by preselection within the semantic system, semantic features are realised by preselection within the lexicogrammatical system, and lexicogrammatical features are realised by preselection within the phonological/graphological system.

Why Inter–Stratal Realisation Is Stated In Terms Of The Higher Stratum

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 375):

In systemic theory, this relationship is stated in terms of the organisation of the higher stratum — for a simple reason: a higher stratum provides a more comprehensive environment than a lower one (as our stratal figures with [co-tangential] circles suggest).

Context Vs Language

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 375):

The resources are stratified into context and language; language is in turn stratified into semantics, lexicogrammar and phonology/graphology. … the processes of instantiation are guided by this stratification.

Modelling Domains Of Ideational Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 370):

… in our view, the modelling of specific domains of ideational meaning is an essential component of our theoretical understanding of the nature of human cognition.

Agent: Metathings & ±Abstract Things

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 361):

… in the overall ideational potential, agents of processes can be metathings as well as things and, within things, abstractions as well as physical objects, tools, animals, persons and natural forces …

Metathings

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 359):

… facts, ideas or locutions.

Procedural Texts

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 356):

… a sequence of operations for arriving at some well–defined end result … it is a macro-operation, consisting of a number of atomic micro–operations. It is dominated by procedures … that lead to some specific goal: the dominant cause is purposive … From an interpersonal point of view, … it is a macro–proposal, consisting of a number of instructions or directions to the reader.

Weather Forecast Texts

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 355):

… put in terms of scale, a weather forecast construes a macro-being — the meteorological state of the environment — consisting of a number of atomic micro–beings which move in and out of existence of their own accord.

Visual Semiotic Systems

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 355):

Many visual semiotic systems are ‘paraphrastic’ [with language] in this sense [ie ‘could be construed as alternative realisations of the same semantic figure or sequence of figures’], although certainly not all.

Construing An Instance Of A Situation Type

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 354):

In weather forecasting, while the weather itself is not constituted of language, the activity of forecasting is; the entire situation is built up out of black marks on large white pieces of paper towards which is directed the attention of some human consciousness. Out of this is construed a particular context or situation–type; since the semantics is specific to that situation, the reader knows where he is, construes the situation in a particular instantial form (‘oh — so it’s going to rain this afternoon’), and perhaps varies his actions in accordance with this construction.

The Cline From ‘Language In Reflection’ To ‘Language In Action’

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 354):

In situations of the ‘language in action’ kind, where the discourse is a relatively minor component of the total activity, the grammar and the semantics are obviously less constructive of the whole than in a ‘reflection’ context …

Text & Context

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 354):

… text and context are construed together.

The Construction Of Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 353):

… our metatheoretic position is that the construction of meaning is both a discourse–semantic and a lexicogrammatical process.

Delicacy & Agnation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 353):

In a paradigmatic model such as the present one, both the lexicogrammar and the semantics accommodate variable delicacy: two agnate constructions may be both ‘the same’ and ‘different’ according to the delicacy of focus adopted.

Figures Of Being: Ascribing & Existing

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 338): 

Ascribing (‘being’ in the sense of carrying an attribute), like existing, distinguishes a neutral phase ‘be’ and marked phases of becoming, staying or ceasing to be.

Being: Existing

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 336): 

Existing includes being in existence, coming into existence (emerging) and staying in exist[ence] (persisting); with or without some external cause.

Logogenesis & Sensitivity To Initial Conditions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 329):

… predicting weather is rather like predicting text: one can make certain predictions about what people are going to say or write with a certain probability of being right — a probability that is significantly greater than chance, but not great enough to be easily used in (for example) parsing programs, because of the great number of variables that play a part in conditioning choices in the text.

System As 'Climate', Instance As 'Weather'

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 328):

The terms climate and weather are related to each other as langue to parole: as the system of language is to its instantiation in text. Weather is the instantiation of climate; climate is the system ‘behind’ the weather. As with language, there is, of course, only one set of phenomena here not two; when we refer to climate we are construing general principles and tendencies that ‘explain’ the multidimensional microvariation that is what we actually have to live with …

Instantiation, Strata & Delicacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 327): 

Instantiation is the relation between the system and the instance. When we shift attention along this scale, we are moving between the potential that is embodied in any stratum and the deployment of that potential in instances of the same stratum … this move can be made at any degree of delicacy.

