The Basis Of Metaphorical Shift In Everyday Spoken Discourse

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 269-70):

In English, then, the metaphoric movement is from the logical towards the experiential and, within the experiential, from processes to things … a shift towards a more highly taxonomised way of meaning. But the basis for such a shift is found in the ordinary spoken language of everyday discourse. Consider the following series of examples:

You made three mistakes.

That was his biggest mistake.

Give it another big push.

She gave him one of her most heart-warming smiles.

Can't I have just two little bites of your cake?

That last dive was the best dive I've ever done.

All these are instances of grammatical metaphor, with 'mistake' (verb err), push, smile, bite, dive turned into things (nouns) and the 'process' taking the form of a lexically very general verb give, have, do, take, make which retains the full semantic potential of a figure (tense, modality, &c.). The effect of nominalising these processes is to open them up to all the 'quality' potential that is associated with things: they can be classified, qualified, quantified, identified and described. This range of grammatical metaphors has become fully codified in English and is, in fact, used by children almost from the start.

Grammatical Metaphor Viewed Semantically

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 269):

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

We saw in discussing have a look, make a mistake &c. that if you make look, mistake into nouns you can expand them within nominal groups: have another good long look, don't make the same silly spelling mistake again! We now have classes of mistake (spelling mistake); properties, both experiential (long look) and interpersonal (silly mistake), quantities, and identities (that same mistake, another look, three mistakes). The same principle holds when any process is reconstrued metaphorically as a thing.

The Effect Of The Secondary Motif Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 268-9):

This perturbation of the dominant pattern has the effect of making a participant more abstract. In the engine failed, the engine is set up as a thing. In engine failure, it is as it were deconstructed into a mere characteristic of some other 'thing', a way of classifying failure into its various contrasting kinds, such as crop failure, power failure and heart failure. The engine has lost its identity — it has no Deictic (note that it cannot be individuated any longer — only the failure can: this engine failure, the earlier engine failure, any future engine failures, etc.); and it has exchanged 'thingness' with an ephemeral process, that of failing. But it is still within the compass of a participant in the figure; grammatically, it is within the nominal group.

The Secondary Motif Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 268):

The "secondary motif" is that whereby a 'thing' (congruently construed as a noun functioning as Thing in a nominal group) is metaphorised on the model of some quality — qualifying, possessive or classifying. This represents a shift one step 'backwards' along the logical–experiential scale. It is thus contrary to the prevailing general tendency, since something that is congruently a participant on its own terms is now treated as existing only by virtue of some other participant.

This type of shift occurs only in syndromes, where the process is reconstrued as a participant; and as a corollary, the participants in that process become its 'qualities'. For example, Griffith's energy balance approach to strength and fracture, where the participants strength and fracture and energy balance have become 'qualities' expanding the metaphoric 'thing' approach — compare the more congruent Griffith approached strength and fracture in terms of (the concept of) energy balance.

Reasons For The Metaphoric Instability Of Relators

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 267-8):

It is clear that, among the various elements involved, the relators are the most unstable in terms of their susceptibility to metaphoric transformation. They are, as it were, the first to leave; and they travel farther than the rest.

We can perhaps link this property of relators to their status in the overall ideation base. Relators construe the highly generalised logico-semantic relations of expansion that join figures into sequences: elaborating, extending, enhancing. We have remarked already on the fact that these relationships of expansion pervade very many regions of the semantic system: they are manifested in the organisation of figures of being, in the types of circumstantial element that occur within a figure, in the taxonomy of 'things', and elsewhere, as well as of course in their 'home' region of the construal of sequences, as links between one figure and another. This led us to characterise the categories of expansion as "transphenomenal" and as "fractal":

• transphenomenal in the sense that they re-appear across the spectrum of different types of phenomena construed by the ideational system; and 
• fractal in the sense that they serve as general principles of the construal of experience, generating identical patterns of organisation of variable magnitude and in variable semantic environments.

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

The Motive Behind The Primary Motif Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 267):

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

The Metaphorical Potential Of Relators

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 266-7):

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

— whereas a process can be reconstrued only as a participant (quality or thing), and a quality only as a thing.

The Taxonomic Limitations Of Minor Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 266):

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

The Taxonomic Limitations Of Processes Exemplified

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 265-6):

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

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

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

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

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

(5) tell, warn take circumstance of Matter 'about...'.

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

The Taxonomic Limitations Of Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 265):

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

Blogger Comments:

Importantly, although a Process is realised by a phrasal verb, the 'adverbial complement' of a phrasal verb is not a constituent of the verbal group.

Why Metaphoric Shift Is Towards Thing

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 265):

Participants are realised by nominal groups, which allow more or less indefinite expansion (through the univariate structure of modification). This expansion is the grammar's way of constructing taxonomies of things: grouping them into classes, assigning properties to them, quantifying them and then uniquely identifying any individual thing, or any number, set or class of things, in relation to the 'here-&-now' of the speech event. 

The expansion involves open sets of things and qualities, realised by lexical items; but it can also capture a circumstance, realised by a prepositional phrase, or an entire figure, realised by a clause, and put it to use as a quality in describing or identifying such a thing or set of things, e.g. this unique 20-piece handprinted china dinner service with optional accessories never before offered for sale at such a bargain price.

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

This grammatical potential for taxonomising is complemented by the lexical potential of the nominal group for construing feature networks. So by construing any phenomenon of experience as a thing, we give it the maximum potential for semantic elaboration.

