object (material)typifying role: impacted participant in figure of doing [Goal, e.g. build a house, pick up sticks].pronoun it/ them; general noun thing; number category: count (singular/ plural).has extension in space, bounded so participates in figures as unit whole; if acting, then in figure of happening [Actor in involuntary process, e.g. the button fell off}.
animaltypifying role: active participant in figure of doing [Actor, typically middle, e.g. birds fly].pronoun it/they; general noun creature; number category: count (singular/ plural).has potential for self-initiated action and movement [processes in which animal occurs as Actor are (unconscious but) voluntary; and may also be effective, e.g. ... was bitten by a snake]', also for perception [Senser in process of seeing & hearing],
conscious (prototypically adult human)typifying roles: active participant in figure of sensing [Senser, e.g. do you think so?], of saying [Sayer, e.g. the teacher said.,.] and of doing [Actor: middle, e.g. Pat skipped, or effective, e.g. Chris held the rope].pronoun he/she/they (also I/you); general noun person etc.; number category: count (singular/ plural).has potential for voluntary action [material: doing, including doing to another participant; verbal (semiotic): saying] and conscious processing of all kinds [mental: sensing, including feeling, thinking, intending as well as perceiving].
These primary categories of things represent an ordering of the phenomena of experience. This ordering has to do with their inherent potential for bringing about change: that is, their ability to initiate processes and to affect other participants.
One way of exploring this is by noting which participant roles each category of participant is typically associated with. The critical roles, in this respect, are those of Senser, Sayer and Actor, operating respectively in figures of sensing, saying and doing & happening. When we investigate these, however, we find that the overall categorisation of phenomena that is revealed in this way displays a further dimension of complexity: at the highest level, all phenomena are distributed into two broad experiential realms, the material and the semiotic. This suggests that we should further modify the schema of primary categorisation by splitting it into these two realms as shown in Figure 5-7. This figure also splits the categories of object and abstraction between the two realms.
The most prominent reflex of the conscious/non-conscious distinction in English is that it is built into the system of pronouns:
This distinction is all-pervasive, since third-person pronouns provide one of the main resources for constructing discourse through anaphora. The boundary between conscious and non-conscious, of course, is fluid and negotiable: different systems, and different speakers (or the same speaker on different occasions), may draw it in different places. But the guiding principle is that 'conscious' means prototypically adult human and may be extended outwards (a) to babies, (b) to pets, and (c) to higher animals — as well as by rhetorical strategies of various kinds.
Blogger Comments:
To be clear, less anthropocentrically, the grammar construes anything with a nervous system and sense organs as the medium of a mental process of perception, and thus as conscious. That is, the clause the ant saw the worm construes the ant as conscious.
The major classes of thing recognised in our school grammars have traditionally been presented as a list of category meanings of the word class 'noun': something like "persons, other living beings, objects, institutions, and abstractions". We will start with this categorisation, modifying it to take account of the point that the primary distinction within figures is that between conscious processing and other forms of experience: the key participant in a conscious process, the Senser, is restricted to things that are construed as being endowed with consciousness, so we take conscious/non-conscious as the primary distinction. It is also helpful, in the case of English, to make an initial distinction between objects, which are treated as bounded, and substances, which are not. This gives us an initial categorisation in the form
'conscious/non-conscious: animals/institutions/objects/substances/abstractions'.
There is thus a marked contrast between things and all other elements. A quality enters into a figure only as Attribute; a process only as Process; and a circumstance only in some particular circumstantial role. Other than this, the only functional environment for qualities, processes and circumstances is that where they form parts of things — that is, grammatically, where they enter into the structure of the nominal group.
The fact that these other elements can themselves enter into the specification of a thing is another indication of the relative complexity of things.
We were able to define a thing by reference to one particular role within a figure: namely, as Carrier in an ascriptive figure construed grammatically as Carrier + Process + Attribute. But it is characteristic of things that they can take on a variety of roles in figures of all kinds. Here is a set of examples to illustrate this functional range:
Here we find one and the same class of thing functioning(a) as Actor, as Goal, and as Beneficiary in a material process;(b) as Phenomenon in a mental process;(c) as Sayer, as Verbiage, and as Target in a verbal process;(d) as Carrier, as Token, and as Value in a relational process, and(e) as Minirange in a circumstance of Location.
Even if we generalise across these configurational types in ergative terms, these examples still cover the full participant spectrum: the 'book' occurs as Medium, as Agent, as Beneficiary and as Range.
We have observed that things tend to be relatively stable in space and time, and relatively complex in their semantic make-up and in their interrelationships; and that these special characteristics of things are construed linguistically in various ways. By comparison with other elements, things tend to stand out
(i) by their varied roles as elements in figures,(ii) by the overall weight and discursive force of their primary categorisation of experience,(iii) by their tendency to be elaborated into numerous micro-categories,(iv) by their complex internal organisation, and(v) by their highly systematic relationship one with another.