Realisation As Interstratal Relation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 327): 

Realisation is the relation of one stratum to other strata … when we shift attention ‘upwards’ into context or ‘downwards’ to lexicogrammar and phonology/graphology, we are moving in realisation. We can do this at any degree of delicacy, from the most general to the most specific; and we can do it at any point along the instantiation scale, from system to text.

Delicacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 325): 

… delicacy is different from instantiation. Delicacy is the degree of detail, or specificity, to which the description is taken.  

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 327): 

Delicacy is the relation between the most general features and the most specific.

Semantic Domains

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 324):

Since domains are instantiations of the overall semantic potential, any properties associated with types in this potential are also present in the domains.

Registerial Semantic Domains

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 324):

On the one hand, registerial domains form families within which there is variation, such as the family of culinary procedures, which encompasses a variety of different kinds of recipes, or the more extended family of procedures for creating artefacts. On the other hand, the variation is multidimensional.

Registerial Varieties

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 324):

The overall semantic potential is diversified into registerial varieties that emerge as patterns of instantiation.

Semantic Domain: Registerial Variation Corresponding To The Contextual Variable Of Field

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 324):

Register is systematic variation within the overall meaning potential; from this point of view, a domain is a region of registerial variation corresponding to the contextual variable of field — the meaning potential determined by, and determining, ‘what’s going on’.

Semantic Domain: Ideational Region Of Registerial Variation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 324):

… when we model a domain, we are still defining a meaning potential, a semantic space in which meanings are constantly being realigned and new meanings created. In other words, we are describing a register; or, more accurately, a region of registerial variation…

Instantial Variation Constructs Semantic Domains

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 323):

Instances do not usually repeat each other word for word; there is some variation … It is this variation that constructs the domain. With each instance of the field, the overall meaning potential is instantiated in slightly varying ways; this variation both confirms the earlier patterns and nudges them along some novel path.

The Relation Of Domain Models To The General Model: Instantiation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 323): 

The relationship which links the domain models with the general model is instantiation. Instantiation relates the system to the instance, at any given stratum. … A domain is located somewhere between the system and the instance. Hence it can be looked at from either end. Seen from the ‘system’ end, a domain is regular and repeated patterning in the way potential is deployed, over the course of time. Seen from the ‘instance’ end, it is generalisation across particular instances of text.

Domain Models & The General Model

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 323): 

Domain models are variants of the general model. A particular domain model specifies which of the semantic systems in the overall model are activated in a particular contextual field: the ideational meanings that are “at risk”.  Each field thus has its own semantic profile, which can be seen against the background of the overall semantic potential.

Domain & Domain Model [Defined]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 323):

… the semantic correlate of a contextual field is a domain. When we model the ideational semantics of a particular field, we create a domain model.

The Disadvantage Of Setting Up A Field-Specific Ideational Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 322):

If the field is defined in relatively broad terms, it may activate most of the general part of the ideation base; but a more restricted field may call on only one particular part of it. In such cases, it may be useful to reduce the whole ideation base to only those parts that are implicated for the particular field; that is, to set up a field-specific ideational semantics. (More generally, this might be a context-specific semantics, including interpersonal and textual as well as ideational meanings). However, the price of this would be to isolate such a field from others to which it is related.

Each Field Selectively Activates Particular Domains Of The Semantic System

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 322): 

Each field is projected onto one variety of the ideation base: that is, it can be thought of as activating some portion of the total semantic resources. This projection of field onto the ideation base involves both the particular domain and the general types under which this domain is classified.  A given field is thus constituted as a principled selection of types from within the ideation base; this is so to speak its semantic image projected from context.

Field Typology

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 322): 

… a full account of field would include a typology of the possible first and second order values that occur in a culture. Such a typology would show how closely various fields are related — how they form families. So, given three different fields, 1, 2, and 3, the typology will show three different ways of deploying the ideation base.

Distinguishing First Order Field And Second Order Field

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 321-2):

… field can be characterised as the deployment and organisation of the ideation base. … there are two aspects to this category. In most contexts, there is both a first order field and a second order field — the first order field is the social activity being pursued (eg instructing somebody in how to prepare a dish …) and the second order field is the ‘subject matter’ the activity is concerned with (eg the ingredients and methods of cooking …). … And both these guide the way the ideation base is deployed.

The Covariation Between Context And Language Is Differentiated Metafunctionally

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 321):

… the covariation between context and language is not undifferentiated — it is differentiated according to the functional diversification of each of the two strata: the variables of context correlate respectively with the metafunctions of language, field with ideational, tenor with interpersonal, and mode with textual. These pairs are mutually predictive.

