Symbolic Processing: Sensing vs Saying

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 110-1):

Let us look more closely at these two modes of projecting, in both of which the projecting figure represents symbolic processing, the processing that brings the other figure into symbolic existence. Either the projection takes the prototypical form of semiosis: it is presented as verbal, shared, an exchange or joint construction of meanings (e.g. Harriet said 'me feed cat?'); or it is fashioned into a derived semiotic form, unshared, interiorised, and without any meaning being exchanged (e.g. Harriet thought 'me feed cat?'). In the first, the projecting figure is one of saying; the projected is referred to as locution. In the second, the projecting figure is one of sensing; the projected is referred to as idea. Ideas are projections which are sensed, locutions are projections which are said.

Thinking Ideas (Meanings) vs Saying Locutions (Wordings)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 109, 110):

In (i) the 'content' of his thinking is the meaning. It remains internal to his consciousness and unrealised, i.e. unworded. In (ii) the 'content' of his saying is the wording. It has been externalised, realised as a wording. We will refer to these in the context of projection as (i) ideas and (ii) locutions. The contrast between these two statuses of projected figures is typically reflected in the shape of balloons in comic strip projections: see Figure 3-5.

Projected Content: Meaning (Idea) vs Wording (Locution)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 109, 110):

We have seen that the content plane is stratified into two levels — semantics (the level of meanings) and lexicogrammar (the level of wordings). Consequently, we would expect projections to be located at either or both of these levels, and this is indeed what happens: a projected figure is either a meaning or a wording: see Figure 3-4.

Projected Content

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 108-9):

We have suggested that the relation of projection sets up one figure on a different plane of reality — we refer to this as the second-order or semiotic level. This second-order level of reality is the content plane of a semiotic system. That is to say, the projected figure is projected in the form of 'content': see Figure 3-3.

Conscious And Non-Conscious Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 106-7, 108):

We could say that the world view that is constructed in this way is (quite reasonably, from our point of view) focussed on humans, with human consciousness occupying a privileged place. Thus typically only humans can project into second-order reality. However, since human consciousness is the locus of semiotic activity, it has the power of interpreting as metaphenomenon that which is manifested by some other, non-conscious symbolic source. Thus while "sensing" (that is, semiotic activity that is unmanifested, like thinking) does require a human senser, saying can be ascribed to a nonhuman as well as to a human sayer (cf. he thinks —> the moon is a balloon vs he says/the book says —> the moon is a balloon. Figure 3-2 shows the relationship between the two orders of metaphenomena and the presence of consciousness in the act of projection.

Expansion vs Projection In Comic Strip Conventions

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 106, 107):

We can explore this distinction through the conventions of comic strips. Expansions are typically represented pictorially by means of consecutive frames — 'x then y', 'x so y', 'x meanwhile y', and so on (the relationship is sometimes spelt out in writing, e.g. Meanwhile... ). 

We can even identify the three different kinds of expansion, those of elaborating, extending, and enhancing. When further detail is given in a picture of a magnifying glass, this is elaboration; where two frames are joined to form a continuous picture, this suggests extension; otherwise, consecutive frames display a relation of enhancement But in all cases the representation is pictorial throughout. 

In contrast, projections involve two modes: the projecting figure is represented pictorially as the symbol source, but the projected figure is represented linguistically and this second-order reality is typically named within a 'balloon'. … The two types of relation can be shown as in Figure 3-1.

Expansion vs Projection In Sequences

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 106):

This differentiation is embodied in relations of sequence in the following way. Either a sequential relation expands one figure by adding another one to it, the two still remaining at the same phenomenal level; or the sequential relation projects one of the two figures onto the plane of second-older, semiotic phenomena, so that it enters the realm of metaphenomena (meanings or wordings). This is the distinction between expansion and projection. For example, 

expansion: highs will be mid-8Os to mid-90s —> but parts of Texas could reach the 100s; 

projection: the forecast predicts —> "parts of Texas could reach the 100s".

Two Orders Of Reality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 106):

Instead of referring to formal logic, let us ask what kind of construal of experience is embodied in semantic sequences. 

Throughout the semantic construal of human experience, there is a differentiation between two orders of reality: between the everyday reality of our material existence on the one hand and on the other hand the second-order reality that is brought into existence only by the system of language. This is a contrast between semiotic phenomena, those of meanings and wordings, and the first-order phenomena that constitute our material environment. (Note that the linguistic processes themselves, as apprehended by our senses, are part of the first-order reality; second-order reality is formed of the meanings and the wordings that these processes bring into being.)

 

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, if meaning is immanent, then both first-order phenomena/reality and second-order phenomena/reality are construals of experience as meaning.

Characterising Sequences By Reference To Propositional Logic?

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 105-6):

In a restricted register, such as those of weather forecasts and recipes, it may be possible to define sequential relations more precisely; but that is only because these registers are special cases, rather in the same way that the applications of propositional logic are special cases.

One might try to characterise sequences by reference to propositional logic; this would give some indication of what type of knowledge representation system is embodied in this domain of ideational semantics. However, such a characterisation would be likely to distort our understanding of sequences, because sequences cover and organise a considerably larger domain of the ideational semantic space than propositional logic attempts to do.

Why Natural Logic Differs From Propositional Logic

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 105):

Both the difference in scope and the difference in 'definability' can be explained in functional terms. 

Sequences have evolved in the interpretation of human experience in general; consequently, they have to be flexible and powerful enough to cope with a large amount of variation, and the implicit 'definition' of each relation (i.e., its location in the semantic system along various dimensions) is the evolving distillation of innumerable instances where it is invoked (for a revealing account of how sequences may construe rationality in everyday talk, see Hasan, 1992). 

In contrast, the truth-functional connectives of propositional logic have been designed for a very restricted purpose — the kind of deductive reasoning western philosophy came to focus on — and their definitions are fixed by reference to values of "true" and "false" (by means of truth tables).

Types Of Natural vs Propositional Logic

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 104-5, 105n):

There is another important difference between propositional logic and the natural logic of sequences. While there is only a very small handful of truth-functional connectives in propositional logic (conjunction, disjunction [exclusive or non-exclusive], implication), there is a very wide range of sequential relations in language — all the more specific varieties of projecting and expanding. A summary of these is given in Table 3(1).

