… seeing [the nominal group] as a logical structure … means seeing how it represents the generalised logical-semantic relations that are encoded in natural language. … for the purposes of the nominal group we need to take account of just one such relationship, that of subcategorisation: ‘a is subset of x’. This has usually been referred to in the grammar of the nominal group as modification …
Textual meaning is embodied throughout the entire structure, since it determines the order in which the elements are arranged, as well as patterns of information structure just as in the clause (note for example that the unmarked focus of information in a nominal group is on the word that comes last, not the word that functions as Thing).
This means that there is a certain potential for assigning experientially similar meanings different textual statuses within the structure of the nominal group. In particular, they may be presented either as Classifier or as Qualifier (e.g. wooden table ~ table of wood) and as either Deictic or as Qualifier (e.g. my brother’s house ~ house of my brother)*, with the Qualifier having the greater potential as news.
* And there are further possibilities; for example, Keats wrote A thing of beauty is a joy for ever with of beauty as Qualifier rather than A beautiful thing is a joy for ever with beautiful as Epithet.
Interpersonal meanings are embodied (a) in the person system, both as pronouns (person as Thing) and possessive determiners (person as Deictic); (b) in the attitudinal type of Epithet; (c) in connotative meanings of lexical items functioning in the group, and (d) in prosodic features such as swear-words and voice quality.
To complete the triad, first proposed by Pike (1959), of ‘language as particle, wave and field’, the kind of meaning that is expressed in a particle-like manner is the experiential; it is this that gives us our sense of the building blocks of language.
The interpersonal meanings are expressed by the intonation contour; by the ‘Mood’ block, which may be repeated as a tag at the end; and by expressions of modality which may recur throughout the clause. The pattern here is prosodic, ‘field’-like rather than wave-like.
The textual meaning of the clause is expressed by what is put first (the Theme); by what is phonologically prominent (and tends to be put last — the New, signalled by information focus); and by conjunctions and relatives which if present must occur in initial position. Thus it forms a wave-like pattern of periodicity that is set up by peaks of prominence and boundary markers.
… it is a general principle of linguistic structure that it is the experiential meaning that most clearly defines constituents. Interpersonal meanings tend to be scattered prosodically throughout the unit; while textual meanings tend to be realised by the order in which things occur, and especially by placing of boundaries. These are very general tendencies, worked out differently in every language but probably discernible in all.
We can use these scales – countability, animacy, generality – as a way of locating the thing in lexicogrammatical space. A fourth factor, that of the metaphoric propensity of nouns (their potential for construing qualities and processes as things). Certain special classes of noun can be identified by reference to the grammar of process types: for example, nouns construing different types of projection. But a more detailed categorisation of things, in terms of their association with roles in the various process types, should emerge after more systematic investigation of the large-scale corpus data that are now available.
On this scale, the most general type of noun is in fact a pronoun, which is the limiting case of anaphoric generalisation … There is no clear grammaticalising towards the ‘particular’ end of the cline, though it is perhaps worth remarking that the function of Classifier in the nominal group provides the resource for expanding any class of thing into more particular subclasses.
Here again the grammar makes a categorical distinction: (a) conscious things, which are those referred to as he/she, (b) non-conscious things, those referred to as it. … while there is a clear foundation in the world of experience, with people at one end and inanimate or abstract objects at the other, many things (like non-human animals) lie in between; and, as always, the grammar is free to construe the world as it pleases.
The conscious/non-conscious distinction can also therefore be looked at as a cline; and it is one that has received a lot of attention in typological linguistics, under the name of animacy. This, as already remarked, refers to the likelihood of any thing to occur as Actor in a transitive material process, the ‘most animate’ in this sense being, obviously, post-infancy humans.
Mass nouns representing abstract things, and also things which are concrete but general, often move into the count category: experiences, researches, informations, fruits, furnitures are all relatively recent plural forms. We could think in terms of a cline of countability, ranging from those nouns (and pronouns) which construe things as fully itemised, at one end, to those which treat them as totally unbounded at the other. Typically, living beings and concrete objects are itemised, abstract entities (and nominalised processes and qualities) are unbounded, with institutions and collectives falling in between. But the distinction is made in the grammar, so the same entity may be construed in more than one way; e.g. hat(s) ~ headgear, fish(es) ~ fish, novel(s) ~ fiction.
Things are represented in English as either (a) discrete, and therefore countable, or (b) continuous, and therefore uncountable; the grammar thus makes a categorical distinction into count nouns and mass nouns, such that count nouns select for NUMBER: singular/plural, while mass nouns do not. As pointed out above, mass nouns are treated as singular where the deixis is specific, e.g. do you like this poetry/this poem?, and as plural where the deixis is non-specific, e.g. I’ve written some poetry/some poems.