Origins Of The Concept Of Register

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 321):

… the notion of functional dialect was worked out by the Prague School in the 1930s … and systemic register theory has its roots in Firth’s work on restricted languages. The concept of register is also recognised in computational linguistics under the heading of sublanguage, particularly in work on machine translation.

How Context And Register Are Related

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 321): 

Together, field, tenor and mode define the ‘ecological matrix’ in which particular types of text are processed: there is a systematic relationship between such matrices (particular combinations of field, tenor and mode values) and particular types of text. We can see this clearly with actual instances of text — for example, an individual recipe or weather forecast; but these are instances of general classes, to be characterised in terms of the systemic potential that is instantiated in them. That is, there is a correlation not only between a contextual matrix and a given instance of a recipe but also between that matrix and the linguistic potential that is deployed in recipes in general. The latter correlation is known as a functional variety or register of the general systemic potential.

Mode: The Part Language Plays In Any Given Context

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 320-1): 

… both these contextual variables [field and tenor] are, in some sense, independent of language, even though they are constituted in language and the other semiotic systems of a culture. That is, they concern realities that exist alongside the reality created by language itself, semiotic reality. However, there is a third contextual variable that is specifically concerned with the part language is playing in any given context — the symbolic mode, how the linguistic resources are deployed. This covers both the medium (spoken, written, and various subtypes such as written in order to be spoken) and the rhetorical function — persuasive, didactic, informative, etc.

Field And Tenor As Context Variables

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 320): 

The context encompasses both the field of activity and the subject matter with which it is concerned (‘what’s going on, and what is it about?’) and the tenor of the relationship between the interactants, between speaker and listener, in terms of social rôles in general and those created through language in particular (‘who are taking part?).  The field is thus the culturally recognised repertoires of social practices and concerns, and the tenor the culturally recognised repertoires of rôle relationships and interactive patterns.

Diverse Semiotic Mappings Across Languages

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 319):  

The phenomena of human experience are held in tension by so many intersecting analogical lines that, while all of us have the same brains and live on the surface of the same planet, such diverse ways of semiotic mapping are not only possible but inevitable.

Typological Variation Reflects Indeterminacy Within A Language: Process Types

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 318-9):

Some process types tend to lie on the borderline between major categories, forming mixed and overlapping categories; typical of these are the behavioural and existential proceses in English. It is likely that equivalent types of process will be liable to greater typological variation than those that fall squarely within the core categories of material, mental, and relational.

Typological Variation Reflects Indeterminacy Within A Language: Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 318):

… we referred to projection as something that overlaps the ‘boundary’ between interpersonal and ideational metafunctional space; in English it is typically construed ideationally, though with a close relationship to the interpersonal systems of modality and mood. Other languages locate projection rather differently in relation to this boundary, sometimes foregrounding its interpersonal aspects, for example through a special category of ‘reporting’ mood.

Typological Variation Reflects Indeterminacy Within A Language: Transitivity Systems

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 318):

We saw that in the experiential grammar of the English clause there was a complementarity of perspective between the transitive and the ergative: processes may be construed either as ‘one participant is doing something, which may or may not extend to another participant that is being done to’, or as ‘one participant is involved in something, which may or may not be brought about by another participant that is the agent of it’. Probably all languages display this transitive/ergative complementarity in their transitivity systems; but at the same time it appears at different depths and in different proportions.

Metafunctional Motivations For Alternative Construals

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 316):

As we have shown in the context of grammatical metaphor, the choice among alternative construals is made on the basis of both ideational and textual factors. These factors ‘conspire’ together so that different strategies are favoured in different registers: the congruent form (sequences) in casual speech, the metaphoric form (figures of being & having) in elaborated forms of writing.