² Projecting figures of the 'think' type — 'know', 'believe', 'want — have been represented outside standard logic within intensional logic.

Natural Logic vs Propositional Logic

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 104, 104n):

Sequences might be said to constitute the 'natural logic' equivalent of propositional logic — that is, the evolved system for reasoning about relations of cause, conditionality, etc. from which propositional logic has been derived by design. Thus we have parallel series such as:

But, as has often been pointed out, the two are not translation equivalents; for example, material implication (p –> q) applies even when the rendering in ordinary language seems odd, and disjunction in logic is either inclusive or exclusive whereas natural disjunction is non-committal. Since propositional logic is a designed system, its relations are codified and defined (typically in truth-functional terms¹). In contrast, sequential relations have evolved. A certain type of relation will have a core — the prototypical representatives of that type; but there will also be more peripheral representatives and 'grey areas' where one type shades into another.

¹ Propositional logic is interpersonally invariable. Unlike natural logic, it is only concerned with statements, or rather — since language is concerned with validity rather than truth — with the philosophical version of what are statements in natural language.

Sequence [Defined]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 104):

A sequence constitutes a model of how figures can be related. One prominent form of this relationship, which has been foregrounded in various guises in science and logic, is that of cause & effect, whereby experience is given a causal interpretation. But that is only one among many such possible relationships, which taken together can be said to constitute the logic of natural language.

Reference As A Means Of Differentiating Macrophenomena And Metaphenomena

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 102-3):

These special subcategories have the effect of construing other elements as "referable" — that is, of enabling them to retain their semiotic identity for subsequent access and hence as it were authenticating them (e.g. Don't give me any more of that peanut butter! I can't stand the stuff.). This applies primarily, though not exclusively, to participants (cf. Webber, 1987, on reference to phenomena other than things). At the same time it allows us to recognise not only participants of the 'simple' type but also the 'larger' elements known as macro- and meta-phenomena. Macro-phenomena are figures downranked to function as ordinary elements; meta-phenomena are figures projected as elements of a second order. Halliday & Hasan (1976), where reference to macro-phenomena is called extended reference, and reference to meta-phenomena is called reference to facts, cite ambiguities which bring out the difference among elements of these various kinds:

(i) extended reference — to macro-phenomenon:

They broke a Chinese vase.

(i) That was valuable. (phenomenon: thing — the vase)

(ii) That was careless, (macro-phenomenon— the act of their breaking of the vase)

(ii) reference to 'fact' — to meta-phenomenon

It rained day and night for two weeks. The basement flooded and everything was under water.

(i) It spoilt our calculations. (meta-phenomenon (fact)—the fact that it rained so much upset our predictions)

(ii) It spoilt our calculations. (macro-phenomenon —the act of raining destroyed physical records)

Note how this relates to the shift of perspective from figure to participant: a figure such as 'catch + mouse' becomes referable as a macro-phenomenon (Your cat's caught a mouse — It's never done that before), and by the same token can enter into participant-based construal through the system of modification (Table 2(11)): (cats are) creatures that catch mice.

Grammatical Evidence For The Differentiation Of Participants And Circumstances

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 99, 102):

The view from grammar brings into relief a number of relevant factors relating to participants and circumstances. There are certain special subcategories of these, in the grammar, which are distinguished by the fact that they embody features of interpersonal or textual meaning:

(1) interpersonal: questioning

interrogative: who, what, when, where, how far, how long, how, why

(2) textual: cohesive

(i) referring, personal: he, she, it, they; demonstrative: this, that, now, then,, here, there, thus

(ii) generalising: lexical items such as person, creature, thing, stuff, affair

These are significant in their own right because they are critical to the construction of discourse: the textual ones provide internal cohesion, while the interpersonal ones construe dialogic speech roles. They have a further significance in that they reveal by reactance the major subclasses within the general classes of participant and circumstance, as shown in Table 2(12). 

The Three Types Of Element

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 99, 101):

There are three types of semantic elements serving in figures — processes, participants and circumstances. Broadly speaking, these are constructed in the grammar as follows.

(i) Within the ideational component: they are realised by different classes of units:

process ➘ verbal group

participant ➘ nominal group

circumstance ➘ adverbial group, prepositional phrase

Participants tend to be inherent elements of a figure; circumstances are typically optional.

(ii) Relating to the interpersonal metafunction: participants can serve as Subject; circumstances and processes cannot. Furthermore, participants and circumstances can serve as WH-elements, but processes cannot (if the process is being questioned, a participant element has to be construed as a Range: what...do?)

(iii) Relating to the textual metafunction: participants and circumstances can both readily serve as Theme (though their potentials differ); processes only rarely, other than in imperative clauses. Participants and (more restrictedly) circumstances can serve as referables identified by referring expressions, but processes cannot — as with WH-interrogation, they have to be construed as a Range together with the pro-verb do as Process: do it/that (see Halliday & Hasan, 1976: 125).

These properties are summarised in Table 2(11).

The Four Types Of Figure

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 98, 100):

There are four types of figure — doing & happening, sensing, saying, being & having. Broadly speaking, these are constructed in the grammar as follows:

(i) Within the ideational metafunction, each is realised congruently by one particular transitivity type: doing & happening ➘ material, sensing ➘ mental, saying ➘ verbal, and being & having ➘ relational. These have various reactances, such as the number and nature of participants and the unmarked present tense selection (see Table 2(10)).

(ii) Relating to the interpersonal metafunction: in any given register there may be typical correspondences between the type of figure and the speech function; e.g. in procedural registers, material clauses are typically imperative, relational ones indicative.

(iii) Relating to the textual metafunction: different types of figure are presumed in different ways and have different potential for textual prominence; e.g. only material clauses are substituted by the pro-verb do (to/with).

Blogger Comments:

With regard to Table 2(10), the Medium of an identifying clause is the Identified, which coincides with the Value only when the relation is encoding. In decoding clauses, it is the Token that is the Medium/Identified.

