By comparison with other elements, things tend to stand out(i) by their varied rôles 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.
Qualities tend be experientially simple, specifying values along a single dimension or scale such as 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 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.
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.
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. Semantically, Classifiers are qualities of the ‘class’ type: 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 undoubtably 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 […] 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.
Experientially, [in a nominal group] 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) serves 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. […] 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 rôle 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 [intensive/elaborating], parts [possessive/extending] or circumstantial features [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 a text, processes have to be construed 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.
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.
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.
… 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.
… 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.
… 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’).
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. 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.
In our discussion of figures, we pointed out that participants form a temporal complementarity: participants persist, whereas processes unfold, through time. This complementarity is reflected both in the similarities and differences between the two.
Being elements, participants and processes occupy rôles in figures; but whereas processes only serve in the the single rôle of Process, participants range over a much wider experiential spectrum — the direct participant rôles of Actor, Goal, Senser, Phenomenon, and so on, and also the indirect participant rôles 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 a variety of configurational rôles.
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-semantic 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;
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.
… there is a significant difference between element 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 the 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. The situation with circumstances and relators is a little more complicated.
Elements serve as component parts of figures. Three primary types of element may be differentiated according to the generalised categories of configurational rôles: 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. The congruent (prototypical) grammatical realisations of these types of element in English are as follows:process î verbal groupparticipant î nominal groupcircumstance î adverbial group; prepositional phraserelator î conjunction group
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 the receiver or recipient of the process. Thus this general motif is manifested in a form which corresponds to its ecological niche at that location.
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 of 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 at the borderline of elaborating and extending: compare he spoke like an expert ‘in the manner of’, he spoke as an expert ‘in the rôle 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.
The circumstance of Accompaniment does not correspond to any one particular participant rôle. 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.
… 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 the 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.
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.
The difference in degree of involvement is also reflected in the extent to which an element is available for a critical rôle in the interpersonal metafunction. Prototypically, 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 preposition phrase often can; e.g. the grass shouldn’t be walked on.
behind the fridge
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is
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their favourite place
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Subject
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Finite
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Complement
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Token
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Process
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Value
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They are really reduced or minor figures, functioning as elements inside other figures. The preposition is a kind of mini-verb; 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 is 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 Rôle.
The nominal group 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, and so on … ; it enters into the clause by courtesy of the preposition, only indirectly so to speak.
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 by an adverbial group. Type 2, macro circumstance, is realised as a prepositional phrase, which in turn consists of a preposition + nominal group.
… 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 rôles, Goal and Range, which vary considerably in their degree of participanthood, lying as it were at 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 […] circumstantial rôles and […] 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.
The
Singing Detective
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was (played by)
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Michael Gambon
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Value/Identifier/Range
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Process: relational: identifying
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Token/Identified/Medium
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Subject
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Finite
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Complement
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New
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Given
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Theme
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Rheme
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