Another Source Of The Elasticity Of Construal: Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 315-6):

The elasticity of construal is further increased through grammatical metaphor, which also relies on the manifestation of projection & expansion within participants (realised by the different types of modification in nominal groups). We have illustrated the range of options throughout the system at various points, and a schematic example will be enough here:

[i] logical

A happened, so B happened;

A caused B to happen;

[ii] experiential

A happened causing B / B happened because of A

A happening caused B happening

A affected B [‘cause-happened’]

with additional metaphorical variants:

B happened because of the happening of A

the happening of A caused the happening of B

the happening of A was the cause of the happening of B

One Source Of The Elasticity Of Construal: Projection & Expansion

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 315):

One major source of this kind of elasticity [construing phenomena as sequence or figure] is the manifestation of the very general semantic types of projection and expansion throughout the ideation base. In English, as we have shown, we find them manifested both logically as relations and experientially as elements within figures: 

[i] logical manifestation:

as relations between figures in the construal of sequences (realised by clause complexes);

as relations between processes in the construal of figures (realised by verbal group complexes);

[ii] experiential manifestation:

as circumstances within figures (realised by prepositional phrases or adverbial groups); 

as circumstantial processes within figures of being & having (realised by relational clauses); 

as non-nuclear participants within figures, i.e., participants other than Medium — Agent, Beneficiary, Range (realised by nominal groups with or without a preposition).

The Realisation Of Processes As Completed Vs Non-Completed

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 307):

Given that a process takes place in time, there will be some sense in which it has a beginning, a middle and an end. These may be observable as distinct constituents, if it is a process having duration; even if it is instantaneous, however, they represent possible facets, points of view from which it can be considered. In English, the meaning of a process typically includes it completion: if I ‘cut’ a piece of string, I cut it in two. To construe a process as non-completed, English uses conative or inceptive phase: ‘try to cut it’, ‘start to cut it’.

Choices In Marking Time: English vs Chinese

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 304):

So whereas in English, each process in a figure (provided the figure is arguable — grammatically, one where the clause is finite) must be located somewhere in the construction of tense, in Chinese the process may be simply left as neutral, without being assigned to either category of aspect.

Two Ways Of Construing Time Grammatically: English & Chinese

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 304):

As in English, the process is the category of experience that is located in time. In English, time is construed grammatically as tense: as a flow, with a more or less extended ‘present’ forming a moving but impermeable barrier between ‘past’ and ‘future’; and each instance of a process is located somewhere in the flow. In Chinese, time is construed grammatically as aspect: and specifically as an opposition of unfolding versus culminating; and each instance of a process may be given a value in this opposition, either ‘significant as unfolding — in its own right’ or as ‘significant as culminating — perhaps by virtue of its consequences’.

A Universal Property Of Language: The Stratification Of Content

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 299): 

… one property of language which is universal is the stratal organisation of the content plane into semantics and lexicogrammar, with the lexicogrammatical stratum forming a continuum: at one pole are the most “grammatical” features, closed systems of just two or three terms, mutually defining along a single dimension and with very general meanings and contexts of use; at the other pole are the most lexical features, open sets of an indefinite number of items, taxonomically arranged along various dimensions and with highly specific meanings and contexts of use.

The Metaphorical Elaboration Of The Semantic System Is Made Possible By The Fractal Types

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 294-5):

The whole metaphorical elaboration [of the semantic system] is made possible by a fractal pattern that runs through the whole system. We have suggested that the metaphorical elaboration is a token–value relation; but in order for it to be a token–value relation within the semantic system, it has to be natural in the sense that the token and the value domains have to be similar enough to allow for the token to stand for the value. The principle behind this similarity is the fractal pattern of projection/expansion … 

That is, while grammatical metaphor constitutes a move from one “phenomenal domain” to another … this move is made possible because fractal types engender continuity across these domains: the metaphorical move from one phenomenal domain to another takes place within the one and the same transphenomenal domain.

Metaphor: Realisational Potential

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 294):

Thus if the domain of sequences is construed metaphorically within the domain of figures, the realisational domain in the grammar will automatically be that of metaphor: it will be the domain of clauses rather than that of clause complexes.

Metaphor & Communicative Rôles

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 293):

The proliferation of ideational meaning through metaphor thus also means that a person gains access to a wider repertoire of communicative rôles.

The Directionality Of Metaphor Within Experiential Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 293): 

… the general tendency in the metaphorical move away from the congruent is away from the logical towards the experiential; and within the experiential towards the domain of participants in figures of being & having.

Metaphorical Elaboration Of The Semantic System: Multiplanar Mappings Of Semantic Domains

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 293):

… metaphor involves a mapping from one ideational domain to another, construing a token–value relation between the two. For instance, the whole semantic domain of sequences may be mapped onto the domain of figures. The token domain may in turn be the value in a further metaphorical move, such as the move from figures to participants. The metaphorical expansion thus can involve multiple planes.