Semantic Categories Are Construed By Means Of Realisation In The Grammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 97-8):

The semantic categories are themselves construed by means of realisation; they are constructed within the grammar and the lexis of a language. If we model the ideation base as a semantic space, we are foregrounding one aspect of the construction of meaning in language, namely the way in which lexicogrammar construes our experience of the world in the guise of multidimensional matrices or grids. This is an important feature of language as a semiotic system, an inevitable consequence of the principle of arbitrariness: since the forms of expression are arbitrary, they impose discontinuity on the content. We have to decide about any given instance whether it is singular or plural, temporal or causal, possible, probable or certain; whether it is a bus or a van, smiling or grinning, cloudy, misty or foggy. But the semantic categories themselves (seen from above, as it were) are much more fluid and indeterminate than their realisations in wording imply. The notion of semantic space allows us to adopt a complementary standpoint from which we can view these phenomena topologically, bringing out the inherently elastic quality of the dimensions involved, and gaining a deeper insight into the semogenic processes by which the meaning potential is ongoingly remoulded in the history of the system, of the user, and of the text.

The Ontogenetic Move From Concrete To Abstract Phenomena

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 97):

Children are able to construe the semantic system because they start in situations with a material setting that is shared — cf. above, and see Hasan (1985b: 25 ff.) on Malinowski's contribution to this insight. As they build up their ideation base, they can begin to construe categories internal to the system out of existing ideational values; and they can begin to move into the abstract domains of a purely symbolic world, where the significations of semantic categories are abstract categories in social and socio-semiotic systems. But precisely because these abstract categories are construed as meanings, they can still be built up, negotiated and validated in collaboration with other members of the meaning group. The move from the realm of concrete phenomena to the various realms of abstract phenomena is made possible through the homogenising power of meaning.

Extra-Linguistic Categories Are Construed As Semantic Categories

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 96-7):

We saw in the examples of how categories are first developed that young children will typically construe concrete phenomena that are part of the field of visual perception they share with their interactants. In other words, they are construing into linguistic meanings their experience of the material world as it is construed in the categories from another semiotic system, viz. (visual) perception. These extra-linguistic categories are construed as the signification of the semantic categories of the ideation base — always in some particular situation when the child first engages with them. To construe experience of concrete phenomena as meaning is thus to construe some signification which lies outside the ideation base as a value which is internal to the ideation base system. Part of the power of categorisation is that extra-linguistic phenomena that are quite varied in signification can be construed as alike in value.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the 'material world' is meaning construed by semiotic systems.

[2] To be clear, concrete phenomena are meaning, in this instance: meanings of perceptual systems.

[3] To be clear, on Edelman's model of brain function, relations between perceptual meanings become organised into systems that he (unfortunately) terms 'conceptual'. That is, some of the work of relating perceptions is already done before language reconstrues them.

Stratal Angles On Construal

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 96, 97):

A phenomenon of experience is construed as a category in the ideation base by being given a location in the three semantic networks described in the preceding section. This taxonomic, meronymic and eco-functional location is the category's value (valeur) in relation to the other categories within the ideation base. By being assigned a value internal to the ideational system, a semantic category is also being related to categories that lie beyond semantics itself. On the one hand it is being related to categories within systems that lie outside language but which the semantic system interfaces with; on the other hand it is being related to the grammatical categories in terms of which it is realised. Figure 2-18 shows these three strata! angles on the process of construal.

Blogger Comments:

Importantly, these are categories of perceptual semiotic systems. SFL Theory makes the assumption of immanence: all meaning is within semiotic systems.

A General Semogenic Strategy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 95):

Construing a category thus includes locating it not only taxonomically and meronymically but also eco-functionally, as in the case of 'conscious being' just referred to. We noted above in connection with the cat example how the fact that a participant serves a participant role in a figure can be viewed either from the perspective of the figure or from the perspective of the participant (i.e. as a property of the participant). If cats kill mice, the ideation base accommodates the view from the angle of the figure: 'cats kill mice'; but it also accommodates the view from the angle of the participant: 'animals that kill mice'. Here the figure in which cats participate as actors has been construed as if it was a property, so that the category of cats might be construed within the system of the ideation base by means of the definition 'cats are animals that kill mice'. (In formal systems of representation, this can be expressed by means of lambda abstraction.)

There is a general semogenic strategy at work here. We referred to 'sequences', 'figures' and 'elements' as three orders of complexity in Section 2.1. The shift in perspective means that configurations of meanings that are of a particular order of complexity can be accessed through selection not only in their normal environment (within phenomena of the next higher order of complexity) but also within phenomena of lower orders of complexity. Through this semogenic strategy of opening up the possible domains of selection, a great deal of experiential complexity can be imported into the construal of a participant.

The Network Of Selection Is Inter-Axial

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 94-5, 96):

The network of selection is inter-axial in that it relates syntagmatic specifications to paradigmatic ones; it 'cuts across' the paradigmatic organisation of the ideation base, establishing correspondences between paradigmatic types through the syntagmatic functions associated with them, as we have just illustrated by reference to Figures 1-12 and 2-6. We can trace one further example from sequence via figure to element: see Figure 2-17.

Selections Are Bidirectional

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 94, 44):

Selections are bidirectional. We have already seen that functions associated with paradigmatic types constitute 'structural properties' by which these types are distinguished and that selections provide further information about these 'properties'.

Thus Figure 1-12 above illustrates how a figure of spearing is characterised by reference to the function of Means, which selects for the thing 'spear'. Conversely, semantic types which are selected are characterised by the functional environment within which they are selected. Thus the weapon 'spear' is characterised by its potential for serving as Means in a figure of spearing. Similarly, part of the meaning of a 'conscious being' is that it has the potential for serving in the Senser role of a figure of sensing.

Eco-functional Selection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 94, 58):

Taxonomic elaboration and meronymic extension form complementary networks of relations that together make up the paradigmatic organisation of the ideation base. They define, as we have noted, options in delicacy of categorisation and in delicacy of focus. The third type of network involved in the organisation of the ideation base which we identified above serves to relate paradigmatic organisation and syntagmatic organisation. Specifically, it relates syntagmatic functions or roles associated with paradigmatic types to the paradigmatic types that can serve in these functions. For example, the syntagmatic function 'Senser' is associated with the paradigmatic type 'sensing', and it is related to the paradigmatic type 'conscious being', since only participants of this subtype can serve as Sensers.