Taxonomically organised qualities are often named by denominal adjectives, but they are still experientially simpler than the corresponding nouns. Consider e.g. nationality, philosophical persuasion, and biological kind: as qualities, these are classes and therefore closest to things, but their extension is still greater than that of the things that correspond to them: see Table 5(1).
Thus an Albanian always means 'a human citizen of Albania', whereas the adjective Albanian could refer to any of a large number of concrete or abstract entities: Albanian wine, Albanian literature, Albanian economy.
Even with qualities that form binary and taxonomic oppositions rather than scalar ones, there seem to be differences in experiential complexity between adjective (quality) and noun (thing) pairs. A standard example of this contrast between qualities and things involves the two dimensions of maturity and sex: see Figure 5-6.
Qualities tend to be experientially simple, specifying values along a single dimension or scale such as age, size, weight, loudness, colour, according to either scalar or binary distinctions (e.g. scalar: 'large' — 'small', 'tall' — 'short'; binary: 'male' — 'female', 'dead — 'alive'). Things, on the other hand, tend to be experientially more complex than qualities. They are often definable in terms of an elaborate taxonomy where several dimensions (parameters) are needed to distinguish them.
Consider for example the scale of size. The various qualities named by large, big, giant, small, tiny, and so on indicate a region on the scale, but do not specify the "substance" of whatever it is that size is being ascribed to. If we look for objects that are characterised in terms of size, we will find e.g. a giant, a morsel, and a mini. These, however, involve far more than the single dimension of size. A giant is 'any imaginary being of human form but of superhuman size and strength'. A morsel is 'a small bite or portion of food'. A mini is usually understood as 'a small car capable of holding a normal complement of passengers'. Small objects are typically objects of some particular kind, e.g. droplet, booklet, and kitchenette.
Semantically, Classifiers are qualities of the 'class' type (cf. Table 5(4)): they are like things and may be derived from things, but unlike things they do not have independent existence — they cannot be established in referential space and re-identified in running discourse. So for example although a 'passenger' is undoubtedly a thing, in a passenger train, where passenger functions as Classifier, it is being construed as a quality; hence it cannot be picked up by anaphoric reference — we cannot say this is a passenger train; they must have valid tickets. (Contrast this train is for passengers; they must have valid tickets, where passengers is functioning as Thing.) Grammatically, Classifiers are realised by 'substantives' or by 'adjectives', and this indeterminacy in grammatical class is symbolic of their status as qualities which are like things.
Grammatically speaking, (simple) participants are realised by nominal groups, which are made up of both things and qualities. In terms of the structure of the nominal group, the cut-off point between things and qualities is between the Classifier and the Thing: see Figure 5-5.
This distribution of qualities and things across the nominal group indicates two related points:(i) things are more time-stable than qualities; and(ii) things are more experientially complex than qualities. …
But this difference in experiential complexity is in turn related to the first of our two points, in that whatever is being construed as stable, as having persistence through time, is essentially a construct, an assemblage of different qualities, that (to borrow Jespersen's metaphor) can be crystallised only as an organic whole. The nominal group embodies this essential association between complexity and permanence.
The theoretical principle that a participant can be defined as the potential carrier of an attribute holds for participants of all kinds. We need however to make one proviso: namely, that more or less any figure can be construed metaphorically "as if" it was a participant. This is a central feature of grammatical metaphor. An example would be Our earlier encounter with this species [had led us to believe that...] where 'encounter' is semantically a process: cf. We had encountered this species earlier [and as a consequence we believed that...]. If 'encounter' is construed congruently in the grammar as a process, it cannot enter into an ascriptive figure. But once it is metaphorised into a participant, it can: our earlier encounter with this species had been almost disastrous. This in fact is one of the discursive contexts favouring this type of grammatical metaphor, and hence serves indirectly as a further illustration of the general principle we have outlined.
There is the same range of types of ascription as are found in ascriptive figures, and these can be interpreted in terms of the different categories of expansion. These are exemplified in the following table:
The table illustrates how participants are interpretable as expansions of things — they are things, with added qualities. It also shows how things can be construed into highly elaborate taxonomies (e.g. this extremely desirable two-storey double-brick executive residence) which are categorised by ascriptive figures of these different types — elaborating, extending and enhancing. The Thing in these examples corresponds to the Carrier of the agnate figure of ascription:these nutritious swedes : these swedes are nutritious ::these vases from the 18th century : these vases are from the 18th century ::my aunt's teapot : the teapot is my aunt's/belongs to my aunt.Note that with extension, there may be a reversal of the Carrier-Attribute correspondence: the Thing may correspond most naturally to the Attribute, as inmy aunt has a teapot : the leek has a stem.
Blogger Comments:
Note that 'circumstantial' includes 'projection' as well as 'enhancement': a book about teapots.