Metaphorical Elaboration Of The Semantic System

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 293): 

… metaphor is best construed as an opening up of a new dimension of the semantic system that allows the whole system to be elaborated by itself along a token–value chain. In other words, what we identified as a simplified way of dealing with grammatical metaphor in the relation between semantics and lexicogrammar … we can now recognise as a dimension internal to the semantic system.

Representing Semantic Types As Metaphorically Related To Congruent Types Within The Overall Semantic System

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 293):

Such a representation has to meet the kinds of ideational and textual demands that we have already considered in our representation of examples:

(i) ideational: the representation has to show that metaphor constitutes an expansion of the semantic system. The expansion is an elaborating one, creating chains of token–value relations; and it increases the semantic potential for construing experience. 

(ii) textual: the representation has to make it possible to show how metaphorical and congruent variants are given different values in the text base — in the textual semantics.

The Metaphorical Dimension In Grammar As Cline

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 291):

… the metaphorical dimension in grammar is in reality a cline. There are often numerous intermediate steps between the “most congruent” and the “most metaphorical” wordings; indeed it is the scale of metaphoricity that is reasonably clearly defined, not its end points. Given two agnate wordings that are positioned along this scale, we seldom have any difficulty in locating them relative to each other: we know which of the two is the more metaphorical one. But we [would be] hard put to it to specify a point at either end where we feel we could go no further.

Grammatical Metaphor: A Junction Of Perspectives

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 290):

For most types of metaphor, it is important to take account of the fact that the metaphor represents more than one construction of goings-on; the metaphor adds a further perspective on the phenomenon being represented, without displacing the perspective that is congruent. […] The grammatical metaphor will typically show features of the congruent perspective as well as features of the metaphorical one.

Metaphorical Chains

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 288-9):

It is the fact that metaphor multiplies meanings within the semantic system that opens up the possibility of metaphorical chains, with one congruent starting–point and another highly metaphorical end-point (A’’’ stands for A’’ stands for A’ stands for A … The semantic system is being expanded along the dimension of the metaphorical token–value relation; but the expansion is still within the semantic system itself.

Metaphor As A Correspondence Between Two Semantic Configurations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 288):

The correspondence that is construed through grammatical metaphor is an elaborating relationship: an identity is set up between two patterns … In this identity, the metaphorical term is the ‘Token’ and the congruent term is the ‘Value’ … The identity holds between the two configurations as a whole; but … the components of the configurations are also mapped one onto another …

The metaphorical relation is thus similar to inter-stratal realisation in that it construes a token–value type of relation. Here, however, the relation is intra-stratal: the identity holds between different meanings, not between meanings and wordings. The metaphor consists in relating different semantic domains of experience …

What Distinguishes A Grammatical Metaphor From A Technical Term

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 286):

Almost all technical terms start out as grammatical metaphors; but they are grammatical metaphors which can no longer be unpacked. When a wording becomes technicalised, a new meaning has been construed — almost always, in our present-day construction of knowledge, a new thing (participating entity); and the junction with any more congruent agnates is (more or less quickly) dissolved.

Why Experiential Metaphors Originally Evolved

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 285):

… this provides an important insight into why experiential metaphors evolve in the first place, namely in order to get the texture right …

From Congruent To Metaphorical Realisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 280):

The system then comes to be expanded through shift in rank and class. Sequences come to be realised not only by clause complexes but also by clauses, and figures come to be realised not only by clauses but also by groups/phrases. They are pushed downward in complexity and rank relative to their congruent realisations in the grammar.

Congruent Realisations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 278):

Categories in the ideation base are realised by those categories in the ideational grammar with which they have co-evolved. These are the congruent realisations that developed first in the language, are learnt first by children and tend to occur first in a text.

Spatial Metaphor Provides An Interface To Other Semiotic Modes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 278): 

We noted above that the deployment of spatial metaphor in the construction of economic ‘knowledge’ serves, among other things, as an interface to another form of semiotic — that of using space symbolically in a diagrammatic representation of quantities. The same kind of principle of cross-over between semiotic modes applies to the construal of meaning in linguistics. We have relied in our own discussion on metaphors of abstract space for construing meaning — most centrally, metaphors of semantic networks and semantic space. These metaphors allow us to cross over to diagrams of symbolic space, viz. system networks (as a kind of acyclic directed graph) and topological representations. The system networks can, in turn, be restated algebraically, as in the various computational implementations of systemic accounts.