Figure 2-6 above shows this relation, together with a set of other such relations. We shall refer to such network relations as eco-functional selection in order to indicate that they specify the syntagmatic environment of semantic types by showing them as selections for syntagmatic functions. Such selections have been referred to as "pre-selections", but in order to avoid any connotations of temporal sequence, we prefer the term "selection" for such relations in the ideation base.

Delicacy Of Categorisation (Hyponymy) vs Delicacy Of Focus (Meronymy)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 92):

While the choice of 'level' in hyponymic elaboration is the choice in delicacy of categorisation, the choice of level in a meronymic taxonomy is the choice in delicacy of focus. The focus is typically on the whole (i.e., the most inclusive region within the meronymy) even if a specific part is particularly important (cf. Langacker, 1984).

Process Meronymies?

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 91):

The examples of meronymies given above come from the region of 'participant' within the ideation base. It is not clear to what extent, or in what sense, meronymic taxonomies extend beyond that region. We can certainly recognise that processes have phases — 'begin to do, keep doing, stop doing'; but it is not immediately clear that these form a process meronymy analogous to the parts of a participant. Although we might reconstrue he began to dance metaphorically as the beginning of his dance on the model of 'the beginning of the book', this is a metaphorical reification of the process 'dance' and we have to be cautious in interpreting the implications for the congruent process 'dance'. If we probe a little further, we can see that process phase is concerned with the occurrence of a process in time — its temporal unfolding: 'begin to do' means 'begin to be actualised (to occur) as doing in time'. In contrast, participant meronymy is not tied to the existence of a participant in referential space.

Why Meronymic Taxonomies Are Localised Within Hyponymic Taxonomies In SFL

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 90-1):

And this is in fact how we shall model them — as local meronymic taxonomies, applicable to some particular region of the hyponymic taxonomy, and not as one global meronymy superimposed on our taxonomy. There would seem to be far too many discontinuities to create a global meronymy; meronymies tend to occur only where there are contiguous parts of an independent whole. Thus while concrete objects are regularly construed meronymically (with the human body as both a representative example and a model for other meronymies), substances are not; substances are extended through measure ('unit of') rather than through part ('part of'). Similarly, taxonomies tend to be more extended meronymically for concrete regions than for abstract ones (although even things in an abstract region can have parts, e.g. aspect of an idea). Thus there is a generalised set of categories such as part, element, component, aspect; and also a generalised set 'facets' of spatial or temporal orientation, top, bottom, side, front, back, middle, centre; beginning, middle, end. There are more specific variants for parts of particular concrete things, such as facade, roof, wall [of a building]; ceiling, floor, wall [of a room]; slope, peak [of a mountain]; limb, trunk, root, bark [of a tree]; skin, core, pips [of an apple]; crust, crumb [of bread]; preface, epilogue [of a book].

Meronymic Extension (vs Hyponymic Elaboration)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 89, 90):

The ideation base construes phenomena as organic wholes that may take on roles in other kinds of phenomena; but it also deconstrues many such organic wholes into their component parts. When these component parts are phenomena of the same type — participants (e.g., chair: legs, seat, back), figures (e.g., baking a cake: stages in the procedure), this is known as meronymy (or meronymic taxonomy; cf. meros 'part'). We find local taxonomies of this kind, often interlocked with hyponymies; for example, see Figure 2-16. Taxonomies thus embody the two types of expanding relationships we mentioned at the beginning of this section — extension and elaboration. The meronymic type of taxonomy is extension, whereas the hyponymic type is elaboration.

Degrees Of Delicacy In The Lexical Zone

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 89, 90):

Within the lexical zone, we have already referred to the differentiation according to the degrees in delicacy; in particular, the 'basic' degree of delicacy stood out as most highly elaborated. There are also grammatical reactances indicating the taxonomic differentiation between the "basic" degree of delicacy and lower degrees of delicacy, at least in cases where the taxonomic relationship is of a particular kind. For example, the less delicate category may be construed by a mass noun whereas the more delicate, basic degree categories may be construed as count nouns: see Table 2(8).

Wierzbicka (1985: 321-2) identifies this phenomenon and shows that it is not arbitrary. Her explanation is in fact that the relationship between e.g. 'furniture' and 'chair, table' as super-category and subcategory is not the normal 'kind of relationship between e.g. 'bird' and 'swallow, magpie', but rather a grouping of different kinds according to similarity in use:

Thus, supercategones such as bird or tree are 'taxonomic', i.e. they belong to hierarchies of kinds (where each 'kind' is identified on the basis of similarity between its members); supercategories such as crockery, cutlery or kitchenware are not taxonomic — they include things of different kinds, grouped on the basis of contiguity and/ or similarity of function, not on the basis of similarity of form.

We take delicacy to include both types of the relationship of supercategory to subcategory — both the "taxonomic" and the "non-taxonomic" ones. However, it would seem that with the relationship between 'furniture' and 'chair', 'table' &c. we are on the borderline between elaboration and extension.

Semantic Types Are Classified By Grammatically-Construed Criteria And Structural Roles

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 87-8):

Semantic types in different taxonomic regions are distinguished according to different criteria; and they have different sets of roles. But the different criteria and sets of roles are construed within the grammar. …

(i) Phenomena within different taxonomic regions are classified according to different kinds of grammatically construed criteria. For example:

(a) perception (figures: subtype of sensing): according to means of perceiving: see (means: eyes)/ hear (means: ears)/ smell (means: nose)/...

(b) transformation (figures: subtype of doing): according to result, e.g. break (result: into pieces)/ melt (result: into liquid state)/ shrink (result: smaller)/ pulverise (result: powder, dust)/...

(c) motion (figures: subtype of doing): according to manner, location, purpose, e.g. fall (location: downwards)/ stroll (purpose: for pleasure)/ flee (purpose: to escape)/ walk (manner: with legs, fairly slowly)/...

(d) higher animals (elements: subtype of conscious thing, at the taxonomic depth of species): according to epithets of age and sex, e.g. cow (sex: female, age: adult), bull (sex: male, age: adult), calf (age: nonadult).

(e) artefacts (elements: a subtype of object): according to material, purpose, e.g. containers (purpose: to contain substances) — barrel (material: wood), basket (material: cane or other woven material), basin (material: metal), bowl (material: earthenware or glass).

(ii) Phenomena within different domains have different grammatically construed structural roles associated with them. For example:

(a) perception: perceiver & phenomenon being perceived;

(b) concrete thing (elements: subtype of object): various epithets, specifically of physical dimensions such as size, shape, weight, colour and age.

(c) weight (elements: subtype of quality): tensor, showing degree of intensity.

The Construal Of Delicacy In Ideational Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 87, 88):

In general, then, we can say that the move in delicacy in the ideation base from 'most general' to 'most delicate' is construed lexicogrammatically as the move from 'grammar' to 'lexis': see Figure 2-15. 

This is of fundamental significance in the construal of semantic categories. The early part of the scale of delicacy is construed in the grammatical 'zone'. This zone provides the resources of grammatical schematisation for construing more delicate categories: those categories are realised lexically but construed according to the systemic parameters of the grammar. For example, the grammar of the nominal group provides a schema for construing various delicate categories of things, by classifying, describing, ordering and other such strategies.

Lexically- vs Grammatically-Construed Taxonomies

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 86):

So far, our discussion of taxonomic elaboration has focussed on those steps in delicacy that tend to be construed lexically in the lexicogrammar. But in the overall meaning base, lexically construed folk and scientific taxonomies do not start at the highest degree of generality in delicacy; they are ordered in delicacy after those systems that are construed grammatically. For example, while 'plant' is the "unique beginner" of a particular folk taxonomy, there are several steps in the construal of things that are more general than this — steps that are constructed in the grammar, in categories such as 'thing', 'conscious/ non-conscious thing', 'countable/ non-countable thing' and the like.

The Move From Folk To Scientific Taxonomies

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 85-6, 7):

The ideation base embodies not only folk taxonomies but also a range of taxonomic models such as those used by experts and by scientists. These are all variants within the overall ideational system. …

The move from folk taxonomies towards scientific ones involves both an increase in steps in delicacy and a change in the criteria used for classification. Wignell, Martin & Eggins (1990) give examples from the classification of roses and of birds of prey. … For birds of prey, they contrast a folk taxonomy with a "birdwatchers' vernacular taxonomy". We superimpose these to give a sense of the difference; see Figure 2-14. 

These examples show the difference in degree of delicacy quite clearly; an increase in delicacy reflects the move in the direction of scientific knowledge. At the same time, the criteria for categorisation also change, from overt criteria that are accessible to the naked eye to covert criteria available only through the application of scientific techniques. The change in taxonomic criteria is very clear from a review of the early taxonomic stage of science in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries: see Slaughter (1986).

The Most Favoured Degree In Delicacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 84):

The most favoured 'band' in delicacy is that of the basic level: it is taxonomically most highly elaborated, it tends to be learnt first by children, and it construes categories with syndromes of usually salient functional and perceptual properties. … In addition, the "basic' degree in delicacy may have a special status in the instantiation of categories in text.In her study of lexicalisation in the pear stories, Downing (1980) found that the basic level was by far the most preferred one; these are the figures for concrete, nonhuman things (p. 106):

Such findings are interesting because they give some indication of what factors to consider in lexicalisation in text generation: a given phenomenon can, in principle, be construed at any point along the scale of delicacy. They are also interesting because they point to the relationship between the system and the instance: from the perspective of the system, we can observe that the basic degree of delicacy is most highly elaborated; from the perspective of the instance, we can observe that it is most frequent. However, we have to allow for considerable variation within a language — in particular, functional or registerial variation within the system according to the context of use, as in the variation between the spoken system of everyday life and the written system of science to which we turn next.

Berlin On The Elaboration Of Labelled Taxonomies

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 83-4):

Berlin (1972: 53) characterises the elaboration of labelled taxonomies as follows:

Generic names are fundamental and will occur first. These will be followed by the major life-form names and specific names. At yet a later period, intermediate taxa and varietal taxa will be labelled. Finally the last category to be lexically designated ... of any ethnobotanical lexicon will be the unique beginner. The suggested sequence can be seen diagrammatically as follows:

... no temporal ordering is implied for some categories. Thus no claim is made as to the priority in time of specific names over major life form names. On the other band a claim is made that a language must have encoded at least one major life-form name and one specific name before the appearance of intermediate and varietal named taxa.

The Nature And Degree Of Taxonomic Elaboration

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 83, 85):

Delicacy is a uniform ordering from most general to most delicate; but along this scale, semantic systems differ both in the number of distinctions at any one degree of delicacy and in the overall delicacy that is achieved. There are specific differences associated with particular taxonomic regions. For instance, humans and higher animals are much more highly elaborated than lower animals. But there are also general differences in the nature and degree of taxonomic elaboration associated with different 'bands' in delicacy. Such general taxonomic principles are probably best known for folk-taxonomies in the domains of plants and animals, diseases, and the like (e.g., Berlin, Breedlove & Raven, 1973; Conklin, 1962; Frake, 1962; Slaughter, 1986); these fall within 'element: participant: thing' in the ideation base. The maximum steps in delicacy in a folk taxonomy are kingdom (unique beginner), life form, basic (generic) level, specific level, and varietal level. These steps are by no means always present in every particular taxonomy; and they have different characteristics, summarised in Table 2(6) (for taxonomic examples, see Leech, 1974).

Taxonomic Elaboration

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 83):

Any option (category, semantic type) is thus located in the network relative to other options, first within its own system, and secondly in terms of the location of that system relative to others. For example, 'participant' is one option in the system 'participant/process/circumstance'; and that system is a more delicate elaboration of 'element'. We noted above in reference to Painter's work that the resources of figures of being are deployed in construing taxonomic relations. There is also a generalised set of nominal categories for construing steps in the delicacy hierarchy — e.g. type, kind, class; and some taxonomic regions have specific categories of their own, for example: brand, model, make, issue; genus, species, family.

Construing As Locating In A Network Of 3 Types Of Relations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 82-3):

From the typological point of view, construing experience in terms of categories means locating them somewhere in this network of relations. When we examine this network more closely, we find that there are actually three types of network involved: 

(1) taxonomic in the strict sense (i.e. based on hyponymy, 'a is a kind of x/ x subsumes a, b, c'), 

(2) taxonomic in the extended sense (i.e. based on meronymy, 'd is a part of y/ y has parts d, e, f'), and 

(3) eco-functional (i.e. based on selection, 'g has function m in environment z/ environment z comprises functions m, n, p, and function m may be filled by g, h, j'). 

Of these three, the first provides the global organising principle of elaboration in delicacy; while the third relates paradigmatic organisation to organisation on the syntagmatic axis.

Summary Of The Ontogenetic Perspective On Construing Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 81-2):

We can now sum up what can be learnt about construal from the ontogenetic perspective:

(i) Initially the child construes experience of phenomena that are in, or are brought into, a shared visual field; once constituted into meaning, the experience can be shared, validated and scaffolded dialogically in collaboration with other members of his/her meaning group.

(ii) The earlier experiences are clearly situated by virtue of the child's perception. But once the process of construal has been established, experience can be generalised in the form of semantic classes, and classes of classes; it can be further explored in terms of the semantic system itself; it can be developed vicariously through discourse, and extended to include purely abstract categories.

(iii) Categories are construed in the network of the ideation base in terms of different kinds of relations they enter into:

[1] globally, they are construed in terms of taxonomic elaboration: they form part of a system that is located somewhere in delicacy within the meaning base; 

[2] locally, they may be construed in terms of meronymic extension: they may form part of a local meronymic taxonomy, such as the cat and its body parts; 

[3] transcategorially, they may be construed in terms of the roles they play in some other type of category, such as the cat serving in certain participant roles of figures.

(iv) Categories are thus located within the ideational network. The network defines a multidimensional, elastic space; and locations within this space are not fixed, clearly bounded regions but rather regions with core or focal areas and more peripheral areas that shade into one another.

(v) The ideation base is a resource for construing extra-linguistic experience (such as visual experience). But it is also a semogenic resource for construing itself, since it is built up out of the kinds of relations it itself construes — relations such as intensive ascription. Once critical semantic mass has been built up, new categories can be construed internally within the system of the ideation base.

SFL Theory vs Semantic Primitives

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 76n):

² The ideational potential for construing such relations of restatement within the ideation base does not at all imply that meaning is analysed by means of decomposition into semantic primitives, 

(i) Semantic types (such as 'balance', 'cat') are not decomposed into their defining glosses within the ideation base; rather, they are construed as standing in an intensive token-value relationship to these glosses, 

(ii) The semantic types are construed internally to the ideation base according to their location in the elaborating taxonomy and can be restated in various ways, 

(iii) The semantic types may also construe extra-linguistic categories of experience; that is, they may have signification outside the ideation base.

Ontogenesis: Construing A Lexicalised Token As A Grammaticalised Value

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 76-7):

Stephen's definition of 'balance' is on a developmental path towards the kinds of definition used in educational and scientific discourse — definitions such as the dictionary definition of 'cat': a cat is a carnivorous mammal long domesticated and kept by man as a pet or for catching rats and mice… . The definition of 'cat' involves a move to a less delicate category ('carnivore' or 'carnivorous mammal', which can be reconstrued as 'mammal that eats meat' …) plus a qualification by a downranked sequence of figures of doing: see Figure 2-12.

In both examples, the definition construes a token-value relation between a fairly delicate semantic type that is lexicalised within the lexicogrammar and a restatement of this type by means of other resources in the ideation base. The restatement draws more on the resources towards the grammatical end of the scale, so that in the definition a lexicalised token is construed as a grammaticalised value.

This entails a shift from construing experience through depth in the experiential taxonomy towards construing experience through expansion in a logical sequence. In the first example, this only involves a downranked sequence of figures; in the second example, this involves a move towards a less delicate category plus a downranked sequence of figures. The first example can actually be interpreted as meaning 'the condition when you hold it on your fingers and it doesn't fall off', showing that the downranked sequence has the class meaning of 'condition'.

Ontogenesis: Construing New Meanings In Terms Of The Semantic System Itself

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 75-6):

Also in his fourth year, Stephen begins to extend his deployment of figures of being to include not only the ascriptive mode ('a is a member of x') but also the identifying mode ('y equals x') so that he can explicitly relate meanings in his ideation base in the form of definitions.

For example, in Balance means [[you hold it on your fingers and it doesn't go]], he construes a single class of abstract participant, 'balance', as something defined in terms of a sequence of figures, 'you hold it on your fingers and it doesn't fall off: see Figure 2-11. 

 

He is now in a position to construe new meanings in terms of the semantic system itself; that is, they do not necessarily have to be 'imported' from direct extra-linguistic experience. As Painter points out, this is yet another expansion of his semantic resources preparing him for educational learning in later life where experience is very often vicarious experience, constructed entirely in educational discourse.

Ontogenesis: Providing Causal Evidence For Categorisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 75):

In his fourth year, Stephen begins to provide causal evidence for categorisation, by adding an enhancing figure. The figure that is linked causally specifies attributes that are critical to the construal. For example: Mother refers to Bond airship as 'spaceship balloon' — Stephen: Not a spaceship — an airship — cause a spaceship has bits like this to stand it up; Stephen (pointing at page numbers): That's fifteen because it's got a five; that's fourteen because it's got a four. 

These causal relations are internal (Halliday & Hasan, 1976), i.e. oriented towards the interpersonal act of communication itself ('I know it is an x, because it has feature y') rather than external ('it is an x, because it has feature y'). 

In other words, Stephen is attending to the act of construal itself — 'I construe it as x because of y'. At this stage in the development of Stephen's construal of experience, the construal has become something that is not only shared, but can also be explicitly negotiated and argued about.

Ontogenesis: Construing Categories Externally And Internally

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 73-5):

Construing experience as meaning means locating classes such as squares and circles somewhere in the semantic system, both locally as terms in systems and also more globally in the ordering of these systems in delicacy. 

Painter comments: "... through the naming utterances where Stephen was practising signification, he was also necessarily construing the things of his experience into taxonomies". So Stephen also construes the attributes of semantic classes, attributes that will help him sort out the organisation of the semantic system. …

When Stephen's meaning potential has gained critical semantic mass, he begins to construe its own internal organisation explicitly in an effort to sort out taxonomic relations within the system. … Again, the resource for construing 'categories' is the intensive ascriptive figure of being; but now both the Carrier and the Attribute are meanings internal to the semantic system. That is, Stephen construes a taxonomic relationship between e.g. 'seal' and 'animal' by construing them as Carrier + Attribute:

Painter comments: "The importance of this development is that it constitutes a move on Stephen's part from using language to make sense of non-linguistic phenomena to using language to make sense of the valeur relations of the meaning system itself." We can diagram the contrast between these two steps in construing experience as categories of meaning as in Figure 2-10.