The distinction is not quite as clear-cut as this suggests. Mass nouns are often itemised, and hence also pluralised; the meaning is either ‘a kind of’, as in I’ve found a new polish, or ‘an amount of’, as in three coffees please. There will then be an agnate expression having a measure/type word as Head: a new type of polish, three cups of coffee.
… we can identify a small number of vectors along which words capable of functioning as Thing are ordered in terms of the grammar, so that the functional potential of any one noun or pronoun will be suggested by its location on each of these vectors. These are:
- countability: count/mass
- animacy: conscious/non-conscious
- generality: general/particular …
We can use these scales — countability, animacy, generality — as a way of locating things in lexicogrammatical space.
There is a long tradition of characterising such phenomena, in grammar books, as a list of very general categories, for example ‘persons, other living beings, objects (concrete or abstract), collectives, institutions’. These are relevant grammatically because they relate to a cline of potential agency — that is, the likelihood of functioning as Actor/Agent in the clause; the most likely being persons (human nouns), and the least likely being concrete objects.
Common nouns … are nouns that are common (ie generalised) to a class of referents. These name all the classes of phenomena that the language admits as things, and hence as participants in processes of any kind.
Personal pronouns and proper names are alike in that, for both, the reference is typically unique. With pronouns, the referent is defined interpersonally, by the speech situation. With proper names it is defined experientially: there exists only one, at least in the relevant body of experience. In both cases, this means that typically there is no further specification; pronouns and proper names usually occur without any other elements of the nominal group. Sometimes they need further defining, like you in the back row, Henry the Eighth (this was how surnames started, as Qualifiers of personal names); and they may carry attitudinal Epithets, like poor Tom – cf. pretty little Polly Perkins of Paddington Green, which has both.
The personal pronoun represents the world according to the speaker, in the context of a speech exchange. The basic distinction is into speech rôles (I, you) and other rôles (he, she, it, they); there is also the generalised pronoun (one).
The element we are calling Thing is the semantic core of the nominal group. It may be common noun, proper noun or (personal) pronoun.
In an incongruent nominal group corresponding to a congruent clause, Qualifiers correspond to participants or circumstances in the transitivity structure of the clause; or when the Head/Thing of the nominal group is a nominalisation of a verb of sensing or saying, they may correspond to projected clauses in a clause nexus.Carnation has been available in the UK since 1946, but the main marketing effort dates only from 1954 with the removal [of restrictions [on sales] ].
THE decision [by the Arbitration Commission] [[ to award the 2.3 percent pay increase]] is unfortunate, but it was to be expected.
This is the real meaning of the US Senate’s decision [last week] [[ to override any possibility of a presidential veto for real, hard-hitting sanctions against the separate, increasingly desperate tribes [[ that make up the political entity of South Africa]] ]] .
As the examples illustrate, participants reconstrued as Qualifiers are realised by prepositional phrases with either of or by; circumstances are realised in the same way that they would be realised in clauses, by either prepositional phrases or adverbial groups.
A clause functioning as Qualifier in the nominal group is referred to as a relative clause; more specifically, as a defining relative clause (in contrast to a non-defining relative clause, which is not embedded but hypotactically dependent).
It is also possible for a nominal group to function as Qualifier inside the structure of another nominal group, for example my brother the lawyer, where the lawyer defines which brother is being referred to. Such instances typically have a possessive determiner as the Deictic element.
But the characterisation here is in terms of some process in which the Thing is, directly or indirectly, a participant. It may be a major process — that is, a clause, finite or non-finite; or a minor process — a prepositional phrase. … The non-finite clause may appear in this environment with no verb present, eg the poles with flags on …
Like the other, ‘ranking’ (i.e. not embedded) elements of the nominal group, the Qualifier also has the function of characterising the Thing; and again the Deictic the serves to signal that the characteristic in question is defining.
We may also use the term ‘embedded’, taken from formal grammars; but with the proviso that this term is often used to cover both rank shift (where the item is downgraded as a constituent) and hypotaxis (where the item is dependent on another one but is not a constituent of it …). Here we shall use embedded only as an alternative term synonymous with rankshifted.