The Semogenic Power Of Metaphor: The Proliferation Of Perspectives

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 277):

In the construction of meaning in economics, economic things such as prices, salaries, yields, financing are quantities. At the same time, they are also elastic bodies that grow and shrink; and also ‘mountaineers’, climbing up and down slopes. This at one level an impossible conjunction: things cannot be both quantities and mobile elastic bodies — but the semantic system of English makes this possible through lexicogrammatical metaphor. This proliferation of perspectives is part of the semogenic power of metaphor.

Grammatical Metaphor: A System Property Of Construing Meaning In Lexicogrammatical Terms

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 274):

But the general phenomenon of metaphor, as an inherent property of language as a stratified semiotic, is a feature of the system as a whole — of the construal of meaning in lexicogrammatical terms.

Tensions Created In The Metaphoric Construal Of Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 274):

And we should stress once again that to describe the “reality” that is construed in this way as being generalised does not imply that it is “coherent”, in the sense that it is internally consistent and unselfcontradictory. On the contrary: much of the power of metaphor derives from the tensions and contradictions set up (a) within the metaphor itself, (b) between one metaphor and another, and (c) between the metaphor and other regions of the ideation base.

Two Advantages Of Seeing The Metaphoric Process As Lexicogrammatical

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 274):

This enables us to do two things. On the one hand, we can bring out a further aspect of the semantic picture by pointing to the conjunction of category meanings — an aspect of grammatical semantics — that is involved; and on the other hand, we can relate this particular metaphoric phenomenon to the overall semantic potential of the system — the construal of experience as a generalised ideation base.

A Social Function Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 272): 

So the more the extent of grammatical metaphor in a text, the more that text is loaded against the learner, and against anyone who is an outsider to the register in question. It becomes elitist discourse, in which the function of constructing knowledge goes together with the function of restricting access to that knowledge, making it impenetrable to all except those who have the means of admission to the inside, or the select group who are already there.

It is this other potential that grammatical metaphor has, for making meaning that is obscure, arcane and exclusive, that makes it ideal as a mode of discourse for establishing and maintaining status, prestige and hierarchy, and to establish the paternalistic authority of a technocratic elite …

Metaphor As Junctional Construct

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 271): 

Thus grammatical metaphor is a means of having things both ways. An element that is transcategorised loses its original status because of the nature of the semantic feature(s) with which it comes to be combined … A[n] element that is metaphorised does not lose its original status. Its construction is not triggered by its being associated with any new semantic feature. If it has a new semantic feature this is a result of the metaphorising process. … It has become a ‘junctional’ construct, combining two of the basic properties that the grammar evolved as it grew into a theory of experience.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 283): 

… we have shown that the metaphorical version is not simply a meaningless (ie synonymous) variant of some congruent form; it is ‘junctional’ — that is, it embodies semantic features deriving from its own lexicogrammatical properties.

The Experiential Significance Of Ideational Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 270-1):

There is a loss of experiential meaning, since the configurational relations are inexplicit and so are many of the semantic features of the elements … There is a further loss of experiential meaning, since the categories of experience become blurred … the construction of reality becomes a construction of unreality, detached from ordinary experience and hence inaccessible and remote. …

There is however a gain in the potential for experiential information, because the participant, more than any other element, can be expanded in respect of [sic] a wide range of semantic features; this enables anything construed as a thing to become part of an experiential taxonomy which embodies far greater generalisation about the overall nature of experience.

The Textual Significance Of Ideational Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 270): 

There is an increase in textual meaning, since participants have the most clearly defined status as information: in particular, they can be construed (by the thematic and information systems) into a ‘backgrounded + foregrounded’ pattern which maximises the information potential of the figure.

Grammatical Metaphor In The Semantics Of English

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 269):

In English, then, the metaphoric movement is from the logical towards the experiential and, within the experiential, from processes to things […] towards a more highly taxonomised way of meaning.

Grammatical Metaphor Viewed Semantically

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 269):

We can say therefore that grammatical metaphor is predominantly a ‘nominalising’ tendency. But if we look at it semantically we can see that it is a shift from the logical to the experiential: that is, making maximum use of the potential that the system has evolved for classifying experience, by turning all phenomena into the most classifiable form — or at least into a form that is more classifiable than that in which they have been congruently construed.

The Metaphorical Construal Of Things As Qualities

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 268):

This represents a shift one step ‘backwards’ along the logical-experiential scale. It is thus contrary to the prevailing general tendency, since something that is congruently a participant on its own terms is now treated as existing only by virtue of some other participant. … This perturbation of the dominant pattern has the effect of making a participant more abstract.