Experientially, there is a 'carrier' — the Thing — and there are 'attributes' — Epithets and other modifiers. However, participants are construed not only experientially but also logically, which means that the Thing (typically) saves as a Head that can be modified by successive attributes and that this modifying relation is inherently ascriptive. There is thus no equivalent, in the nominal group, of the Process in an ascriptive figure; this is construed instead as the logical relation of modification, indefinitely repeatable. For instance, corresponding to the figure the swede is nutritious we have the participant the nutritious swede, which, unlike the figure with its experiential, multivariate organisation (Carrier + Process + Attribute), can be logically expanded through further modification: the tasty tolerant orange nutritious swede. That is, participants are construed as things that can accrue attributes.
We have already set up the general theory of participants, defining them in relation to ascriptive processes of being, being at, and having, in a process-participant configuration. There are three elements in such a configuration: the Process, intensive, possessive or circumstantial; the Attribute, which is being ascribed by one or other of these processes; and the Carrier. It is the role of Carrier which defines the concept of a participant. A participant, according to this theory, is that which may have assigned to it, in the discourse, properties, parts or circumstantial features. For example:
(a) properties (Process of 'being')some dishes are very tolerantthe grain looks orange and fulla kitchen should be a cheerful placethe swede is more nutritious than the turnip(b) parts (Process of 'having')it has branching stems covered with a green succulent fleshspinach has a decided flavour which some people dislikethey have a pleasant fresh flavour(c) circumstantial features (Process of 'being at')this plant is like chicorythese mangoes are from Mexicothe seeds will be inside long coffee-coloured podsthis effect might be because of over-heating
This analysis reveals two important aspects of a participant:
(i) that it is a thing that can 'carry' or be ascribed attributes, and(ii) that the ascription may be of different kinds — intensive (elaborating), possessive (extending), circumstantial (enhancing).
Both the difference in temporal permanence and the difference in experiential complexity are reflected logogenetically. Participants tend to persist in the unfolding of a text; and since they do, they can accrue various qualities. In contrast, processes cannot persist in text: unlike the deictic system of the nominal group, the deictic system of the verbal group, the tense system, is not a system for tracking textual instances of processes as a text unfolds. To achieve persistence in text, processes have to be reconstrued metaphorically as participants. When processes are construed as if they were participants, they can be established and maintained as referents in a text; hence under these conditions they also can accrue various qualities.
Nominal groups have, in fact, far greater potential than verbal groups for creating experientially complex categories; and this reflects a fundamental difference between participants and processes. The nominal group has the potential for intersecting any number of qualities in the representation of a participant; and this makes it possible for the taxonomic ordering of participants to be considerably more elaborated than that of processes.
Finally, the structures of both types of group constitute a kind of path between the interpersonal reference point, reflected in the Deictic or Finite, and the experiential one, reflected in the Thing or Event But in the case of the verbal group, the path is made up of one or more temporal relations: past/present/future in relation to a moment in some dimension of time construed between 'now' and the time of the occurrence of the event; for example, see Figure 5-3.
In the nominal group, on the other hand, the path from Deictic to Thing is not a chain in time — alt[h]ough it does reflect time in another way. The path goes through qualities of various kinds, beginning with qualities that are textual and transitory (unstable in time) and moving towards increasing permanence (time-stability) and experiential complexity.
Secondly, both types of group include a specification of a primary experiential category — Thing in the nominal group and Event in the verbal group. But in the simple verbal group, this is the only semantic category that is lexicalised — other categories are represented grammatically by auxiliaries; whereas in the nominal group, there is a large amount of other lexical material.
Both types of element begin with a location in the 'here & now': they construct a path from the spatio-temporal moment defined instantially by the interaction base — the 'here & now' of the act of speaking — to a primary category of ideational phenomena: see Figure 5-2.
For example:
In other words, both types of group include deixis. But the deixis is of two different kinds: nominal deixis (such as near/remote) and verbal deixis (such as past/present/future), structurally realised as Deictic and Finite respectively. What this suggests is that, since processes occur in time — their mode of existence is temporal — that is how they are tied to the speech situation; whereas participants exist in some kind of referential space, which may be grounded concretely in the speech interaction (this = 'near me'; that = 'away from me') but may also be a more abstract, discoursal space. The latter is the space where we 'record' discourse referents as we work our way through a text (this = 'about to be mentioned (by me)'; that = 'mentioned earlier').
Being elements, participants and processes occupy roles in figures; but whereas processes only serve in the single role of Process, participants (as we have seen) range over a much wider experiential spectrum — the direct participant roles of Actor, Goal, Senser, Phenomenon, and so on, and also the indirect participant roles within circumstances such as Location and Cause. Thus, seen from the point of view of figures, participants are construed as being experientially more complex, in the sense that they can take on a variety of configurational roles: see Figure 5-1. This difference between participants and processes is also reflected in differences in their internal organisations, as we shall suggest below
The situation with circumstances and relators is a little more complicated.