Adjectives and nouns can occur after the Thing in wordings borrowed from languages where Epithets and Classifiers follow the Thing, e.g. professor emeritus, salade Niçoise; and this may be used to give a person a foreign flavour, as with Agatha Christie’s linguistic portrayal of Hercule Poirot: a crime most horrible. However, certain types of adjective also appear after the Thing as part of the pattern of the nominal group in English; they often include a sense of potentiality. There are reasons for interpreting these as Qualifier rather than as Epithet or Classifier. Bolinger (1967) drew attention to contrasts such as a navigable river and a river navigable, and his suggestions have been followed up in the literature (see e.g. McCawley, 1988: Ch. 12; Blöhdorn, 2009). The sequence with Thing: noun ^ Qualifier: adjective is much less common than the sequence with the adjective before the Thing, but it does occur, e.g.:Throughout the U.S., there are more than 30,000 miles of waterways navigable by small boats.;
So did the idea of making the Danube a river fully navigable by large vessels.;
It was the best solution possible.
The sense is that of a Qualifier rather than that of an Epithet or Classifier, and it would be possible to interpret such adjectives as Attributes in reduced intensive attributive relative clauses, as in a river that is fully navigable by large vessels, and, by a further step (‘unpacking’ the potential form of the adjective), a river that can be fully navigated by large vessels.
With only rare exceptions, all Qualifiers are rank–shifted. What this means is that position following the Thing is reserved for those items which, in their own structure, are of a rank higher than or at least equivalent to that of the nominal group; on these grounds, therefore, they would not be expected to be constituents of a nominal group. Such items are said to be ‘rank–shifted’, by contrast with ranking ones which function prototypically as constituents of the higher unit.
Unlike the elements that precede the Thing, which are words (or sometimes word complexes …), what follows the Thing is either a phrase or a clause.
By and large, the more permanent the attribute of a Thing, the less likely it is to identify it in a particular context. So we proceed with the very impermanent, quantitative characterisation that is nearest to a Deictic, e.g. three in three balls; through various qualitative features such as new in new ball; and end up with the most permanent, the assignment to a class, e.g. tennis ball. Within the qualitative characteristics, if more than one is specified there is, again, a tendency to more from the less permanent to the more permanent; e.g. a new red ball rather than a red new ball.
So the principle which puts the Theme first in the clause is the same as that which puts the Deictic first in the nominal group: start by locating the Thing in relation to the here–&–now — in the space–time context of the ongoing speech event. From there we proceed to elements which have successively less identifying potential — which, by the same token, are increasingly permanent as attributes.
… there is a progression in the nominal group from the kind of element that has the greatest specifying potential to that which has the least; and this is the principle of ordering that we have already recognised in the clause. In the clause, the Theme comes first. We begin by establishing relevance: stating what it is that we are using to introduce this clause into the discourse, as ‘this is where I’m starting from’ — typically, though by no means necessarily, something that is already ‘given’ in the context. In the nominal group, we begin with the Deictic: ‘first I’ll tell you which I mean’, your, these, any, a, etc.
We can now follow the experiential pattern that is embodied in nominal group structure. Proceeding from left to right, we begin with the immediate context, the identification of the item in terms of the here-&-now, e.g. those trains ‘the trains you can see over there’. Of course, this identification is often in terms of the surrounding text rather than the situation, e.g. those trains ‘the trains you’ve just been talking about’; but the point of reference is still the speech event.
From there we go on to quantitative features: place in order, and number. These are less naturally definitive than this or that, mine or yours, but more so than a merely qualitative attribute; and the ordinals, being the more definitive of the two, come first. An ordinal is a kind of superlative cardinal: third = ‘three-est’, i.e. identified by being at number three.
Next come the qualitative features, again with superlatives preceding others: the oldest trains ‘trains for which oldness is the identifying feature’. Often there is an intensifier, such as very, or an attitudinal element like nice, terrible as a marker of the quality.
Finally, comes class membership; this reduces the size of the total set referred to in the noun by specifying a sub-set, e.g. passenger train ‘kind of train that is for carrying passengers’.
We are talking here, it should be made clear, of the identifying potential of these elements. In any actual instance, the item in question may or may not be identifying; and this is the function of the word the at the beginning of the group – to signal that something that is capable of identifying is actually functioning in this way.
So there is a progression in the nominal group from the kind of element that has the greatest specifying potential to that which has the least;
Often the participle is itself further modified, as in a fast-moving train, a hard-boiled egg. The resulting compound may embody any one of a number of different experiential relations, e.g. well-meaning, habit-forming, fund-raising, right-angled, fruit-flavoured, pear-shaped, architect-designed, simple-minded, bottled-nosed, iron-fisted, two-edged.
What is happening here is that some part of the experiential structure of a clause is being downgraded to function as Epithet or Classifier; it is a reduced form of a non-finite clause and hence agnate to a (finite or non-finite) Qualifier.
Note finally that the fact that a particular expression is a cliché does not imply that the modifying element is necessarily a Classifier – the ‘permanence’ is merely a feature of the wording! Thus in a considered opinion, a heated argument, the promised land, a going concern, the verbs are all Epithets: ‘which has been considered’, ‘which has become heated’, ‘which has been promised’, ‘which is going [well]’.
It is natural that the more lasting attribute should tend to have a classifying function. But the present participle as Classifier does not exclude the sense of ‘which is ... ing’, as in the rising/setting sun; and conversely, the past participle as Epithet does not always carry the meaning of ‘which has been ...’, since many such forms are in fact adjectives, as in a haunted house, a crowded train.
The same word may be now one, now the other: in Would you like a boiled egg? boiled is Classifier, ‘which gets boiled’, contrasting with fried, poached or scrambled; while in You must drink only boiled water here, boiled is Epithet ‘which has been boiled’.
In He got stuck in a revolving door, either interpretation is possible: Classifier ‘of the kind which revolves’, Epithet ‘which was revolving’ (cf. fast trains above).
When functioning as Epithet, these forms usually have the sense of the finite tense to which they are most closely related: the present participle means ‘which is (was/will be) ... ing’, the past participle means ‘which has (had/will have) been ... ed’. When functioning as Classifier, they typically have the sense of a simple present, active or passive: present (= active) ‘which ... s’, past (= passive) ‘which is ... ed’.
If however the verb is one which does not normally take the ‘present in present’ tense be ... ing (i.e. a verb expressing a mental or relational process), the distinction between ‘which ... s’ and ‘which is ... ing’ is neutralised;
Other words also enter into the nominal group, namely words of the class verb, which may function as Epithet or Classifier. Verbs function in the nominal group in one of two forms:(i) present (active) participle, V-ing, e.g. losing, as in a losing battle;
(ii) past (passive, or intransitive) participle, V-en, e.g. lost, as in a lost cause.
These word classes — noun (= common noun), adjective, numeral and determiner — are all different kinds of noun; they are subclasses of this one primary class. This larger class can be referred to as ‘nominals’, to avoid confusion with ‘noun’ in its narrower, more specific sense.
The classes of word which most typically realise these functions are as follows:
But there are other possibilities: for example, numeral occurring as Classifier, as in first prize, or embedded nominal group as possessive Deictic, e.g. the day before yesterday’s paper.
Unlike nominal groups embedded as possessive Deictics, nouns serving as Classifier have no determination system, so they do not refer to particular participants only to generalised ones: contrast the Minister’s decision with ministerial decision.
In an incongruent nominal group corresponding to a congruent clause, the Classifier may correspond to either a participant or circumstance in the transitivity structure of the clause; for example:I would have thought the entry of the Americans into the war, the British and French efforts, and the losses sustained in Ludendorf’s final offensive had something to do with it,
A sequence of Classifier + Thing may be so closely bonded that it is very like a single compound noun, especially where the Thing is a noun of a very general class … In such sequences the Classifier often carries the tonic prominence, which makes it sound like the first element in a compound noun. … the line between a compound noun and a nominal group consisting of Classifier + Thing is very fuzzy and shifting, which is why people are often uncertain how to write such sequences, whether as one word, as two words, or joined by a hyphen …
The range of semantic relations that may be embodied in a set of items functioning as Classifier is very broad; it includes material, scale and scope, purpose and function, status and rank, origin, mode of operation — more or less any feature that may serve to classify a set of things into a system of smaller sets …
The line between Epithet and Classifier is not a very sharp one, but there are significant differences. Classifiers do not accept degrees of comparison or intensity – we cannot have a more electric train or a very electric train; and they tend to be organised in mutually exclusive and exhaustive sets – a train is either electric, steam or diesel.
The Classifier indicates a particular subclass of the thing in question, e.g. electric trains, passenger trains, toy trains. Sometimes the same word may function either as Epithet or as Classifier, with a difference in meaning: e.g. fast trains may mean either ‘trains that go fast’ (fast = Epithet) or ‘trains classified as expresses’ (fast = Classifier).
Interpersonal Epithets also tend to be reinforced by other words, or other features, all contributing to the same meaning: synonyms … , intensifiers, swear–words, particular intonation contours, voice quality features and the like.
As we have seen, many of them may also occur as post-Deictic; in that case their deictic function consists rather in referring to, or even in constructing, an occasion of shared experience as in a miserable few dishes of peanuts. But whereas with adjectives of experiential quality the difference between Epithet and post–Deictic is rather clear (e.g. the three famous musketeers, the famous three musketeers), with the interpersonal ones the difference is much less, and there is no sense of ambiguity in the meaning (contrast those lovely two evenings in Bali and those two lovely evenings in Bali).
The principal difference is that experiential Epithets are potentially defining, whereas interpersonal ones are not. … Even in the superlative …Note that, in general, the same word may act as either experiential or interpersonal Epithet … there are very few words that serve only an attitudinal function.Interpersonal Epithets tend to precede experiential ones.
The Epithet indicates some quality of the subset, e.g. old, long, blue, fast; since qualities are denoted by adjectives, Epithets are often realised by adjectives. … (i) The quality of the subset may be an objective property of the thing itself, construed as a depiction of the experience of the entity that it represents; or (ii) it may be an expression of the speaker’s subjective attitude towards it, e.g. splendid, silly, fantastic. We refer to these as (i) experiential Epithets and (ii) interpersonal, or attitudinal Epithets, respectively. …
There is no hard and fast line between these two; but the former are experiential in function, whereas the latter, expressing the speaker’s attitude, represent an interpersonal element in the meaning of the nominal group (thus contributing to appraisal, in the sense of Martin & White, 2005).
In an incongruent nominal group that stands as a metaphoric variant of a clause, the Numerative may correspond to a conjunction; for example, subsequent jungle travel can be reworded as a congruent clause: subsequently it travelled through the jungle.
An inexact Numerative expression may be exact in the context; for example, just as many trains (‘as mentioned before’), the next train (‘from now on’). On the other hand, an exact Numerative expression may be made inexact by submodification, as in about ten trains, almost the last train.
The ordering Numeratives (or ‘ordinatives’) specify either an exact place in order (ordinal numerals, e.g. the second train) or an inexact place (e.g. a subsequent train). …
An ordinal is a kind of superlative cardinal: third = ‘three-est’; that is, identified by being at number three.
The quantifying Numeratives (or ‘quantitatives’) specify either an exact number (cardinal numerals e.g. two trains) or an inexact number (e.g. many trains, lots of trains).
The Numerative element indicates some numerical feature of the particular subset of the Thing: either quantity or order, either exact or inexact. Items serving as Numerative are exemplified in Table 6-9.
Post–Deictic items referring to space–time [e.g. above, aforementioned, earlier, preceding; subsequent, future] may alternatively be interpreted as a type of Numerative expressing place in order.
In an incongruent nominal group, the post-Deictic may correspond to an interpersonal Adjunct in the related congruent clause. For example, in
Immediately, the religious groups of the city were embroiled in an angry dispute over the alleged invasion of a man’s right to freedom of religious belief and conscience.
the incongruent nominal group the alleged invasion of a man’s right to freedom of religious belief and conscience corresponds to the more congruent clause allegedly a man’s right ... was invaded, where allegedly serves as a comment Adjunct.
Also found in the post–Deictic position in the nominal group are words expressing the speaker’s attitude (to the thing, or else to the world in general), such as wretched, miserable, lovely, splendid, as in those lovely two evenings in Bali. …The attitude may be focused on the number represented by the Numerative (with a singular determiner a(n) as Deictic and a plural noun as Thing):For a lousy two weeks in New Jersey, you’ll make a shitload of dough.
These can be interpreted in terms of (1) the categories of expansion and (2) the categories of projection. The words occurring as post–Deictic are adjectives, and may also occur in the function of Epithet but with a different sense; those that frequently occur as post-Deictic are shown in Table 6-8.
In addition to the Deictic element we have just discussed, there may be a second Deictic element in the nominal group, one which adds further to the identification of the subset in question. We will refer to these as post-Deictic or Deictic₂.
The post–Deictic identifies a subset of the class of ‘thing’ by referring to its fame or familiarity, its status in the text, or its similarity/dissimilarity to some other designated subset.
In contrast, when a nominal group refers to a class, the use of determiners as Deictic is more constrained. For example, while this dying elephant and this elephant are both possible as anaphoric references to a particular member of the class of elephant, only the elephant would normally be possible as a reference to the general class of elephants. In addition, certain options that are quite distinct as references to members of a class are much closer in meaning as references to the class itself; these are marked [1], [2] and [3] in Table 6-7.
When a given nominal group refers to a member or members of a class – i.e. to a particular thing or set of things, the full ranges of specific and non-specific determiners can serve as Deictic and the values within the specific and non-specific number systems are quite distinct. Thus, when they refer to members of the class of elephant, an elephant, the elephants and elephants are not interchangeable; for example:
After four months, on New Year’s Eve, Russell reportedly proposed while on an elephant in India.
Do you suppose I’m going to find an elephant walking about the streets of London?
An African elephant lay dying alongside a well-traveled trail. Researchers noted that 38 elephants made a total of 56 visits to the dying elephant – including six visits by her mother and sister. After the elephant died, 54 individuals made 73 visits to her corpse – none by her mother and sister.
Here we could not replace an elephant in Russell reportedly proposed while on an elephant in India with the elephant or elephants. These alternatives would have quite different meanings. Typically, the member of a class is introduced by a non-specific reference, e.g. an African elephant, and once it has been introduced into the discourse, it is referred to again anaphorically by specific nominal groups, as with the dying elephant, the elephant (or, pronominally, it).
The two different number systems operating with specific and non-specific determination apply to all nominal groups, but the typical range of determiners and the semantic patterns of agnation depend on whether a given nominal group refers to
(i) a member or members of a class (particular reference) or to
(ii) to a class to which members belong (general, or ‘generic’, reference): see Table 6-7.
If there is no Deictic element, the nominal group is non-specific and, within that, non-singular.* In other words, a nominal group may have no Deictic element in its structure, but this does not mean it has no value in the Deictic system — simply that the value selected is realised by a form having no Deictic in the expression.* The forms trains and some trains, as in there are (some) trains on the track, are not in fact identical. But the distinction is a more delicate one, and for the purpose of this analysis they will be treated as variant expressions of the same category.
It should be pointed out here that there are two different systems of number in the English nominal group, one associated with each of the two kinds of Deictics.
- (i) With specific Deictics, the number system is ‘non-plural/plural’; mass nouns are grouped together with singular, in a category of ‘non-plural’. So this, that go with non-plural (singular or mass), these, those with plural, as in Table 6-5.
- (ii) With non-specific Deictics, the system is ‘singular/non-singular’; mass nouns are grouped together with plural, in a category of non-singular. So a, an goes with singular, weak some with non-singular (mass or plural), as in Table 6-6.
Thus the so-called ‘articles’ of English, ‘definite article’ the and ‘indefinite article’ a(n), are determiners realising terms in, respectively, the specific and non-specific systems of nominal deixis. They enter into a proportional pattern as follows: see Table 6-4.
Historically the and a(n) are reduced forms of (respectively) that and one; it is also a reduced form of that (but preserving the final part, since it functions as Head, where the preserves the initial part). there is a reduced form of locative there.
Note that there are two different types of some, one selective and one non-selective. The selective some contrasts with any, and is pronounced some [s^m]. The non-selective some is reduced in spoken form, being pronounced [sm], with a syllabic m ; the limiting case of phonological reduction is absence, and [sm] does indeed alternate with the absence of a determiner (Ø). Thus in George Orwell’s All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others, the determiner all is a positive total Deictic, whereas the determiner some [s^m] is a selective partial Deictic.
Non-specific Deictics are given in Table 6-3; they are total or partial determiners. The total ones convey the sense of ‘all’ (positive) or ‘none’ (negative), and the partial ones convey the sense of some unspecified subset; for example, both trains have left, is there a train leaving soon?, there are some trains on the track, some trains are very comfortable, I haven’t noticed any trains go by.
In an incongruent nominal group that corresponds to a congruent clause, a possessive Deictic may correspond to one of the participants in the transitivity structure of the clause, e.g.:The Minister’s decision follows his efforts to mediate since the board decided to sack the matron several weeks ago.
For 26 years journalists have followed John Paul II’s every move. His world travels, his Sunday blessings, his creation of cardinals and saints, and now his every sneeze.
or even (more restrictedly) to one of the circumstances, e.g.:Yesterday’s decision by the Arbitration Commission effectively said ‘no’ to ordering employers to pay into superannuation schemes.
At today’s official fixing by the five leading dealers, it was cut by 2s. 4d. per fine ounce – the lowest point for six weeks.
The word the is a specific, determinative Deictic of a peculiar kind: it means ‘the subset in question is identifiable; but this will not tell you how to identify it — the information is somewhere around, where you can recover it’. … Hence the is usually accompanied by some other element which supplies the information required; … If there is no such information supplied, the subset in question will either be obvious from the situation, or else will have been referred to already in the discourse …
The two are closely related, both being (as indicated by the term ‘deixis’) a form of orientation by reference to the speaker — or more accurately, to the ‘speaker–now’, the temporal–modal complex that constitutes the point of reference of the speech event.
The specific Deictics … are demonstrative or possessive determiners, or embedded possessive nominal groups. The sub-set in question is specified by one of two possible deictic features: either (i) demonstratively, that is, by reference to some kind of proximity to the speaker … or (ii) by possession, that is, by reference to person as defined from the standpoint of the speaker … together with the possibility of an interrogative in both these categories … All these have the function of identifying a particular subset of the ‘thing’ that is being referred to.
The nature of the Deictic is determined by the system of determination. The primary distinction is between (i) specific, or (ii) non-specific.
The Deictic element indicates whether or not some specific subset of the Thing is intended; and if so, which.
… experiential structure … has the function of specifying (i) a class of things … and (ii) some category of membership within this class. We shall refer to the element expressing the class by the functional label Thing. Categorisation within the class is typically expressed by one or more of the functional elements Deictic, Numerative, Epithet and Classifier. They serve to realise terms within different systems of the system network of the nominal group.
There is also some overlap between nominal groups and prepositional phrases. … the distinction between participants and circumstances is less clear in the ergative organisation of the clause, and this means that certain participants (Agent, Range, Beneficiary) are realised by prepositional phrases to indicate a special status in the clause as message (when they are presented as early or late news … ). At the same time, circumstances of location and extent may be realised by nominal groups without a preposition marking the circumstantial relation … .
Here we can note that certain ‘adverbs’ such as up, out, over can be analysed alternatively as prepositions in prepositional phrases without a Range.
But prepositional phrases encroach on the functional ground of adverbial groups, partly by means of phrasal templates such as in a ... way (manner), as in yeah it’s not done in an antagonistic way (instead of .... not done antagonistically); and adverbial groups may serve as Location in time or space. These latter often have as Head an adverb that derives from preposition + noun (for example upstairs, outside, overseas; today, tomorrow).
While adverbial groups tend to realise circumstances of Manner: quality … and Manner: degree … — as well as modal and textual Adjuncts, other, experientially more complex circumstances that are more like indirect participants (for example Location, Cause, Accompaniment) tend to be realised by prepositional phrases.
… there is functional overlap between adverbial group (and conjunction group) and prepositional phrase. They have the same general functional potential; but they differ in two related respects.(1) Since prepositional phrases include a nominal group, they have greater expressive potential than adverbial groups.
(2) Consequently they can construe more experientially complex circumstances.
A phrase is different from a group in that, whereas a group is an expansion of a word, a phrase is a contraction of a clause. Starting at opposite ends, the two achieve roughly the same status on the rank scale, as units that lie somewhere between the rank of a clause and that of a word. In terms of the modal structure of the clause, prepositional phrases serve as Adjuncts, and in terms of the experiential structure, they serve as circumstances.
In terms of the modal structure of the clause, nominal groups serve as Subject or Complement, verbal groups as Finite + Predicator, and adverbial groups as Adjunct; and in terms of experiential structure, nominal groups serve in participant rôles, verbal groups as Process, and adverbial groups in circumstance rôles.
At the same time, in interpreting group structure we have to split the ideational metafunction into two modes of construing experience: experiential and logical. So far what we have been describing under the ideational heading has been meaning as organisation of experience; but there is also a logical aspect to it – language as the construal of certain very general logical relations – and it is this we have to introduce now. The logical component defines complex units, e.g. the clause complex … and group and phrase complexes … . It comes in at this point because a group is in some respects equivalent to a word complex — that is, a combination of words built up on the basis of a particular logical relation. This is why it is called a group (= ‘group of words’).
Although we can still recognise the same three components, they are not represented in the form of separate whole structures, but rather as partial contributions to a single structural line. The difference between clause and group in this respect is only one of degree; but it is sufficient to enable us to analyse the structure of the group in one operation, rather than in three operations as we did with the clause.
… in the grammar of the clause each component contributes a more or less equal complete structure, so that the clause is made up of three distinct structures combined into one (three lines of meaning) …
(1) Transitivity structures express representational meaning: what the clause is about, which is typically some process, with associated participants and circumstances;(2) Mood structures express interactional meaning: what the clause is doing, as a verbal exchange between speaker/writer and audience;(3) Theme structures express the organisation of the message: how the clause relates to the surrounding discourse, and to the context of situation in which it is being produced.These three sets of options together determine the structural shape of the clause.
… the English clause is a composite affair, a combination of three different structures, deriving from distinct functional components. These components (called ‘metafunctions’ in systemic theory) are the ideational (clause as representation), the interpersonal (clause as exchange) and the textual (clause as message). What this means is that the three structures serve to express three largely independent sets of semantic choice.
Figure 5-46 shows the systems of PROCESS TYPE and AGENCY interact in the system network of TRANSITIVITY. This system network adds a subnetwork for ‘verbal’ clauses to the sub-networks given in Figure 5-10 (material clauses), Figure 5-16 (mental clauses), and Figure 5-17 (relational clauses). Note that the mental distinction between ‘emanating’ and ‘impinging’ is now interpreted as the distinction between ‘middle’ and ‘effective’ (but mental clauses with an Inducer are not covered by the system network).
Table 5-45 sets out the principal criteria for distinguishing the types of process discussed in the present chapter, taking account of
- the number and kind of participants,
- the directionality and voice,
- the pro-verb,
- the form of the unmarked present tense, and
- the phonological properties of the verb.
The ergative structure is open–ended, and a further round of agency can always be added on:the ball rolled : Fred rolled the ball : Mary made Fred roll the ball : John got Mary to make Fred roll the ball : …The transitive structure, on the other hand, is configurational; it cannot be extended in this way. Thus, from a transitive point of view, Mary made Fred roll the ball is not a single process; it is two processes forming one complex.
From a transitive point of view, in these initiating structures there is a feature of cause added. This is also possible with (i) mental clauses and with (ii) relational ones.
(i) Corresponding to the initiating structure in material clauses, we find an inducing structure in mental clauses; for example, remind can be interpreted as ‘induce to remember’
(ii) Corresponding to the initiating structure in material clauses, we find attributed and assigned structures in relational clause. As we have seen, for the transitive analysis we have to recognize the additional functions of Attributor and Assigner; but from the ergative point of view, these clauses simply add a feature of agency.
There is a large class of material processes of this kind where the agnate causatives are, or may be, attributive: the sun ripened the fruit/made the fruit ripen, her voice calmed the audience/made the audience calm; these will belong to the ‘initiating’ type — if we say the sun ripened, her voice calmed, the meaning changes from ‘make (ripe/calm)’ to ‘become (ripe/calm)’.
Putting the two analyses together, we would expect to find that these two types of clause are not identical, but that there is no clear line between them; and that is precisely the case. One difference is whether or not there can be an analytic causative with make: we can say the police made the bomb explode, but not the lion made the tourist chase. But this leaves many uncertain: what about Mary made the boat sail, the nail made the cloth tear? — and, with a different verb, the lion made the tourist run? The distinction becomes somewhat clearer if we ask whether, if the second participant is removed, the rôle of the first participant changes. In the sergeant marched the prisoners/the sergeant marched, it clearly does; it is now the sergeant who is doing the marching (cf. the police exploded, which we now have to interpret in a transferred sense) – whereas in the lion chased no such interpretation is possible. Those where the rôle changes will have Initiator + Actor rather than Actor + Goal.
By interpreting processes ergatively as well as transitively we are able to understand many features of English grammar that otherwise remain arbitrary or obscure. We will take up just one such example, that of clauses such as the police exploded the bomb, the sergeant marched the prisoners, where — as suggested by the agnate clauses the bomb exploded, the prisoners marched – the meaning is not so much ‘do to’ as ‘make to do’ (what the sergeant made the prisoners do was march). Ergatively, there is no difference between these and clauses like the lion chases the tourist. Transitively, these appear as different configurations; we have to introduce the function of Initiator to take account of the executive rôle. But in modern English they are very much alike; and the ergative analysis expresses their likeness — both consist of a Medium and an Agent. In ergative terms, ‘a does something to x’ and ‘a makes x do something’ are both cases of ‘x is involved in something, brought about by a’.
… then there are the ‘indirect participants’ functioning as Complements to prepositions, some of which … are potential Subjects; these give various other kinds of receptive such as ‘Location–receptive’, for example the bed hadn’t been slept in, ‘Manner–receptive’, for example this pen’s never been written with, and so on. Normally these are also medio–receptives, that is, they are middle not effective clauses. But receptives with idiomatic phrasal verbs, such as it’s been done away with, she’s very much looked up to, that prize has never been put in for, are often ‘true’ receptives in the sense that the prepositional phrase really represents a participant …
… there are other potential Subjects besides Agent and Medium. There are the other participants, the Beneficiary and Range, either of which may be selected as Subject of the clause; the verb will then similarly be in passive.
In spoken English the great majority of receptive clauses are, in fact, Agent–less … The speaker leaves the listener to locate the source.
If the clause is effective, since either participant can then become Subject there is a choice between operative and receptive. The reasons for choosing receptive are as follows:(1) to get the Medium as Subject, and therefore as unmarked Theme … and
(2) to make the Agent either(i) late news, by putting it last … or
(ii) implicit, by leaving it out.