The Significance Of The Metaphoric Instability Of Relators

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 268):

It is these characteristics of relators [the transphenomenality and fractality of the expansion relations they construe] that make them particularly liable to migrate: to be displaced metaphorically from their congruent status (as paratactic and hypotactic conjunctions) and to appear in other guises in other locations — as minor processes (in circumstantial elements), as processes, as qualities and as things. Thanks to this metaphoric instability, relators are able to play a central part in the re-construal of experience that is a feature of the discourse of the sciences — that makes these discourses possible, in fact, and hence provides the semiotic foundation for the construction of scientific knowledge.

The Status Of Relators In The Overall Ideation Base

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 267-8):

…the relators are the most unstable in terms of their susceptibility to metaphoric transformation. They are, as it were, the first to leave, and they travel farther than the rest. We can perhaps link this property of relators to their status in the overall ideation base. Relators construe the highly generalised logico-semantic relations of expansion that join figures into sequences: elaborating, extending, enhancing. […] these relationships of expansion pervade very many regions of the semantic system: they are manifested in the organisation of figures of being, in the types of circumstantial element that occur within a figure, in the taxonomy of ‘things’, and elsewhere, as well as of course in their ‘home’ region of the construal of sequences , as links between one figure and another. That led us to characterise the categories of expansion as “transphenomenal” and as “fractal”: transphenomenal in the sense that they re-appear across the spectrum of different types of phenomena construed by the ideational system; and fractal in the sense that they serve as general principles of the construal of experience, generating identical patterns of organisation of variable magnitude and in variable semantic environments.

Pressure Along The Metaphoric Scale

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 267):

But things are merely the end-point of the metaphoric scale… . Processes, though more constrained than things, still have more semantic potential than relators: they accommodate categories of time and phase, among others, and are construed in open lexical sets, whereas relators for closed systems. So there is pressure there too, to metaphorise conjunctions into verbs: then, so, because, before, therefore becoming follow, result, cause, anticipate, prove. (Circumstances are something of a special case because most of them already contain participants in minor, subsidiary processes — prepositional phrases in the grammar.) But it remains true that things are the most susceptible of being classified and organised into taxonomies; hence the primary motif of grammatical metaphor is that of construing a world in the form of things.

The Metaphorical Drift Toward “Thinginess”

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 265, 267): 

… by construing any phenomenon of experience as a thing, we give it the maximum potential for semantic elaboration. … the more structure that is to be imposed on experience the more pressure there is to construe it in the form of things.

The Potential Of Elements For Construing Experience: Relators

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 266-7):

Relators show the least organisation of any, since they are experienced indirectly in the form of logical relations between other configurations; they share some of the systematic features of minor processes, but other than that they display only the contrast between the two relative statuses they assign to these configurations, as being equal or unequal (paratactic / hypotactic in the grammar) — a then x / x after a // b so y / y because b &c. Thus a relator can be metaphorically reconstrued into any other category … whereas a process can be construed only as a participant (quality or thing), and a quality only as a thing.

The Potential Of Elements For Construing Experience: Minor Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 266):

The minor processes that form circumstances (realised as prepositions in English) are even less taxonomisable; they are intermediate between processes and relators, and only the spatial ones (spatio-temporal) display any real paradigmatic organisation (to / from // towards / away from; inside / outside // into / out of; before / after // in front of / behind &c.).

The Potential Of Elements For Construing Experience: Processes Vs Participants

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 266):

Processes thus have much less potential than participants for being characterised and taxonomised. For example, with a process like decide we can add a circumstance to it, saying he decided quickly or he decided on the spur of the moment; but if we want to identify the occasion as unique we have to say this decision, the previous decision, the only good decision he ever made. We can say his absurd decision but not he decided absurdly — at least not in the same sense, since absurdly could only characterise the figure (how he carried out the act of deciding), not the quality of the process of deciding as such.

The Potential Of Elements For Construing Experience: Process Features

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 265-6):

Processes do resemble other processes, but they share different features with different others; no single line-up is dominant enough to form the basis for permanent hyponymy. For example, if we consider a small subset of the words expressing verbal processes offer, tell, promise, threaten, recommend, warn:

(1) offer, promise, threaten have the feature ‘offer’; tell, recommend, warn have the feature ‘command’ 

(2) offer, tell are neutral in orientation; promise, threaten, recommend, warn have the feature ‘oriented to addressee’ 

(3) within the addressee-oriented, promise, recommend have the feature ‘desirable’, threaten, warn have the feature ‘undesirable’. 