(i) Circumstances of the "macro" type are realised by prepositional phrases, which as we have seen are like miniaturised clauses; their components are thus of different types — a (minor) process plus a participant. Circumstances of the simple type, on the other hand, are realised by adverbial groups; these are groups of adverbs, like more soundly, not so very fast, with the single adverb again as the limiting case.
(ii) Relators are typically realised by conjunctions, like and, so, if, that, because, however; these can form groups, such as as if, and yet, but conjunctions are more often expanded by adverbs (just because, even if). In addition there are numerous other types of relator prepositional phrases (in addition, in the event (that), for fear that), nominal groups remaining from earlier prepositional phrases ( [at] the moment (that), [on] the day (that)), and various expressions involving non-finite verbs (supposing (that), provided (that)). The relator construes a logico-semanuc relation between the clauses in a clause nexus (realising a sequence), but it is itself an element in the structure of one or other of the two clauses concerned; e.g. if you have some ink fish preserved in oil, add a few slices at the same time as the halibut.
However, there is a significant difference between elements and figures in the nature of their internal organisation. While figures consist of phenomena that are ontologically of different types — participants, processes and circumstances, the components of an element belong in principle to the same type. That is, the components of a participant are themselves potential participants, and the components of a process are themselves potential processes. Grammatically speaking, participants are realised by nominal groups, which are groups of nouns; and processes are realised by verbal groups, which are groups of verbs. The limiting case of a group is a single word.
These phenomena are "elemental" in relation to figures (just as chemical elements such as H and O are elemental in relation to compounds such as H₂O, CO₂). But the elements themselves may be internally complex, as in the following examples of processes and participants:
The congruent (prototypical) grammatical realisations of these types of element in English are as follows:
Elements serve as component parts of figures. Three primary types of element may be differentiated according to the generalised categories of configurational roles: process, participant, and circumstance. In addition to these three, we need to recognise a fourth category of element, the relator; this is the element which forms figures into sequences.
What this brings out is that there are a small number of very general domains within this overall semantic space, which may be construed in different ways according to the status they are assigned within the figure. For example, there is one area that is concerned with the spatial orientation of the process. Construed as an outer circumstance, this appears as the position within which the process unfolds; construed as an inner circumstance, it means the direction towards which the process is oriented; construed as a participant, it shows up as receiver or recipient in the process. Thus this general motif is manifested in a form which corresponds to its ecological niche at that location. Note that the boundaries do not exactly coincide across the different bands of the helix; in any case, they are fuzzy, and they tend to become more fuzzy with increasing distance from the centre. Our characterisation here is inevitably somewhat overdeterminate. The outer circumstances, in turn, are typically agnate to clauses (e.g. while he was in LA, he sent a parcel); thus we could construe the same general relationships over again in the form of a sequence — grammatically, as one nexus in a clause complex.
The examples in Table 4(10) illustrate both the different degrees and the different kinds of involvement of elements falling outside the Process + Medium nucleus.
This type of circumstance relates to projection rather than expansion, and specifically to the projecting not the projected component Hence there is no agnate participant; instead, the Angle corresponds to the process of saying (grammatically, the projecting verbal clause in a 'locution' nexus) or the process of sensing (grammatically, the projecting mental clause in an 'idea' nexus). Thus according to the newspaper corresponds to the newspaper says; and to her students corresponds to her students think.
This category lies on the borderline of elaborating and extending: compare he spoke like an expert 'in the manner of', he spoke as an expert 'in the role of'. The analogous participant is that of Attribute in an ascriptive clause as in he was/seemed an expert, which is construed as elaborating; but the analogous sequence is an enhancing clause complex he spoke as if he was an expert.
Blogger Comments:
The 'elaborating' interpretation of Manner: comparison disappears if the analogous ascriptive clauses are instead:
The circumstance of Accompaniment does not correspond to any one particular participant role. Rather, it corresponds to an extending of the participant itself, by addition or variation: John came with Mary is agnate to both John and Mary came; Mary came without John is agnate to Mary but not John came; Mary came instead of John is agnate to not John but Mary came. Grammatically, the analogous type of participant is one represented by a nominal group complex.
The "degree of involvement", in the sense of how deeply some element is involved in actualising the process that is construed by the figure, can thus be represented as a cline: the difference appears not only between participants and circumstances as a whole, but also within each of these primary categories, so that there is a continuum from one to the other along this scale.
At the same time, and cutting across this cline of involvement, we find that — like the participants themselves — the circumstantial elements fall into distinct types according to their relationship to the Process + Medium nucleus. These types correspond to the four transphenomenal categories of logico-semantic relations that are now familiar: the circumstance is either a circumstance of projection or a circumstance of expansion and, if the latter, then either elaborating, extending or enhancing. If we combine the degree of involvement with the logico-semantic categories, we can represent the elements of a figure in the form of a helix (Figure 4-14).