Metaphoric Shift As A Shift Towards The Experiential

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 264):

… we can summarise the principle of metaphoric shift as in Figure 6-3 …

We can see from this figure that the drift towards 'thinginess' is the culminating and most clearly articulated form of a shift which can be characterised in more general terms as a shift towards the experiential — towards that mode of construing experience that is most readily organised into paradigmatic sets and contrasts. Things are more easily taxonomised than qualities, qualities than processes, and processes more easily than circumstances or relations. Since the 'noun-ness' is being used to construe phenomena that start out as something else than a noun, metaphors will inevitably be abstract. If the surgeon makes an incision, instead of cutting, the cut is being presented as a more abstract version of the experience. This is further reinforced if, as is often the case, the metaphorical term comes from the more highly valued lexical stockpile of Latin and Greek roots.

Two Predominant Motifs In Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 263-4):

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

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

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

Interpretation Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 263):

In the semantic construction of experience, 'process' and 'participant' emerge as prototypical categories; and there is a broad agreement among different languages both about the nature of this distinction and about which particular phenomena should be assigned to which category. 

But as in any semiotic endeavour there are always some domains of uncertainty: are rain, wind, thunder processes or things? are fear, worry, regret processes or qualities? Examples like these prevent the categories from being too reified and rigid, and provide a kind of gateway of analogy through which a phenomenon can drift or be propelled from one category to another. 

In transcategorisation some other semantic feature triggers the propulsion; e.g. dark + make/become = darken, flake + like/composed of = flaky. 

In metaphor, however, the phenomenon is reconstrued as another category; what is being exploited is the potential that arises — but only after the categories have first been construed as distinct; not otherwise — of treating every phenomenon in more ways than one. In this process the original interpretation is not supplanted; it is combined with the new one into a more complex whole.

Metaphors Of External And Internal Conjunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 262-3):

At the same time, a further distinction has evolved between two kinds of logical-semantic relation: 

(i) a relation 'in rebus' between two experiential events, 

(ii) a relation 'in verbis between two stages in the discourse; 

e.g.

(i) Political pressures brought about his downfall. Major changes ensued.

(ii) This section illustrates the main argument. Further discussion follows.

These correspond respectively to the 'external' and 'internal' types of conjunctive relations in cohesion (Halliday & Hasan, 1976: Ch. 5).

The Favourite Type Of Clause In Modern Scientific English

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 262):

These two syndromes [see previous post] — really variants of a single syndrome — define the type of clause that might well be considered as the favourite type of modern scientific English.  

The metaphorical 'things' are packaged processes or qualities that have thematic or informational value in the text, construed as Theme in the clause or New in the information unit (N-Rheme in the clause: see Fries, 1992).  

The metaphorical 'process' is one of the typical semantic relations that link figures into a sequence: 'cause* & 'time' are the prototypical relations in question, but in modern writing 'identity' has tended to take over as the central type — often by a further metaphorical step whereby causes becomes is the cause of, results becomes is the result of.

Syndromes Including Both Class Shift And Rank Shift

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 262):

We have shown that the typical manifestation of grammatical metaphor in discourse is as a 'syndrome' of features including both class shift and rank shift. Let us now recall two of the frequently occurring syndromes described earlier, noting where these features occur:

(1) Their frequent dismissal of personnel does not inspire people's confidence 

[class shift]:  process 'dismiss' as thing, relator 'cause' as process ['inspire'], quality 'confident' as thing
[rankshift]: sequence as figure

[congruent variant]: Because they frequently dismiss personnel, people are not confident [in them]

(2) Rapid bonding resulted 

[class shift]: process 'bond' as thing, relator 'cause' as process
[rankshift]: none (figure as figure)

[congruent variant]: As a result [the substances] rapidly bonded.

Note that in (2) the other term in the relation is to be presumed from the preceding text.

Rank Shift As An Alternative To Metaphorical Class Shift

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 261):

… we find that rank shift sometimes operates as an alternative to class shift of this metaphorical kind. In examples A-1 and A-2, there is metaphorical class shift:

A-1 a cow is a ruminating quadruped [verb: adjective; process => quality]

A-2 your escape was a miracle [verb: noun; process => thing]

In B-1 and B-2, on the other hand, there is rank shift but no class shift; these are the agnate congruent forms:

B-1 a cow is a quadruped that chews the cud/ that ruminates

B-2 it was a miracle how/that you got away/ you escaped

Here 'ruminate' and 'escape' remain as process, without shifting in class. This now helps to explain the meaning of forms such as C-1 and C-2:

C-1 a cow is a cud-chewing quadruped

C-2 it was a miracle you/your getting away

These represent a kind of semantic compromise, a means of having it both ways. The junction is now as it were symmetrical, with the time line removed, so that 'chew + cud', 'you + escape' are simultaneously both figures and (parts of) elements. What the grammar is construing here is an exchange of functions without shifting class; the figure takes on a special kind of clausal structure which conserves the transitivity relations.

Metaphorical vs Non-Metaphorical Class Shift

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 260-1):

Class shift becomes metaphorical when the "shifted" term creates a semantic junction with the original. A good way of illustrating this is to bring together two instances of the same lexical item, used once as (non-metaphorical) transcategorisation and once as grammatical metaphor. Let us return to a previous example:

More congruently, this would be many (pieces of glass) fail after the cracks have slowly extended, or often the cracks slowly extend and then the glass fails. The congruent form is a sequence of two figures linked by a relator; in the metaphoric form, each figure becomes a participant and the relator becomes a (relational) process to which two participants subscribe. Here, then, failure is an instance of metaphorical class shift; there is a semantic junction between two features:

(1) 'process' (class meaning of verb fail),

(2) 'thing/ participant' (class meaning of noun failure).