(4) offer, promise, recommend take direct participant (‘propose to give … to Receiver’; ‘propose that Receiver should obtain …’). 

(5) tell, warn take circumstance of Matter ‘about …’.

The Potential Of Elements For Construing Experience: Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 265):

Processes are realised by verbal groups, where, typically, the only lexical material is the verb itself, functioning as Event (material action or event, conscious or verbal process, or relation). Apart from the adverbial complement of a phrasal verb, which may serve to construct a distinct lexical item e.g. make out (I can’t make out the difference), come to (she’ll come to in a minute), let on (don’t let on about this), &c., all contrasts made by the verbal group are grammatical ones — tense and other quasi-temporal systems, and modality. There is no lexical expansion classifying processes into taxonomies or assigning them sets of contrasting qualities.

The Potential Of Elements For Construing Experience: Qualities

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 265):

Qualities are attached to things, and so contribute to this overall expansion [of participants]. They also have possibilities of expansion of their own, by submodification (at least for intensity, but sometimes along other lines as well: very long, dark blue, red hot).

The Potential Of Elements For Construing Experience: Participants

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 265):

Participants are realised by nominal groups, which allow more or less indefinite expansion (through the univariate structure of modification). This expansion is the grammar’s way of constructing taxonomies of things: grouping them into classes, assigning properties to them, quantifying them and then uniquely identifying any individual thing, or any number, set or class of things in relation to the “here–&–now” of the speech event. the expansion involves open sets of things and qualities, realised by lexical items; but it can also capture a circumstance, realised by a prepositional phrase, or an entire figure, realised by a clause, and put it to use as a quality in describing or identifying such a thing or set of things, e.g. this unique 20-piece handpainted china dinner service with optional accessories never before offered for sale at such a bargain price.

The Metaphorical Drift Toward “Thinginess”

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 264):

… the drift towards ‘thinginess’ is the culminating and most clearly articulated form of a shift which can be characterised in more general terms as a shift towards the experiential — towards that mode of construing experience that is most readily organised into paradigmatic sets and contrasts. Things are more easily taxonomised than qualities, qualities than processes, and processes more easily than circumstances or relations. Since the ‘noun-ness’ is being used to construe phenomena that start out as something else than a noun, metaphors will inevitably be abstract.

Two Predominant Motifs In Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 263-4):

It is possible to distinguish two predominant motifs in the phenomena characterised here: one major or primary and one minor or secondary one.

(i) The primary motif is clearly the drift towards ‘thing’.

(ii) The secondary motif is what appears as a tendency in the opposite direction: the move from ‘thing’ into what might be interpreted as a manifestation of ‘quality’ (qualifying, possessive or classifying expansions of the 'thing').

The Phylogenesis Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 263):

In the semantic construction of experience, ‘process’ and ‘participant’ emerge as prototypical categories […]. But as in any semiotic endeavour there are always some domains of uncertainty; are rain, wind, thunder processes or things? Are fear, worry, regret processes or qualities? Examples like these prevent the categories from being too reified and rigid, and provide a kind of gateway of analogy through which a phenomenon can drift or be propelled from one category to another.

In transcategorisation some other semantic feature triggers the propulsion; e.g. dark + make/become = darken, flake + like/composed of = flaky.  In metaphor, however, the phenomenon is reconstrued as another category; what is being exploited is the potential that arises — but only after the categories have first been construed as distinct; not otherwise — of treating every phenomenon in more ways than one. In this process the original interpretation is not supplanted; it is combined with the new one into a more complex whole.

Rank Shift, Class Shift & Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 259-60):

Rank shift is not inherently metaphorical. There is a parallel here between rank shift and class shift. In origin, both these could be described as metaphorical semogenic processes: a verb or adjective is metamorphosed into a noun (a shift of class, e.g. strong : strength, lose : loss), a clause is metamorphosed into a group (a shift of rank, e.g. they went bankrupt : their bankruptcy). But as a synchronic relation neither of these necessarily involves metaphor; there may be no systematic alternation such as there is between a metaphoric and a congruent form. We have already discussed non-metaphorical forms of class shift, under the heading of transcategorisation. […] Class shift becomes metaphorical when the “shifted” term creates a semantic junction with the original.