The difference in the degree of involvement is also reflected in the extent to which an element is available for a critical role in the interpersonal metafunction. Prototypically, as we have noted, participants can be assigned the status of Subject, being made to carry the burden of the argument, whereas circumstances cannot. This distinction is however being obscured in Modern English, where although the prepositional phrase as a whole cannot function as Subject, the nominal group inside a prepositional phrase often can; e.g. the grass shouldn't be walked on.
Blogger Comments:
The obvious exceptions are circumstantial relational clauses, which are metaphorical.
Sometimes some entity can be construed in a figure either as a participant or as (an element in) a circumstance; in that case, construing it as participant means that it is being treated as more directly involved. Compare pairs of examples such as:
The pianist is more likely to escape unscathed as a circumstance than as a participant; likewise, the answer seems more impenetrable if guessed at than if guessed.
What is the status of these "macro circumstances"? They are really reduced or minor figures, functioning as elements inside other figures. The preposition is a kind of miniverb; the line between circumstances and figures is a very fuzzy one, and we often find agnate expressions where one is a prepositional phrase and the other a non-finite clause: cf. I washed it using sugar soap, she came accompanied by her children. The entity that occurs inside the macro circumstance is therefore already entering into a relationship with a reduced form of a process; its participation in the main process is thus mediated and oblique. We can thus contrast the different statuses of two entities where one is a direct participant and the other enters in circumstantially; e.g. this dictionary was published in two volumes, where this dictionary is Goal while two volumes enters into the publishing process indirectly in a circumstance of Role.
The different degrees of involvement are reflected in the way the figure, and its elements, are realised in the grammar of the clause. A participant is realised as a nominal group, and is typically placed next before or next after the verbal group realising the process. Circumstances typically occur further away from the process, and are of two distinct types. Type 1, simple circumstance, represents a quality; this type is realised as an adverbial group … . Type 2, macro circumstance, is realised as a prepositional phrase, which in turn consists of preposition + nominal group. The nominal group, as we have seen, construes an entity — something that could function directly as a participant Here however the entity is functioning only as a circumstantial element in the process: a location, or an instrument, or an accompanying entity, or so on (e.g. don't walk on the grass, I washed it with sugar soap, she came with her children); it enters into the clause by courtesy of the preposition, only indirectly so to speak.
As we have already noted, a figure consists of a process, participants involved in the process, and associated or attendant circumstances. Of these, the process can be seen as the organisational centre — the element that reflects the relative arrangements of the other parts in the configuration. These other parts (participants and circumstances) are more or less closely involved in the actualisation of the process. Broadly speaking, participants are directly involved in the process; circumstances are more peripherally attendant on it.
We have summarised the features of two participant roles, Goal and Range, which vary considerably in their degree of participanthood, lying as it were at the two ends of this continuum. We saw earlier that the Medium is the element that is most closely bonded to the Process, the two together forming the nucleus of the figure. Thus the highest degree of participanthood is that of whichever element, in each particular type of figure, is conflated with the generalised function of Medium; in the case of a figure of doing, this is the Goal, the element that is impacted (moved, changed, created or destroyed) by the Process.
At the other end of the cline are those elements whose status as participant is highly precarious, those which conflate with the generalised function of Range. These, as we have seen, are closely agnate to other types of figure, either those consisting of Process alone or those with Process + circumstantial element.
We can thus extend the continuum further, outside the status of participant altogether, into the realm of circumstances. In the next subsection we discuss the circumstantial roles; and we can order these also in terms of their degree of involvement in the process.
The Range element is not very likely to function as Subject in the clause: that is, to be entrusted with the interpersonal function of carrying the burden of the argument. This means that passive clauses with Range as Subject are very much rarer than those where Subject is Goal; and where they do occur, the participant that is functioning as Medium (Actor, Senser or Sayer) also tends to be of a generalised kind. Thus tennis is played by everyone is not uncommon, whereas tennis is played by Sharon is a highly marked construction.
Again, the category of Range/Attribute provides the limiting case. An Attribute can never serve as Subject in the clause.
… participants are located at some point along a scale of individuation, ranging from most generalised (e.g., diamonds are forever) to most individuated (e.g., Elizabeth's diamonds were stolen). The Range element tends towards the generalised end of the scale. This is especially the case with those of the elaborating type, where the Range usually represents a general class; and it is always the case if the figure is one of being, with Range as Attribute. For example:Peter plays tennis (cf. is a tennis-player)Peter plays the piano (cf. is a pianist)His opinion is not important (cf. does not matter)As a corollary to this, when some element that has functioned as Range is carried through the discourse, being picked up either by a lexical repetition or by a pronominal reference, it is more likely to be being picked up as a class, rather than as individuated:Sharon plays tennis at the same time every other day .... Tennis is a wonderful game, but tennis-players tend to be very obsessive.Peter spends a lot of time at the piano ... It is a difficult instrument.Hence a form of reference such as the following is somewhat improbable:Peter used to play the piano; but he sold it.