Note that there is an asymmetry between the two — a time line, such that the feature 'thing' is as it were a reconstrual of the original feature 'process': we could gloss it as "a process reconstrued as a participant".

Contrast this now with failure in a technical expression such as heart failure; in origin this was no doubt a grammatical metaphor for the heart fails, but the metaphorical quality has since been lost, or at least significantly weakened (the metaphor is "dead"), and heart failure is now the only congruent form.

Likewise contrast he regretted his failure to act, agnate to that he had failed to act (or that he had not acted ), where failure is a grammatical metaphor, with he always felt that he was a failure, where failure is now the congruent form and this is not a metaphorical agnate of he always felt that he had failed.

Metaphor And Rankshift

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 259-60):

Rank shift is not inherently metaphorical. There is a parallel here between rank shift and class shift. In origin, both these could be described as metaphorical semogenic processes: a verb or adjective is metamorphosed into a noun (a shift of class, e.g. strong : strength, lose : loss), a clause is metamorphosed into a group (a shift of rank, e.g. they went bankrupt : their bankruptcy). 

But as a synchronic relation neither of these necessarily involves metaphor; there may be no systematic alternation such as there is between a metaphoric and a congruent form. We have already discussed non-metaphorical forms of class shift, under the heading of transcategorisation. Similarly, in the following examples of rank shift, where a clause is rankshifted to function either as Head (1,2) or as Qualifier (3, 4) of a nominal group, no grammatical metaphor is involved.

1. [[Not having a proper job]] made my life unbearable

(semantically) non-projected figure as participant

(grammatically) clause (as Head of nominal group) functioning (as Agent) in clause structure: "act" type

2. [[How they escaped]] was a mystery

(semantically) projected figure as participant

(grammatically) clause (as Head of nominal group) functioning (as Carrier) in clause structure: "fact" type

3. That woman [[(who was) sitting behind the desk]] reminded me of Tracy

(semantically) non-projected figure as quality

(grammatically) clause functioning as Qualifier of nominal group ("defining relative" clause)

4. The idea ([that anyone would visit/ of anyone visiting]] seems incredible

(semantically) projected figure as quality

(grammatically) clause functioning as Qualifier of nominal group

The Overall Effect Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 258-9):

The overall effect of the grammatical metaphor is that semantic relations between one element and another, and between one figure and another, become progressively less explicit as the degree of metaphoricity increases. We can illustrate this by taking a text example and relating it to more congruent and more metaphorical variants:

Notice how the semantic information construed by the grammar in the most congruent version is gradually lost at each step in the course of metaphoric rewording.

The Phylogenetic Codification Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 258):

Like lexical metaphors, so also grammatical metaphors may become codified in the language and 'take over' as the normal mode of expression. We shall refer below to two instances of this type in English: those like have a look, take a step and those like span, cover, accompany. There are other features of the grammar that are in origin metaphorical (many of the uses of the possessive form, such as [he didn't approve of] my leaving home), but whose origin is so obscured by the natural evolution of the language that all sense of their metaphoric nature has long since been lost.

Degree Of Metaphoricity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 256-7):

… metaphoricity is a relative matter. We can take a pair of agnate expressions and order them with respect to each other, showing that one of the two is more congruent But if we are rewording in either direction — 'packing' or 'unpacking', to use the (lexical) metaphor that was adopted for this by the students to whom it was originally presented —, there is no clearly definable point where we say 'now we have reached the end'. Obviously we cannot go on for very long; the actual number of steps taken will in fact be extremely limited. But any sequence that is reasonably complex in its semantic patterning will be likely to show considerable elasticity at both ends of the continuum.

Illustration Of Steps In Unpacking Elemental Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 255-6):

It would take many pages of discussion to follow through such examples discursively in any detail. Instead we will present one brief example with step-by-step unpacking of all the grammatical metaphors simultaneously, using a form of graphic display (with labelling of grammatical functions) which will give a sense of the overall metaphorical space that may be covered in a single instance of this kind: see Figure 6-2. 

Figure 6-2 Step by step "unpacking" of metaphorical wording

Example Of Steps In Unpacking Elemental Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 255):

Very often, however, in deriving any one element we should have to take two or more steps in the course of unpacking. For example, in the development of our understanding, we can unpack to our understanding develops. However, our understanding is itself a metaphorical entity consisting of a 'thing' derived from a process; and a 'possessor' derived from a participant; so it can be unpacked further to we understand, giving something like [the way] we understand develops. We then might want to consider develops as (be/ become) quality => process, so [the extent to which] we understand becomes greater, i.e. we understand more and more.

Elemental Metaphor Syndrome: Figure With Process ==> Figure With Process As Thing

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 254-5):

(III) Figure With Process ==> Figure With Process As Thing

They surveyed the property ==> (They) did a survey of the property

They started to survey the property ==> (They) started a survey of the property

They discussed in the early afternoon ==> Their discussion took place (in the early afternoon)

Elemental Metaphor Syndrome: Sequence ==> Figure

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 252-4):

(II) Sequence ==> Figure

Here the syndrome occurs in a more general environment, that of construing a sequence on the model of a figure — grammatically, the sequence is construed not as a clause complex but as a clause.

They shredded the documents before they departed for the airport ==> (They shredded the documents) before their departure for the airport

They shredded the documents before they departed for the airport ==> Their shredding of the documents preceded their departure for the airport

These examples of a 'sequence ==> figure' metaphor both involved a sequence of the expansion type. However, this type of metaphoric shift also occurs with projection sequences; for example:

The colonel declared his innocence.