Blogger Comments:

Relating this to Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, 'visually shared experience' can be understood as the meaning that perceptual (semiotic) systems construe of experience. On the SFL assumption of immanence, domains outside semiotic systems are not meaningful of themselves.

Importantly, the 'external' ascriptive relation here is the subtype 'instantiation' which is a token to type relation (op. cit.:145), so construing categories 'externally' is relating perceptual tokens to semantic types.

'Categorisation' In Ontogenesis

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 73):

Painter (1996) provides a key to the understanding of how linguistic resources are deployed in 'categorisation' in language development, drawing on her longitudinal case study of one child, Stephen, between 2 1/2 and 5 years.

The first stage in categorisation is naming individuals as members of classes; instances of the visual experience shared by the young child and his father or mother are ascribed to some general class of experience by means of a figure of being. At about 2 1/2, Stephen produced examples such as: Stephen (examining pattern on a rug): That's a square. What's that? — Mother: That's a circle. Here some perceived phenomenon of experience is brought "into intersubjective focus" by being referred to exophorically — pointing verbally, so to speak, to some feature of the material setting, sometimes accompanied by or replaced by a pointing as a gesture. This phenomenon is construed by Stephen as the Carrier of the figure of being, and is ascribed as a member of some general class of experience, construed as the Attribute of the figure. Stephen is 'importing' experience of instances into the semantic system by ascribing them to general classes in that system. This is an act of naming, and later this act itself gets named by call (see also Halliday, 1977, on calling as an early example of language being turned back on itself).

Children thus build up experience as meaning, in contexts such as the one exemplified above.

Ontogenesis: Generalising From Individual Names To Class Names

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 73):

The ideation base is thus a resource both for construing experience and for construing its own construal of experience. It has the potential for expanding itself precisely because it includes a theory of how meanings are construed When children begin to make the transition from proto-language into language (that is, when they begin to develop the system of the mother tongue, typically early in the second year of life), these resources for self-construal are not yet in place. The first things that are construed by naming are individuals; there is as yet no potential for taxonomies of general classes. But children soon take the critical step of generalising across individuals (see e.g. Halliday, 1993a, on generalisation). From a lexicogrammatical point of view, this means that naming has been generalised from individual names ("proper nouns") to class names ("common nouns").

Blogger Comments:

Viewed through the lens of SFL Theory, the shift from naming individuals to naming classes is the shift from assigning token-value relations (identity) to assigning token-type relations (ascription: instantiation); see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 145).

The Semantic System Includes A Theory Of How Meanings Are Construed

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 72-3):

One central semantic motif that has emerged from these studies is that of elaboration: both in relational clauses (realising figures of being & having) and in complexes, especially nominal ones (the traditional notion of apposition, realising sequences of participants). Here elaboration is at work e.g. in 'distilling' new meanings over extended passages. That is, the semantic system includes a theory of how meanings are construed; and this theory is itself a resource for construing new meanings. Thus when a young child says cats also aren't people, he is using a type of figure of being & having to construe a taxonomic relationship in the ideation base, so that the membership of 'cats' (construed as Carrier) in the class of 'people' (construed as Attribute) can be probed, in this case to 'outclassify' cats from the class of people. Figures of being & having of the intensive and ascriptive kind thus construe, among other things, the taxonomic relation among classes or types in the semantic system.

The ideation base is thus a resource both for construing experience and for construing its own construal of experience. It has the potential for expanding itself precisely because it includes a theory of how meanings are construed

The Systemic-Functional Position On Categorisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 72):

From a systemic-functional point of view, the intellectual context was rather different. Systemic-functional theory was not oriented towards philosophy and logic, and the Aristotelian conception of a category did not figure as a traditional frame of reference that therefore had to be rejected. Already at the outset of the theoretical work that was to become systemic-functional theory, a major descriptive focus was on intonation (see e.g. Halliday, 1963a, b, 1967), a domain that clearly cannot be construed in Aristotelian terms; and the notion of cline was part of the theory already in the first major statement (see Halliday, 1961). Further, the system was conceived of as a probabilistic one even in proto-systemic work (see e.g. Halliday, 1956).

Systemic-functional work on 'categorisation' has thus not engaged with the philosophical tradition; nor has it tended to proceed by experimental methods. Rather, it has been concerned with how meaning is construed in naturally occurring text, e.g. in child language studies (Halliday, 1975 onwards; Painter, 1996) and in factual writing (e.g. Halliday & Martin, 1993; Harvey, in prep.). Here one of the questions has been what resources are available in the semantic system for construing new meanings — for 'category development', both in the ontogenetic time frame and in the logogenetic time frame.

The Cognitive Linguistic Position On Categorisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 72):

Categorisation has received much attention in recent work in linguistics, especially within the framework of cognitive science. The received tradition was the classical or Aristotelian conception of a category as a type definable in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions — its essential characteristics rather than its accidental ones. One central aim of cognitively oriented linguists has been to show that the Aristotelian conception does not apply to semantic categories, which have to be re-theorised in terms of prototype theory. The initial impetus came from a series of well-known experiments in categorisation by E. Rosch and by Labov (1973) and from Berlin & Kay's (1969) study of colour terms across languages; Wittgenstein's notion of family resemblances had provided an earlier insight within a philosophical frame of reference (cf. Ellis, 1993). Since there are now a number of summaries of these positions, and of the critique of the Aristotelian conception (e.g. Lakoff, 1987; Taylor, 1989), we will not review the discussion here.

The Relationship Between Typological And Topological Perspectives

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 70-1):

What is the relationship between these two perspectives on meaning? So far in work on semantics only the typological perspective has been able to be realised in a formal system; the power of the topological perspective still derives largely from the metaphor of space within theories of meaning. For present purposes, we can say that the topological organisation construes a semantic space, creating the correspondences shown in Table 2(4).