Blogger Comments:
Again, this assumes that the reference of the piano is usually homophoric. There is nothing improbable about the following instance, where the Range is individuated, not generalised, and acknowledged as such by pronominal reference:
We've always had a range of keyboard instruments. Peter used to play the piano, but he sold it.
Other examples of individuated Ranges, acknowledged as such by pronominal reference:
We climbed the mountain yesterday. It was very steep in places.
We are playing the match tomorrow. It'll be a war of attrition.
[The projected type of Range] is like [the enhancing] type in that in both types the agnate expression takes the form of a circumstantial element (grammatically, a prepositional phrase). But in the projected type the circumstance is one of Matter, whereas in the enhancing type it is typically one of Extent or Location. This corresponds in process type to the distinction between saying and sensing on the one hand and doing and being on the other.
Where the relation is one of projection, the Range represents the subject matter (either as a general term, e.g. issue, matter, or as the specific domain of the Process, e.g. politics, your holiday). As with enhancement, there is often an agnate circumstantial form.
… where the relation is enhancing, the Range specifies some entity that delimits the scope of the Process; here, therefore, there is often an agnate form where the scope is construed as a circumstantial element. For example:
… where the relation is elaborating, the Range simply restates the Process or else further specifies it in terms of its class, quality or quantity. Here, we often find related pairs of 'Process : Process + Range'; the latter may involve nominalising the process (a form of grammatical metaphor). Examples:
In type (3), being (more particularly, ascriptive being), the Range is the Attribute that is ascribed. This construction, Process + Range/Attribute, is much more common that the agnate form with Process only (that is, 'be + important' is the preferred model rather than 'matter'). The Process just embodies the category meaning of ascriptive being — 'be a member of' — and the Range carries the specific information about the experiential class. It is interesting to note that the ranged construction sorts out the ambiguity of the simple present tense between habitual (doing) and occupational (being): she dances/does a dance every night, she dances/is a dancer (by profession).
The Range is not some entity that is impacted by the Process; it either(i) expands the Process, or(ii) is projected by it.
Where the relationship is one of expansion, this take one of two forms: the Range either
(a) elaborates the Process in an objectified form, or(b) enhances it by delimiting its scope.¹⁴
¹⁴ The Range elaborates the Process, whereas the circumstantial element Rôle elaborates a participant in its particular participation in the process.
Like other participants Range is realised grammatically by a nominal group, but it does not participate in the process operationally: it does not bring about or act out the process, nor is it affected by it materially or mentally. It specifies the domain over which the process is actualised. For instance, if a process of walking ranges over Manhattan, it can be represented as Process + Range: They walked the streets of Manhattan. There are three respects in which the Range is not a prototypical participant:(I) its relationship to the Process,(II) its degree of individuation,III) its interpersonal potential.
Representatives of a class can be impacted (regardless of whether they are specific or non-specific at the point in the discourse at which they occur); but it is harder to impact the general class itself. Consequently, if the Goal is a general class rather than a set of specifiable representatives, it has a lower degree of participanthood. This appears iconically in the grammar in the limiting case of a clause where the Goal is simply that class of phenomenon that can serve as Goal of that particular type of figure: the grammar allows us to select 'goal-intransitive', which means that the Goal is simply not specified — for example:¹³he drinks heavily [alcohol]he eats all the time [food]they've gone to the hills to hunt [game]he buys and sells [any commodity]Such examples are typically either habitual (the process unfolds repeatedly) or durational (the process unfolds over time): this generalisation across time correlates with the generalisation across potential participants — both are ways of generalising from experience. In some special cases the generalisation of the Goal across a class of entities is shown by treating it as a mass, dispensing with the plural marker:They often shoot duck during the winter months.Such a Goal may even be incorporated into the Process, as in he is baby-sitting (and even who's baby-sitting me this evening?)', this is a restricted option with figures realised as ranking clauses, but not uncommon where the figure is used to qualify an element and is realised by a pre-modifying clause, e.g. a fun-loving colleague, a wood-burning stove.
¹³ Here, because of its generality, the Goal is predictable experientially. The Goal may of course be predictable textually, which is the reverse case: so specific at that point in the discourse that it can be anaphoricaliy presumed. Typically in such cases an explicit pronoun is used to refer back; but it can be omitted in certain registers, especially instructional ones such as recipes: when all the pancakes are made, garnish the dish and serve _ with cheese and egg sauce.
Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 167):
(i) Prepare the sauce according to your favourite recipe
(ii) Fry the aubergines for 5-10 minutesSkin the tomatoesHeat the ollve oilBoil the eggs hardBeat all the items togetherShape the lentil puree into cakes
There is a further contrast between Goal and Range in the degree of individuation that is typical of each. In the examples above, what is impacted is a specific representative of a class, or specific set of representatives; and this is typical of the degree of individuation of the Goal. Compare in this respect the contrast between move the piano, where the piano is Goal, and play the piano, where the piano is Range:
move the piano Process + Goal: specific representative of classplay the piano Process + Range: general class of instrument
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This assumes that the reference item the in play the piano is homophoric, but importantly, it can also be exophoric to the environment of the text, or endophoric to the text itself. In both these latter cases, the piano may be a specific representative of the class, like a Goal.
As we have seen, the Goal in the particularistic model corresponds to the Medium in the generalised model wherever the figure is one of doing to or doing with. The Goal is impacted in some way by its participation in the Process; the "impact" either (i) brings a participant into existence or else (ii) manipulates one that already exists.
(i) Prepare the sauce according to your favourite recipe
(ii) Fry the aubergines for 5-10 minutesSkin the tomatoesHeat the ollve oilBoil the eggs hardBeat all the items togetherShape the lentil puree into cakes
If the Goal is something that already exists, the result of the Process is to bring about some change — in its location, make-up, temperature, shape, &c.; and the result may be construed as a separate element, with the function Attribute (hard) or Rôle (into cakes).
These examples highlight the participant status of the Goal, showing the senses in which the Goal can be said to be impacted. There is no such impacting in the case of the Range.
We are using the term participanthood to suggest that the status of participant in the grammar is not absolute, but rather is a matter of degree. Among the various functional roles that the grammar construes as participants, we will discuss here two that are at opposite ends of the scale: Goal, which is has a clear status as prototypical participant, and Range, whose status as participant is much less clearly established.
While there is potential for variation, however, the variation is not arbitrary or random. The semantic system embodies certain general principles which guide the choice of one or other pattern of construal. These include:
process:(a) whether the process is non-actualised ('irrealis') or actualised ('realis');(b) how the process unfolds in time (its eventuation profile);participants & circumstances:(a) whether they are(i) general class,(ii) nonspecific representatives of a class or(iii) specific representatives;(b) how far, and in what ways, they are involved in the process.
We shall take the notion of degree of participanthood as an example of the general principle that the phenomena of experience may be construed as having more, or less, independent status within the semantic system.
Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 165-6):
To cite just one example, the phenomenon of precipitation from clouds is typically construed in Italian as a figure with a process alone piove 'rains', in Akan as figure with process + one participant nsuo retø 'water + fall', and in one local variety of Cantonese as a figure with process + two participants tin lok sui 'sky + drop + water'. …
As the examples illustrate, there are numerous points at which the system allows for alternative semanticisations of the flux of experience. These may differ in the extent to which the 'quantum' of experience is analysed into separate components. There is a cline from unanalysed and continuous to analysed and discrete; from example, from 'it's raining' (one phenomenon) to 'the sky's dropping water' (a configuration of three phenomena): see Figure 4-13.
A figure embodies both analysis and synthesis of our experience of the world: an analysis into component parts, and a synthesis of these parts into a configuration. That is, process, participants and circumstances are separated out analytically and are thus given independent phenomenal statuses. This is a creative act of construal. The world is not seamless and amorphous; it is highly variable in the way it presents itself to us as experience — in its perceptual salience, physical impact and material & psychological benefit. But it is not "given" to us as an established order, we have to construe it. Not surprisingly, there is a great deal of variation in the way that different languages do this.
In the case of elaboration, both 'coming into being' and 'causing to be' can be construed either as forms of doing or as forms of being. However, in the case of extension and enhancement, there is no comparable multiplicity of perspectives: they can only be construed as forms of doing. Table 4(9) sets out the patterns for the three types of expansion.
In the simple constructed examples used above, we contrasted doing: happening with pure being; but being also includes 'coming into being', i.e. 'becoming'. In such cases doing and being both construe change leading up to an outcome, but they use different models: Process and Process + Range respectively, For example:
Here the first transition in the state of the lava is represented as doing: happening — Medium/Actor: 'lava' + Process: 'cool'. Coolness is construed as a process; consequently, it is something that is unfolding and which cannot readily be intensified. In contrast, the second transition is construed as being: becoming — Medium/Carrier: 'lava' + Process: 'become' + Range/ Attribute: Very hard*. Coolness is construed as a quality rather than as a process; consequently, it is something which can come into being — which can be attained. The second transition is more closely related to the third: 'it becomes very hard : igneous rock'.However, the two options in construing coolness, as process and as quality, are very close, which is shown by a parallel text associated with an accompanying picture of a volcano:Here the transition in hardness is construed as a process within a figure of doing rather than as a process + quality within a figure of being. Consequently, the hardness is not represented as an intensified "destination" coming into being. Further it can be construed as part of a complex process of cooling-&-hardening within a single figure, as indicated in the analysis above.