— where the congruent form would be a projection, either hypotactic or paratactic:

The colonel declared that he was innocent.

The colonel declared, "I am innocent".

Elemental Metaphor Syndrome: Figure ==> Element

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 250-2):

(I) Figure ==> Element

Here a figure is being construed metaphorically on the model of a participant: grammatically, the figure is construed not as a clause but as a nominal group. There is a shift in rank from figure to element, and concomitantly a shift in status among the elements making up the construction.

he was arrested by the police ==> his arrest by the police

(...) bond rapidly ==> rapid bonding occurs

the group decided yesterday ==> yesterday's decision by the group

the accused appeared to be innocent ==> the apparent innocence of the accused

he argues cogently ==> the cogency of his argument

Types Of Elemental Metaphor Syndromes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 250):

These syndromes of elemental metaphors fall into three general types, not very sharply distinct but worth using as a conceptual framework. The distinction relates to the rank where the metaphoric reconstrual takes place: 

(I) from figure to element, 

(II) from sequence to figure, 

(III) from figure with process to figure with process as thing.

Syntagmatic And Paradigmatic Dimensions Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 249):

… we identified individual types of grammatical metaphor, such as "process => thing". For analytic purposes we treated these as isolates having just the two values "congruent/ metaphorical". We now need to consider two respects in which this is an idealised, oversimplified account of what actually happens. We need to add a dimension of complexity on both syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes.

Syntagmatically, instances of grammatical metaphor typically occur not in isolation but in organic clusters or "syndromes". Paradigmatically, there will typically be other wordings intermediate between an instance of grammatical metaphor and its "most congruent" agnate variant.

Types Of Elemental Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 246-8):

Table 6(3) gives a more detailed description of the types shown in Table 6(2) above, together with an example of each. Several of the numbered types identified in the previous table have been differentiated further into subtypes, represented by Roman numerals. The first two columns present the metaphoric shift as a grammatical phenomenon: (1) as a shift of (word) class and (2) as a shift of function (in clause, phrase or group, as appropriate). The third column gives examples of each type. The last two columns show the metaphor as a semantic relationship between types of element: (4) the domain of the congruent variant, then finally (5) that of the metaphorical variant. It should be remembered that almost every one of the metaphoric categories is immensely variable. Wherever possible, examples have been drawn from texts cited in the discussion in the present chapter; but they are just examples, and should not be read as glosses describing the category as a whole.

Domains Of Elemental Metaphors

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 244-5):

The elemental metaphors are mappings from a congruent categorial domain to a metaphorical one. The primary types are set out and exemplified in Table 6(2) below. For example, the categorial domain of 'process' can be reconstrued metaphorically in terms of the domains of (i) thing and (ii) quality. (We have added "Ø" under "congruent domains": this signals that a metaphorical process may be added, to which there is no corresponding congruent form, as part of a syndrome in which the original congruent process has been metaphorised as a thing.) 

Table 6(2) shows that there are clear patterns in the metaphoric shift. For example, the 'relator' can be reconstrued metaphorically in terms of any of the other types of element; but it cannot itself be a target domain in metaphors. Such particular patterns are part of more general metaphoric motifs.

Syndromes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 244):

… instances of grammatical metaphor do not typically occur in isolation. When we find grammatical metaphors in discourse, they nearly always cluster into what we are calling syndromes; these are typical clusterings of metaphorical effects among which there is some kind of interdependence (for example, in the government decided => the government's decision, there is an obvious relationship between decide => decision, process as thing, and the government => the government's, participant as possessor of the thing). Nevertheless there are two metaphorical effects here, not just one; and they have been treated separately …

Junctional (Metaphoric) Elements vs Ordinary Elements

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 244):

It seems to us necessary to identify the types of grammatical metaphor and characterise them explicitly in relation to the semantics as a whole. We therefore introduce a general distinction between metaphoric (elements or features) and others. Metaphoric elements, as we said above, are junctional in that they embody a junction of two semantic categories. In the previous chapters, 3-5, we dealt just with elements that could be assigned to a single category: process, thing, quality &c. We shall refer to these as 'ordinary' elements, and contrast them with 'junctional' elements which are those that embody grammatical metaphor. Junctional elements will always have two categories in their description, e.g. 'process thing', 'circumstantial quality', 'relator process'.

The Origin Of Junctional Elements

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 243):

From Transcategorisation To Junctional Elements

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 242-3):

If we now relate [transcategorisations] to the types of element, we find that in some instances the semantic nature of the transcategorisation is clear. For example, 

flake - thing: 'turn into flakes' - process; 

shake – process: shaky 'tending to shake' – quality, 

shaker 'that which shakes (= vessel in which dice is shaken)' - thing; 

awake - quality, awaken 'cause to become awake' - process; 

analyse - process, analyst 'one who analyses' - thing. 

We can gloss these in everyday terms, without recourse to technicality. In other instances, however, the nature of the change is less clear. What for example would be the semantic interpretation of shakiness, awakening, analysis, development? Here we find ourselves using precisely the terms of our own metalanguage in the definition: 'quality of being shaky', 'process of being awake, or causing to become awake', 'process of analysing, developing'.

When this happens, it is a signal that a phenomenon of this other kind — quality, or process — is being treated as if it was a thing. The grammar has constructed an imaginary or fictitious object, called shakiness, by transcategorising the quality shaky; similarly by transcategorising the process develop it has created a pseudo-thing called development. 

What is the status of such fictitious objects or pseudo-things? Unlike the other elements, which lose their original status in being transcategorised (for example, shaker is no longer a process, even though it derives from shake), these elements do not: shakiness is still a quality, development is still a process — only they have been construed into things. They are thus a fusion, or 'junction', of two semantic elemental categories: shakiness is a 'quality thing', development is a 'process thing'. All such junctional elements involve grammatical metaphor.

Transcategorisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 242):

The phenomenon of transcategorising elements would seem to be a feature of the grammar of every language. This implies two things: 

(i) that each etymon belongs inherently to a major class; 

(ii) that at least some etymons can be transferred to another class — by some grammatical means, syntactic and/or morphological.

Thus in Indo-European languages there is typically a battery of derivational morphemes whereby a root can be transcategorised; for example in English,

All these are means of shifting a lexeme from one class to another.

Ideational Metaphor Expands Interpersonal Potential

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 241-2):

In a similar way, phenomena in the ideation base also map onto constructs of interpersonal meaning. For example, a congruent figure maps onto a move in a dialogic exchange; it is enacted interpersonally as a proposition or a proposal. It follows that when phenomena are reconstrued metaphorically within the ideation base, there are also interpersonal consequences. For instance, the figure 'atomic nucleus + absorb + energy' can be enacted interpersonally as a proposition that is open to negotiation: The atomic nucleus absorbs energy — Does it? — Yes, it does — No, it can't. 

However, when this figure is reconstrued as the participant 'absorption (+ of energy) (+ by atomic nucleus)', it no longer has the potential for being enacted interpersonally as proposition; rather, it would be taken for granted in discourse. You can't argue with the absorption of energy by the nucleus since it is not enacted as an arguable proposition. Such interpersonal differences can have a powerful rhetorical effect in persuasive discourse. (There is an analogous effect with respect to proposals in regulatory discourse.)

Ideational Metaphor Expands Textual Potential

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 241):

Ideationally, grammatical metaphor is a resource for reconstruing experience so that, alongside congruent configurations, we also have alternative metaphorical ones. At the same time, these different configurations map onto different textual patterns. For example, a figure maps onto a message; but a participant maps onto part of a message, so that a figure construed as if it was a participant can be given a textual status within that message.

Ideational Metaphor Expands Ideational Potential

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 241):

The metaphors we are considering here are in fact all shifts within the ideational realm — from sequence to figure, from figure to participant, and so on — and their primary effect is ideational. They constitute a resource for reconstruing experience along certain lines, redeploying the same categories that have evolved in the congruent mode of construing experience. 

Thus when experience of a quantum of change has been construed as a figure consisting of 'atomic nucleus + absorb + energy', it can be reconstrued as if it was a participant: 'absorption (+ of energy) (+ by atomic nucleus)'. Here the process element of the figure is reconstrued as a thing; and the participants involved in that process are reconstrued as qualities of that thing. Since they are qualities, they are no longer "obligatory"; like any other thing, 'absorption' need not be further specified by reference to qualities. 

The metaphoric shift does not mean that the natural relationship between meaning and wording is destroyed; rather, this relationship is extended further when new domains of realisation are opened up to semantic categories through metaphor. The shift does however create a greater distance from the everyday experience; the metaphorical mode of construal makes it possible to recast that everyday experience, retaining only certain features from the congruent wording but adding others that it did not include.

The Motivation For Stratifying The Content Plane: Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 237, 238):

Why then in our present interpretation have we to recognise two parts, one a lexicogrammar and one a semantics? Because the system continued to evolve beyond that point, enriching itself (i.e. engendering a richer model of experience) by forcing apart the two 'facets' of the sign so that each could take on a new partner — sequences could be realised by other things than clause complexes, processes could be realised by other things than verbs, and so on. …

It is this step that gives rise to grammatical metaphor. When a sequence is realised as a clause complex, or a process as a verb, this is congruent: it is the clause complex, and the verb, in the function in which it evolved. When a sequence is realised as something other than a clause complex, or a process as something other than a verb, this is metaphorical. Some other grammatical unit is supplanting them in these functions.

Semantics And Lexicogrammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 237):

What was described above was the congruent pattern: 'congruent' in the sense that is the way language evolved. Of course, what we are recognising here as two distinct constructions, the semantic and the grammatical, never had or could have had any existence the one prior to the other; they are our analytic representation of the overall semioticising of experience — how experience is construed into meaning. 

If the congruent pattern had been the only form of construal, we would probably not have needed to think of semantics and grammar as two separate strata: they would be merely two facets of the content plane, interpreted on the one hand as function and on the other as form.

Congruent Patterns Of Realisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 236-7):

In the congruent form the pattern of realisation is as follows:

Looking at these from the standpoint of the evolution of language, when we say they are the congruent forms we are claiming not merely that they evolved first but that this is why they evolved. One of the contexts in which grammar came into being — one of its metafunctions — was that of construing human experience; and, as we have seen, the model that emerged was one which construed the continuum of goings-on into taxonomies: taxonomies of parts (meronymic) and taxonomies of kinds (hyponymic). The central construct was that of the 'figure'; figures could be further constructed into 'sequences' and also deconstructed into 'elements'. 

How did the grammar construe this hierarchy of phenomena? — as clauses, clause complexes, and elements in the structure of the clause:

The elements making up a figure were of three kinds: a process, participants in that process, and circumstantial features. How did the grammar construe this classification? — as verbs, nouns, and other things:

The circumstance could be either some quality of the process or some participant that was indirectly involved: 

The Directionality Of The Congruent–Metaphorical Continuum

  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 235-6):

On all these grounds we have to acknowledge that the metaphorical relationship is not a symmetrical one: there is a definite directionality to it, such that one end of the continuum is metaphorical and the other is what we shall call congruent. Thus given the pair 

 

we shall locate the two with respect to each other on a metaphor scale as above. The expression engine failure evolved after the expression the engine failed in the evolution of industrial discourse; to explain in times of engine failure to a child you gloss it as whenever an engine failed (as one of the authors had to do to his 7-year-old son); the text would be likely to progress from loads were reduced, engines failed to reduced loading, engine failure rather than the other way round. 

And when we derive one from the other, we find ambiguity in one direction only: reduced loading might be agnate to loads were reduced, had been reduced or were lighter than usual; engine failure might be agnate to an engine failed, the engine failed or engines failed, and to ... failed or had failed in each case.

The Derivational Priority Of Congruent Wording

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 235):

We have also seen that there is a derivational priority because of the loss of information: given she announced that she was accepting we can derive the announcement of her acceptance, but given the announcement of her acceptance we do not know who made the announcement, she or someone else ('they'); whether she had accepted, was accepting or would accept; or whether it was a case not of her accepting but of her being accepted — twelve possible rewordings in all.

The Semogenetic Priority Of Congruent Wording

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 235):

If we view a set of metaphorically agnate wordings synoptically, any member of such a set appears metaphorical by reference to all the others. Given the announcement [was made] of his probable resignation and he announced that he would probably resign there is no reason to say that either is the less metaphorical. But if we view them dynamically, taking account of their relation in time, then in all three histories the same one precedes: he announced that he would probably resign comes before the announcement of his probable resignation. It evolved earlier in the language (phylogenesis); it is learnt earlier by children (ontogenesis); and it typically comes earlier in the text (logogenesis).

Lexical And Grammatical Metaphor Go Together

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 234):

Thus in many instances, not unexpectedly, lexical and grammatical metaphor go together. What we are most likely to be told, after the performance, is that the audience gave thunderous applause. In she felt a flood of relief there is not only the lexical metaphor of flood but also the grammatical metaphor of a flood of relief where intensity is represented as a Thing and the emotion as its Qualifier, contrasting with very relieved, with intensity brought in as Submodifier very to the Epithet relieved. 

Similarly, in the example of grammatical metaphor increased responsiveness may be reflected in feeding behaviour there was also the lexical metaphor reflected. But they are not automatically associated, and in most instances of grammatical metaphor, if we reword in a less metaphorical direction, we can retain the same lexical items, merely changing their word class (often with morphological variation, e.g. we act effectively / the effectiveness of our actions).

Lexical Metaphors Have Grammatical Implications

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 234):

As Whorf s examples illustrate, lexical metaphors have grammatical implications: they occur at a lexical degree of delicacy in the overall system, but precisely because grammar and lexis form a continuum related by delicacy, lexical domains are in fact more delicate elaborations of grammatical ones. 

So for example, if understanding is construed metaphorically as grasping, it follows that a high degree of understanding can be also construed according to the same material model: understand very well ==> grasp firmly, as in she grasped the principles firmly. 

Similarly, if intensity is construed metaphorically in terms of location or movement in abstract space, this lexical reconstrual also has grammatical consequences, e.g. in terms of circumstantial elements within metaphorical figures: prices fell sharply, prices rose to a new high, costs hit the ceiling, and so on.

Whorf On Lexical Metaphor In Standard Average European

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 233-4):

More than half a century ago, Whorf (1956. 145-6) provided a revealing account of the metaphorical construction of the domains of duration, intensity, and tendency in English and other standard languages of Europe:

To fit discourse to manifold actual situations, all languages need to express durations, intensities, and tendencies. It is characteristic of Standard Average European and perhaps many other language types to express them metaphorically. The metaphors are those of spatial extension, i.e. of size, number (plurality), position, shape, and motion. We express duration by 'long, short, great, much, quick, slow,' etc.; intensity by 'large, great, much, heavy, light, high, low, sharp, faint' etc.; tendency by 'more, increase, grow, turn, get, approach, go, come, rise, fall, stop, smooth, even, rapid, slow'; and so on through an almost inexhaustible list of metaphors that we hardly recognise as such, since they are virtually the only linguistic media available. The nonmetaphorical terms in this field, like 'early, late, soon, lasting, intense, very, tending', are a mere handful quite inadequate to the needs.

It is quite clear how this condition "fits in". It is part of our whole scheme of OBJECTIFYING — imaginatively spatialising qualities and potentials that are quite nonspatial (so far as any spatially perceptive senses can tell us). Noun-meaning (with us) proceeds from physical bodies to referents of far other sorts. Since physical bodies and their outlines in PERCEIVED SPACE are denoted by size and shape terms and reckoned by cardinal numbers and plurals, these patterns of denotation and reckoning extend to the symbols of nonspatial meanings, and so suggest an IMAGINARY SPACE. Physical shapes 'move, stop, rise, sink, approach,' etc. in perceived space; why not these other referents in their imaginary space? This has gone so far that we can hardly refer to the simplest nonspatial situation without constant resort to physical metaphors. I "grasp" the "thread" of another's arguments, but if its "level" is "over my head" my attention may "wander" and "lose touch" with the "drift" of it, so that when he "comes" to his "point" we differ "widely," our "views" being indeed so "far apart" that the "things" he says "appear" "much" too arbitrary, or even "a lot" of nonsense!

The Domains Of Lexical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 233n):

Because of the vastness of lexis, we do not yet have a general description of lexical metaphorical syndromes or of the location of metaphorical domains within the overall ideation base. But it is possible to discern that a central resource for metaphor is human bodily experience; and that the human body itself, concrete phenomena located in space-time, and features of daily social life are the most favoured metaphorical motifs. 

Renton (1990: 513-514) lists 37 such motifs, which account for 87 %of the 4215 metaphorical items in his dictionary of metaphor. The most common are human body (23%), animals (9%), sport (4%), food & drink (4%), war A military (4%), buildings (4%), geography (4%), clothes (3%), nautical (3%), religion & biblical (3%), transport (2%), plants (2%), meteorology (2%), science & medicine (2%), colours (2%), commerce (2%), manufacture (1%), and the remaining types 1% or less. 

The descriptive challenge is to systematise the domains of lexical metaphor, as Lakoff & Johnson (1980) and researchers building on their framework have started to do.

Lexical Metaphor: Syntagmatic And Paradigmatic Characteristics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 233):

There are two other characteristics of lexical metaphors which are also central to metaphor in its grammatical sense. The first is syntagmatic: lexical metaphors tend to occur in regular clusters, which we shall refer to here as "syndromes"; for example, the metaphor congregation => flock forms a syndrome together with religious official => shepherd, group of believers => fold and so on. 

The second is paradigmatic: lexical metaphors typically involve a shift towards the concrete, a move in the direction of "objectifying" ('making like an object', not 'making objective'), as the same examples show.

Lexical And Grammatical Metaphor Differ in Delicacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 233):

Lexical and grammatical metaphor are not two different phenomena; they are both aspects of the same general metaphorical strategy by which we expand our semantic resources for construing experience. The main distinction between them is one of delicacy. Grammatical metaphor involves the reconstrual of one domain in terms of another domain, where both are of a very general kind; for example:

Lexical metaphor also involves the reconstrual of one domain in terms of another domain; but these domains are more delicate in the overall semantic system. For example:

 

Lexical And Grammatical Metaphor Viewed 'From Above'

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 232):

The traditional approach to metaphor is to look at it 'from below' and ask what does a certain expression mean. For example the lexical metaphor flood means either, literally, an inundation of water or, metaphorically, an intense emotion as in she felt a flood of relief. But we could look 'from above' and ask how is intense emotion expressed. Then we would say it is expressed either, literally, as she felt very relieved or, metaphorically, as she felt a flood of relief. Once we look from above in this way, we can see that the phenomenon under discussion is the same as metaphor in its traditional sense except that what is varied is not the lexis but the grammar. Thus:

Here in (a) the lexico-semantic domain of 'volume' has been mapped onto the lexico-semantic domain of 'meteorological commotion'; while in (b) the grammatico-semantic domain of 'figures' has been mapped onto the grammatico-semantic domain of 'participants'. The metaphoric principle is the same in both cases; they differ only in generality.

Congruent And Metaphorical Variants

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 227):

We have seen that sequences, figures, and elements are congruently realised in the grammar as follows:

But these resources may be expanded by taking up further options in realisation; for example, sequences may alternatively be realised by clauses and even groups. This is what we refer to as grammatical metaphor. Grammatical metaphor expands the semantic potential of the system.

The Motivation For Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 225-6):

The ideation base as we have presented it so far, with its framework of sequences, figures and elements, serves well enough for construing the experience of daily life, and for organising and exchanging commonsense knowledge. But it proves inadequate to meet the semiotic demands of advanced technology and theoretical science. In the construction of scientific knowledge, the system needs to invoke the power of metaphor on a more global scale.

Expansion Types And Figures Of Speech

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 225):

Specifically each type of expansion contributes one figurative mode, as in the following examples: 

In these examples the figures of speech are largely lexical; but the principle they illustrate — that because of the "play" that occurs between different strata the system has the potential for construing figurative meanings — extends throughout the grammar, as we shall see in the next chapter. What this means is, that whatever is construed can also be reconstrued, giving yet another dimension to the topology of semantic space.

Expansion And Projection As Resources For Figures Of Speech

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 225, 226):

Thus our concept of "construing experience through meaning" refers to the construal in human consciousness of an ideational system in which such motifs play a critical part. Expansion and projection are, as we put it earlier, fractal principles; they generate organisation within many environments in the ideation base, at different strata and at different ranks within one stratum. These environments are thus related to one another through the local manifestations of these different motifs; and this opens up the system's potential for alternative construals of experience: for example, the types of expansion create new meaning potential through "figures of speech" (see Figure 5-15).

Examples Of Other Transphenomenal Motifs

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 225):

There are other "transphenomenal" motifs, often related to these, which are more specific in their scope; for example, the foregrounding of perceptual space, and of the concrete having extension in space, so that these serve as models for construing more abstract, non-spatial realms; and, more specifically, the spatial construction of the human body as an orientational framework.

Expansion And Projection As Autogenic Resource

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 224-5):

The fractal types of projection and expansion are also a primary resource by which the semantic system creates new meanings. The ideation base thus itself embodies, auto-genetically, the principles on which it is organised and enabled to develop further, such that the primary systems of ideational meaning then serve as a grid within which more delicate categories are construed. Here we have foregrounded especially the motif of elaborating, with particular reference to its manifestation in the identifying and ascriptive figures of being. We have tried to show how elaboration makes it possible to "import" extralinguistic experience into the meaning base by actively construing it (as in 'that [thing there] is a circle'); and also to "transport" meanings internally from one region of the ideation base in order to construe new meanings in another (as in 'balance means you hold it on your fingers and it does not go'). The extension of meaning in delicacy — not merely generalising across different types but construing such types into dimensional and open-ended taxonomies — is a function of the elaborating potential, exploiting the basic dimensions of the system itself.

Blogger Comments:

Since SFL Theory assumes that there is no meaning outside semiotic systems, 'extralinguistic experience' can be understood as the construal of the meaningless by perceptual semiotic systems.

Fractal Agnation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 223-4):

Sequences, figures and elements, and their subclasses, constitute different environments within the ideation base. If we construe some phenomenon of experience as a sequence of qualification, we give it a location in the overall ideational system that is quite distinct from the location it would be assigned if it was construed as a figure of circumstantial cause. These two types are thus not particularly close agnates in the system, However, the fractal types constitute an additional order of agnation that is projected onto the ideational system as a whole. We can refer to this as fractal agnation. Because of this, a qualifying sequence and a figure of circumstantial being, such as cause, are agnate: they are both manifestations of the fractal type of enhancement For example, the sequence ebola broke out so 52 people died is agnate with the figure the outbreak of ebola caused 52 deaths even though they are quite far apart in their semantic structure.

The Patterns Of Transphenomenal Categories As Fractal Types

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 223, 224):

Since projection and expansion operate across the various categories of phenomena, we referred to them as transphenomenal categories. As transphenomenal categories, they are meaning types that are in some sense "meta" to the organisation of the ideation base: they are principles of construing our experience of the world that generate identical patterns of semantic organisation which are of variable magnitude and which occur in variable semantic environments. Such patterns therefore constitute fractal types. Projection and expansion are manifested at three levels of organisation: as sequences, as figures and as elements. Table 5(6) presents a partial summary of the cases we have discussed.

Expansion And Projection Manifested Across Phenomenal Domains

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 222-3):

Figure 5-14 shows the two motifs manifested in the environments of sequences, figures and elements.

Expansion And Projection In The Construal Of Domains Of Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 222):

These two motifs together have made it possible for human beings to transform experience into meaning, taking the experience of meaning itself — the "inner" processes of consciousness — as the central figures, and those with the ability to mean — prototypically humans themselves — as the central participants. These then serve as the point of reference for construing "outer" experience, the complementary experiences of the processes of doing and of being. 

Major Ideational Motifs: Expansion And Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 222):

In addition to setting out the main dimensions and systems of ideational meaning, we have tried with this approach to bring out a small number of very general motifs that run throughout the grammar's construal of experience.

The first of these motifs is that of meaning as expansion: the way regions of semantic space are opened up and defined by the three vectors of elaboration, extension and enhancement — elaborating a region that is already as it were staked out, extending the regions boundaries to take in more, and enhancing the region's potential by enrichment from its environment.

The second motif is that of meaning by projection: the way new dimensions of semantic space are created by the orders of human consciousness, sensing and saying — by projecting into existence another order of reality, one that is constituted by language itself.

Circumstances That Are More Like Figures Than Participants

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 221-2):

But even within one language, however they are construed grammatically, the status of circumstantial elements is variable. In English, those that are nearer the centre of our helix are more like participants, as shown by the examples above; while those that are on the periphery are more like figures. We can give some examples of agnate pairs of this kind.

The Two-Faced Character Of Circumstances

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 221):

It is interesting to note how this two-faced character of circumstances — that they are on the one hand like participants and on the other hand like figures — is reflected in their treatment in languages other than English. In the way they are construed in the grammar, in a language such as Finnish, where what corresponds to the English preposition is often a "case" in the nominal group, they appear to be (relatively to English) closer to participants; while in a language such as Chinese, where what corresponds to the English preposition is typically a class of verb, they appear (again, relatively to English) closer to figures. But they typically seem to have a status that lies somewhere intermediate between the two.

Crossing Between The Two Types Of Circumstances

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 221):

Coming back now to the distinction between type (1) circumstances, those realised by adverbial groups, and type (2), those realised by prepositional phrases: as typically happens in language (since grammar abhors determinacy), we find a crossing between the two types. 

This happens mainly in one direction: there are prepositional phrases which construe qualities of figures, and hence function as circumstances of Manner; for example in a hurry, without proper care (cf. hurriedly, carelessly). Typically these may also appear as qualities of participants, as in he was in a hurry (realised as Attribute in a clause), a man in a hurry (Qualifier in a nominal group — not Epithet, since English does not like phrases and clauses before the Thing). These usually involve some kind of metaphor, either (as here) grammatical metaphor, where a quality or process is made to look like a participant, or lexical metaphor (metaphor in its traditional sense) as in they left the matter up in the air. 

Less commonly, we find a cross-over in the other direction; an example would be the adverb microscopically where this has the sense of 'using a microscope' (we examined the tissue microscopically).

Participants & Circumstances: 3 Kinds Of Mixed Categories Exemplified

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 220-1):

That those in (i) are being construed primarily as participants, whereas those in (ii) are being construed primarily as circumstances, is shown by a variety of other grammatical factors; to give just one example, the question equivalent to (i) is who? or what? (who did you give milk to?, not where did you give milk?), whereas the question equivalent to those in (ii) is how long?, when? (when are we meeting?, not what are we meeting on?). By the same token, in (iii) we have two different elements, one participant and one circumstance, but with hardly any difference between the two:

Participants And Circumstances: Three Kinds Of Mixed Categories

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 220):

The grammar does draw a line between the two: participant as nominal group, circumstance as prepositional phrase. But because of the continuous nature of the distinction, we find three kinds of mixed categories: 

(i) participants that may look like circumstances (being introduced by prepositions);  

(ii) circumstances that may look like participants (being introduced without prepositions); and 

(iii) pairs where one is circumstance, the other participant, but with very little difference in their meaning.