Both perspectives are valuable. The typological perspective allows us to gain insight into the organisation of meaning through the network, both as theoretical metaphor and as a system of formal representation. The topological perspective gives us complementary benefits — in the first instance, the general notion of a multidimensional elastic space. We have indicated in the rightmost column some implications that derive from adopting the topological perspective. The general motif here is that of indeterminacy. For example, we can show how regions of meaning overlap (e.g. doing & happening overlapping with sensing in an area of 'sensing as activity'). We will use informal topological diagrams at various points in our discussion to bring out this central feature of the ideational system.

The last row in the table above also represents indeterminacy, but this is indeterminacy of a particular kind, relating to the probabilistic nature of the semantic system. The types in the semantic system are instantiated according to probability values; these are manifested as relative frequencies in text. The equivalent in the spatial interpretation of meaning would be curvature or chreodisation. Chreodisation embodies time and represents the change of systemic probabilities over time (see e.g. Waddington, 1977, Sheldrake, 1988: Ch. 6, for discussion).

Blogger Comments:

Waddington modelled biological development as unfolding in an abstract space in which there were canals (curvatures) that represented the necessary path of development ('chreode'), which, crucially, the process of development could return to after being perturbed. Here Halliday & Matthiessen are only concerned with using space curvature as a means of representing probability differences topologically.

Topology Example: Content Plane

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 69, 71):

We can now consider a comparable example from the content plane of language — from the ideation base. In our description of sequences, we recognised two simultaneous systems: the relative status of the figures ('equal/ unequal') and the kind of relationship between them ('projecting/ expanding'). This account constitutes the typological perspective on this region of the ideation base; it is mapped onto the topological perspective in Figure 2-9. Sequences are thus construed as a two-dimensional region within the overall semantic space. The correspondences are the same as those already noted for the vowel space. 

Topology Example: Expression Plane

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 69, 70):

We shall relate typology and topology to one another as complementary perspectives on meaning, and then we shall say a few words about the value of keeping the topological perspective in view. Let us start with our analogy from the expression plane: a vowel system can be construed both typologically as a set of systems, e.g. two systems 'front/ back' & 'open/ closed' defining four vowel values, and topologically as a two-dimensional space with four focal (core, cardinal vowel) locations. These two perspectives are related to one another in Figure 2-8. 

Each system in the typology corresponds to a dimension in the topology. We can thus say that the two simultaneous systems correspond to a two-dimensional space. The systemic terms, or values, correspond to regions within the vowel space along one of its dimensions; an intersection of two systemic terms such as 'front* & 'open' is a region located along two dimensions. If we add further systems in the typology, e.g. rounding ('rounded/ unrounded'), nasality ('nasal/ non-nasal') and tongue root position ('neutral position/ advanced position'), these will correspond to further dimensions in the vowel space. With tongue root position we are still maintaining a reasonably congruent relationship between our representation of the vowel space and the oral cavity in which vowels are articulated, since advanced tongue root position is simply a global shift of the whole space; but with nasality we are beginning to use our representation more metaphorically, since the control of airflow through the nose is not a feature of the oral cavity.

Typological And Topological Perspectives On The Organisation Of Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 68-9):

So far we have sketched the most general organisation of the ideation base as a typology of semantic types or classes. This is one theoretical perspective on the organisation — a perspective realised in certain conventional systems of representation, such as the system network. It allows us to bring out quite clearly the global organisation of the ideation base as a resource for construing experience; and it also allows us to show how the semantic types in this global organisation are interrelated, as in the case of participants filling Actor and Goal rôles in figures of doing. 

At the same time, there is another theoretical perspective on the organisation of meaning — the topological perspective. Here meaning is construed in terms of a spatial metaphor: we can view the ideation base as an elastic, multidimensional semantic space. This metaphor is already familiar in discussions of meaning; we find it in Trier's notion of semantic fields, in the distinction between core meanings and more peripheral meanings, in specifications of semantic distance, and so on.

The notion of a vowel space (with its 'cardinal vowels') provides a familiar analogy. As a material construction, it is limited to the three dimensions of physical space; but as a physiological space, it accommodates variation along a number of dimensions, and brings an elasticity to the expression plane that is in some extent analogous to the metaphorical elasticity that we are ascribing to the plane of the content.

Domains Of Categorisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 68):

Naturally our categorisation tends to be oriented towards phenomena on a particular scale, those that lie within the bandwidth of those phenomena which are most readily accessible to our senses and which we engage with in day to day existence. This is the realm which impinges most closely on our physical, biological and social being; the semantic system has evolved with this as its primary semogenic environment. Lying beyond this are the micro- and the macro-worlds which are accessible to us only by instrument and by inference. 

It is a powerful demonstration of the potential of the semantic system that it readily fashions new meanings that model these experientially remote domains. What is less obvious, perhaps, is that it has had to be equally resourceful in modelling the ongoing changes in our social environment, where both the overall social order and our local interpersonal networks are constantly being modified and realigned.

Categorising Is A Creative Act

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 68):

Categorisation is often thought of as a process of classifying together phenomena that are inherently alike, the classes being as it were given to us by the nature of the experience itself. But this is not what really happens. Categorising is a creative act: it transforms our experience into meaning, and this means imposing a categorical order rather than putting labels on an order that is already there. As Ellis has expressed it, categorisation consists in grouping together sets of phenomena that are essentially not alike (1993: Ch. 3). There would be indefinitely many ways of construing analogies among different elements in the total flux of experience; what our semantic resources enable us to do is to construe those analogies which yield categories resonating with what as a species, and as members of a particular culture, we have found to carry material and symbolic value.

Semantic Types Are Categories To Which Phenomenological Instances Are Ascribed

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 66):

We have presented an initial sketch of the ideation base as a resource for construing our experience of the world around us and inside us. The focus of this sketch was the most general system of semantic types such as 'figure', 'being-&-having', 'participant', 'conscious being'. These semantic types are categories to which phenomenological instances are ascribed; they thus embody the fundamental principle of generalising across individual phenomenological variation. And they are located somewhere in delicacy between the most general type, the all-inclusive class of 'phenomenon', and the most delicate types we can recognise as being codified lexically in English.

General Options For Sequence, Figure And Element

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 65, 67):

Plate 10 below shows the lattice as described up to this point, incorporating all the categories introduced above (but still omitting those embodying any grammatical metaphor).