Doing and being thus focus on different phases of a quantum of change; but either can be extended in the direction of the other to indicate (with 'being') the source of change or (with 'doing') the outcome of change. When this happens, the wordings that realise a figure of doing and a figure of being may come to resemble one another. For example, take the two wordings he drove his car hot and he drove his friends crazy. They could both be interpreted as Agent + Process + Medium + Range to show them as related to his car drove hot and his friends were crazy respectively. But at the same time they are differentiated as doing versus being: Actor + Process + Goal + Attribute versus Attributor + Process + Carrier + Attribute. This shows that they are related respectively to he drove his car (without the Attribute) and to his friends were crazy (without the Attributor; but not to he drove his friends)', and explains why we get his car drove hot but not his friends drove crazy, and why his car drove hot is agnate with his car ran hot (and his car moved, rolled, travelled) as another kind of happening but his friends were crazy is agnate with his friends seemed crazy as another kind of being.
A good place to illustrate the complementarity of the two models of participation is in the area of doing and being. Here the two models also bring out the complementarity of doing and being as modes of construing a quantum of change in the flow of events. …Figure 4-12 brings the two models together to show (i) how they complement one another, the generalised one showing how doing and being are based on the same configuration of Agent + Medium + Range and the particularistic one showing how doing and being are different configurations of roles; and (ii) how doing and being serve as complementary perspectives on a quantum of change, construing it either as happening/coming into being or as outcome of happening/ being. …
The two models of participation that we have described in this section thus differ in degree of generality. The particularistic model construes figures into a small number of distinct types, sensing, saying, doing and being, with different participants in each; while the generalised model construes figures as all being alike, having a Process that is actualised through a Medium. These two models embody complementary perspectives on participation, the one transitive, the other ergative. Note that there is no necessary tie-up between the switch of perspective and the degree of generality: it is a feature of English that the generalised model is construed in ergative terms.
Figure 4-11 summarises the generalised participant roles in diagrammatic form. It shows Process and Medium as a complementarity — the Process is actualised through the Medium; and it represents the other participants as external to this nucleus, indicating the type of role relationship that obtains (x enhancing, + extending and = elaborating).
The Beneficiary role is more restricted: it occurs in certain subtypes of figures of doing as Recipient (e.g. they awarded her the Pulitzer Prize : they awarded the Pulitzer Prize to her) or Client (e.g. she designed them a vacation home : she designed a vacation home for them), in figures of saying as Receiver (e.g. they told her a story : they told a story to her) and in a couple of subtypes of figures of being (e.g. he made her a good husband).
The Range role is quite pervasive, as indicated in Figure 4-7 and Table 4(8) above; it can occur in all types of figure that are construed as self-agentive, and also in certain figures of being that are construed as other-agentive. The Range construes the range or domain of the actualisation of the Process, with reference to taxonomic scope (as in play : play tennis/'volley ball), spatial scope (as in climb : climb mountains/hills), etc.
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To be clear, these are assigned figures of being — those with an Attributor (ascriptive) or Assigner (identifying).
As Figure 4-7 above shows, the generalised participant roles of Medium and Agent correspond to different sets of roles in the particularistic model — one or more for each type of figure. For example, in a figure of saying the Medium corresponds to the Sayer, whereas in a figure of sensing it corresponds to the Senser. We summarise the correspondences in Table 4(8), where the generalised participant roles are represented in columns.
Note that, for encoding identifying figures, Agent corresponds to Token, and Medium to Value. This is because, in all identifying figures, Medium corresponds to Identified, and Identified conflates with Token in decoding figures (as in the table), but conflates with Value in encoding figures (not shown in the table). See Figure 4-7.
Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 156):
In the grammar therefore the Medium appears as an obligatory element — the only element that has this status in the clause. This does not mean that we will find a nominal reflex of the Medium made explicit in the syntagm of every clause; there are various ways in which the Medium may be present as a cryptotypic feature rather than as an overt form. Nevertheless its presence is required in some guise or other; and this distinguishes the Medium from all other participants in the figure.
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For example, the use of the 'medio-passive' in mental and targeting verbal clauses:
you were seen, you were accused
and in impersonal projection nexuses:
it was thought…, it was said… .
Semantically, the nucleus construes the centre of gravity of a figure, the focal point around which the system of figures is organised. When we describe the Medium as "actualising" the Process, we are really saying that the unfolding is constituted by the fusion of the two together — there can be no Process without an element through which this process is translated from the virtual to the actual.
The manner of performance of a process may vary, in which case it is the Medium by which it is typically determined. This may be a major variation in the mode of actualisation, for example 'open + door, open + account, open + eye' where the process is respectively mechanical, verbal or physiological; or simply a minor difference in the means that is employed, e.g. "brush + teeth, brush + clothes'. Some examples:
In many cases, the difference in the manner of performance is the basis of a lexically codified taxonomic distinction; for example:
