Condition & Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 119):

The logico-semantic relation of condition, which is prototypically construed as a form of enhancement, could also be construed as a kind of projection … Words such as supposing and assuming are verbs of projection which have come to function as conjunctions in conditional figures; while other words such as imagine and say retain more of their projecting force. … This is an uncertain region in which a figure hangs in the air, so to speak, suspended between the hypothetical material plane and the semiotic one.

Expansion Topology

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 119):

… extending in some sense occupies a space intermediate between elaborating and enhancing, and shares a fuzzy borderline with each.

Enhancement

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 117):

enhancement … is, in a sense, extension plus a circumstantial feature.

Elaboration: Identity & Inclusion

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 117):

… identity is the limiting case of inclusion and inclusion is partial identity.

Quoting Vs Reporting: Speech Function & Mood

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 114-5):

… in quoting, where the projected clause retains its mood, the general verb say can be used whatever speech function is being projected. In reporting, on the other hand, the projected clause is no longer specified for mood; its speech function is signalled by the verb in the projecting clause.

Projected Proposals Vs Projected Propositions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 114):

Projected proposals are non-actual, or uninstantiated: that is, the occurrence of a projected proposal is always future in relation to the figure that projects it. In contrast, propositions are actual, or instantiated: that is, the occurrence of a proposition is located in actual time (which may be past, present or future).

Interpersonal Semantics & Orders Of Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 113):

Interpersonal semantics is centrally concerned with varieties of symbolic exchange. … the system is organised in such a way that it creates a difference between non-symbolic reality and symbolic reality, between phenomena and metaphenomena. The “commodity” that is being exchanged in interpersonal dialogue is either semiotic or material: it is either one that is construed by language itself — information — or it is one that exists independently of language — goods & services. In the first case, language constitutes the exchange; in the second, it facilitates the exchange of a non-linguistic commodity.

Why Quote Locutions & Report Ideas?

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 111):

… where the first-order phenomenon is one of saying (prototypically shared semiosis), the projected figure can be presented as if it was also of the same order; … Where the first-order phenomenon is one of sensing (unshared semiosis), the projected figure has no counterpart on the first-order plane of experience and cannot be naturally presented as if it had …

Ideas Vs Locutions [Definition]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 111):

Ideas are projections which are sensed, locutions are projections which are said.

Second-Order Experience [Definition]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 108): 

This second-order level of reality is the content plane of a semiotic system.

Non-Human Sayers

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 106-7): 

… 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 non-human as well as to a human sayer …

Language & Orders Of Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 106):

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 wordings that these processes bring into being.

Construing Orders Of Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 106): 

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.

Propositional Logic Vs Natural Logic

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 104n): 

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.

Evolved Natural Logic Vs Designed Propositional Logic

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 104):

… ‘natural logic’ … the evolved system for reasoning about relations of cause, conditionality, etc from which propositional logic has been derived by design.

Construing Abstract Categories

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 97): 

As [children] 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 abstract domains of a purely symbolic world, where the significations of semantic categories are abstract categories in social and socio-semiotic systems. … The semantic categories are themselves construed by means of realisation; they are constructed within the grammar and lexis of a language.

Assigning Semantic Values To Experiential Tokens

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 97): 

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.

Hyponymic Elaboration Vs Meronymic Extension

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.

Construing Experience As Categories

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 82): 

From a typological point of view, construing experience in terms of categories means locating them somewhere in [a] network of relations.

Construing Experience As Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 82):

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 … once the process of construal has been established, experience can be generalised in the form of semantic classes, and classes of classes … and extended to include purely abstract categories.

What Our Semantic Resources Enable Us To Do

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 68):

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.

Categorising Transforms Our Experience Into Meaning

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.

Semantic Features

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 46):

The semantic types represented by the features of systems in the system network do not constitute discrete Aristotelian categories; they are values on semantic clines — core regions to use the metaphor of semantic space.

The Cline Of Instantiation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 45):

However, instantiation also defines a scale between the potential and the instance, with intermediate patterns of instantiation.

The Instance [Definition]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 45) 

The instance is thus a set of features selected, with associated realisational specifications — an instantial pattern over the potential.

How To Represent Instantiation As A Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 45):

As a process, instantiation can be represented as involving traversal of the system network and activation of realisation statements.

Realisation Statement [Definition]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 43): 

A realisation statement is a minimal specification of a piece of structure or configuration of rôles presented in a paradigmatic context; it is always associated with a particular systemic feature. … The general form of a realisation statement is ‘realisation operator + one or more realisation operands’ … The operators … are insert, conflate and preselect.

Entry Condition [Definition]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 42): 

… the condition under which the systemic choice is available. The entry condition may be a single feature or a complex of features, conjunct and/or disjunct. These features must serve as terms in other systems.

System Network [Definition]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 41-2): 

A system network is an acyclic directed graph, consisting of systems partially ordered in delicacy. Each system constitutes a choice (alternation, opposition) between two or more terms.

Principal Criterion For Distinguishing Participants & Circumstances

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 27):

… the interpersonal grammar provides for participants, within the ideational dimension of the clause, to function as Subjects; but this potential is not in general open to circumstances, and this is a principal reason for distinguishing these two classes within the ideational metafunction.

Cryptotypes Vs Phenotypes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 26):

We consider not only overt categories but also covert ones. The understanding of covert categories in the grammar is due to Whorf (1956: 88ff), who made the distinction between overt categories or phenotypes and covert categories or cryptotypes …

Lexicogrammar And Semantics Originate As One

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 26): 

Thus when we move from the lexicogrammar into the semantics, as we are doing here, we are not simply relabelling everything in a new terminological guise. We shall stress the fundamental relationship between (say) clause complex in the grammar and sequence in the semantics, precisely because the two originate as one: a theory of the logical relationships between processes.

Scientific Theories

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 25):

Every scientific theory is itself a stratal-semiotic system, in which the relation among the different levels of abstraction is one of realisation. … since all such theories are modelled on natural language in the first place; and … the semantics of natural language is itself a theory of daily experience.

No Causal Relation Between Strata

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 25):

In any stratal system (i.e. any system where there are two strata such that one is the realisation of the other) there is no temporal or causal ordering between the strata. … the relationship is an intensive one, not a causal circumstantial one.

The Grammar Construes Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 17):

The view we are adopting is a constructivist one, familiar from European linguistics in the work of Hjelmslev and Firth.  According to this view, it is the grammar itself that construes experience, that constructs for us our world of events and objects.  As Hjelmslev (1943) said, reality is unknowable; the only things that are known are our construals of it — that is, meanings.  Meanings do not ‘exist’ before the wordings that realise them.  They are formed out of the impact between our consciousness and its environment.

Distinguishing Delicacy From Instantiation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 15): 

Note that it is important to keep delicacy and instantiation distinct. … The difference is essentially that between being a type of x (delicacy) and being a token of x (instantiation). Both may be construed by intensive ascription …

Axial Relations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 13):

… on the one hand, syntagmatic organisation realises paradigmatic organisation; on the other hand, types in a network of paradigmatic organisation correspond to fragments of syntagmatic specification …

Paradigmatic Vs Syntagmatic Construal

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 13):

In paradigmatic construal, we construe a phenomenon as being of some particular type — some selection from a set of potential types. … In syntagmatic construal, we construe a phenomenon as having some particular composition — as consisting of parts in some structural configuration.

The Scope Of Ideational Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 13): 

[This] does not imply, however, that the scope of ideational semantics does not extend over sequences longer than a clause complex.

Social Personæ

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 12):

… the social personæ of the interactants … is a model of the interpersonal and ideational distance between speaker and listener.

Stratal Metaredundancy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 4n): 

… more properly: semantics is realised by the realisation of lexicogrammar in phonology.

Levels & Expansion Type

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 4n):

The ambiguity [of ‘level’ as either stratum or rank] resides in the overlap of two grammatical relations, those of elaboration (‘be’) and of extension (‘have’) …

Rank Scale Defined

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 4n):

… the hierarchy of units according to their constituency potential.

Stratification: Orders Of Abstraction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 4):

Here the relationship is not one of ‘consists of’ or ‘is a subset of’: the [cotangential] circles show the stratal environment of each level — thus lexicogrammar appears in the environment of semantics and provides the environment for phonology. This ordering of levels is known as stratification. … each level is a network of inter–related options, either in meaning, wording or sounding, which are realised as structures, based on the principle of rank. … 

Language, therefore, is a resource organised into three strata differentiated according to order of abstraction. These strata are related by means of realisation.

Experience Defined In Linguistic Terms

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 3):

Our contention is that there is no ordering of experience other than the ordering given to it by language.  We could in fact define experience in linguistic terms: experience is the reality we construe for ourselves by means of language.

All Knowledge Is Constituted In Semiotic Systems

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 3):

We contend that the conception of 'knowledge' as something that exists independently of language, and may then be coded or made manifest in language, is illusory.  All knowledge is constituted in semiotic systems, with language as the most central; and all such representations of knowledge are constructed from language in the first place.

The Categories And Relations Of Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: xi):

… we stress that the categories and relations of experience are not “given” to us by nature, to be passively reflected in our language, but are actively constructed by language, with the lexicogrammar as the driving force.

Modelling Cognition

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: x):

… cognition “is” (that is, can most profitably be modelled as) not thinking but meaning: the “mental” map is in fact a semiotic map, and “cognition” is just a way of talking about language. … Instead of explaining language by reference to cognitive processes, we will explain cognition by reference to linguistic processes.

Context Defined

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: ix):

… what people do with language (whether this modelled as social action, as cognitive process or as some form of abstract value system).

Text (Discourse) Analysis: Why A Text Is Meaningful

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 658):

A text is meaningful because it is an actualisation of the potential that constitutes the linguistic system; it is for this reason that the study of discourse (‘text linguistics’) cannot properly be separated from the study of the grammar that lies behind it.

Text (Discourse) Analysis: Metaphorical Interpretation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 658):

What the metaphorical interpretation does is to suggest how an instance in the text may be referred to the system of language as a whole. It is therefore an important link in the total chain of explanations whereby we relate the text to the system.

Text (Discourse) Analysis: Purpose

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 658):

In the most general terms, the purpose of analysis a text is to explain the impact that it makes: why it means what it does, and why it gives the particular impression that it does.

Metaphorical Wording

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 657):

The important point to make is that a piece of wording that is metaphorical has as it were an additional dimension of meaning: it ‘means’ both metaphorically and congruently. … however far one may choose to go in unpacking ideational metaphor, it is important also to analyse each instance as it is.

Nominalisation: Evolution

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 657):

This kind of nominalising metaphor probably evolved first in scientific and technical registers, where it played a dual rôle: it made it possible on the one hand to construct hierarchies of technical terms, and on the other hand to develop an argument step by step, using complex passages ‘packaged’ in nominal form as Themes. It has gradually worked its way through into most other varieties of adult discourse, in much of which, however, it loses its original raison d’être and tends to become merely a mark of prestige and power.

Nominalisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 656-7):

Nominalising is the single most powerful resource for creating grammatical metaphor. By this device, processes (congruently worded as verbs) and properties (congruently worded as adjectives) are reworded metaphorically as nouns; instead of functioning in the clause, as Process or Attribute, they function as Thing in the nominal group. … What the happens to the original ‘things’? They get displaced by the metaphoric ones, and so are reduced to modifying these…

Spoken Choreographic Complexity Vs Written Crystalline Complexity

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 656):

In spoken language, the ideational content is loosely strung out, but in clausal patterns that can become highly intricate in movement: the complexity is dynamic — we might think of it in choreographic terms. In written language, the clausal patterns are typically simple; but the ideational content is densely packed in nominal constructions: here the complexity is more static — perhaps crystalline.

How To Measure Lexical Density

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 655):

To measure lexical density, simply divide the number of lexical items by the number of ranking clauses.

Written Vs Spoken Complexity

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 654):

Typically, written language becomes complex by being lexically dense: it packs a large number of lexical items into each clause; whereas spoken language becomes complex by being grammatically intricate: it builds up elaborate clause complexes out of parataxis and hypotaxis.

Why The Downgrading In Ideational Metaphor Is Possible

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 646):

These successive steps in downgrading are possible because both projection and expansion are motifs that are manifested throughout the grammatical system: a sequence of projection can thus be realised not only by the manifestation of projection in the clause nexus, but also by its manifestation in the clause or the group/phrase. The same principle applies to expansion.

The Downgrading Tendency Of Ideational Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 646):

… the general tendency for ideational metaphor is to ‘downgrade’ the domain of grammatical realisation of a semantic sequence, figure or element — from clause nexus to clause, from clause to group/phrase, and even from group or phrase to word. Such downgrading affects both the unit whose domain of realisation is downgraded, and the units of which it is composed: the downgrading proceeds down the rank scale by a kind of ‘domino effect’.

The Upgrading Tendency Of Interpersonal Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 646):

The general tendency is for interpersonal metaphor to ‘upgrade’ the domain of grammatical realisation; for example, while the congruent realisation of modality is a group serving in the clause, the metaphorical realisation is a clause that projects or embeds the clause to which a modal value is assigned. In this way, interpersonal metaphor tends to expand interpersonal systems by adding explicit variants — that is, variants where the subjective or objective orientation is made explicit.

The Strategy That Is Ideational Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 646):

… grammatical metaphor of the ideational kind is primarily a strategy enabling us to transform our experience of the world: the model of experience construed in the congruent mode is reconstrued in the metaphorical mode, creating a model that is further removed from our everyday experience — but which has made modern science possible.

Interpersonal Effects Of Ideational Metaphor: Figure Realised By Group Or Phrase

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 645):

… when a figure is realised metaphorically by a group or phrase, it is deprived of the interpersonal status of a proposition or proposal, making it inarguable. It is thus presented as something already established; and any modifications, including interpersonal evaluative ones, have to be taken for granted.

Interpersonal Effects Of Ideational Metaphor: Sequence Realised By Clause

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 645):

When a sequence is realised metaphorically by a clause, it is given the interpersonal status of a proposition or proposal, making it arguable. … a ‘propositionalised’ sequence can be modalised, doubted, argued and negotiated interpersonally in numerous other ways.

Textual Effects Of Ideational Metaphor: Figure Realised By Nominal Group

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 644):

… a figure, realised metaphorically by a nominal group rather than congruently as a clause, gains access to the textual systems of the nominal group — most significantly, the system of determination.  This means it can be treated textually as a discourse referent.  It is marked either as ‘non-specific’ or as ‘specific’, in which case the identity is presented as recoverable to the addressee.

Textual Effects Of Ideational Metaphor: Sequence Realised By Clause

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 642-3, 644): 

When a sequence is realised metaphorically by a clause, this means not only that it is mapped onto the transitivity patterns of the clause but also that it falls within the domain of Theme + Rheme organisation of the clause and also, by extension, that of the Given + New organisation of the information unit. … There is thus a gain in textual meaning in the shift from the congruent mode of realisation to the metaphoric mode.

… when a sequence is realised by a clause rather than by a clause nexus, it will be structured textually into Theme + Rheme and, since a clause is an information unit in the unmarked case, also into Given + New. This means that the figures that make up the sequence can be given thematic or newsworthy status.

Ideational Metaphor: Textual And Interpersonal Significance

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 642):

The textual and interpersonal effects of ideational metaphor are due to the fact the realignment of ideational patterns […] also means that there is a realignment of the textual and interpersonal environments in which ideational systems operate.

Ideational Metaphor As An Experientialisation Of Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 642):

Within the ideational metafunction, the general effect of this realignment in the semantic system is a shift from the logical to the experiential — an experientialisation of experience. Thus logical sequences of figures are reconstrued as experiential configurations of elements.

Ideational Metaphor: Loss Of Ideational Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 642):

… the tactic patterns of clause complexing (with the distinction between paratactic interdependency and hypotactic dependency) are not available to sequences that are realised metaphorically as clauses, and the configurational patterns of participant rôles are lost or obscured when figures are realised as groups or phrases.

Ideational Metaphor: Expanding And Contracting Potential

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 641-2):

… the metaphorical mode thus makes available a great deal of further ideational potential that is not accessible in the congruent mode. At the same time, the metaphorical mode also denies access to significant aspects of potential that is associated with the congruent mode: there is a loss of ideational meaning.

The Underlying Significance Of Re-Mappings Between Semantics And Grammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 640):

… the ideational metafunction is a resource for construing our experience of the world that lies around us and inside us. In the congruent mode, the grammar construes sequences (of figures), figures and elements as the basic phenomena of experience… . In the metaphorical mode, the model is enriched through combinations of these categories: in addition to the congruent categories, we now also have metaphorical combinations of categories — sequences construed as figures, figures construed as elements, and so on. These combinations open up new meaning potential.

Ideational Metaphor: Why Realisational Re-Mappings Are Possible [Transgrammatical Semantic Domains]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 640):

The ‘re-mapping’ is possible because semantic motifs such as cause are manifested repeatedly in the different environments of the grammar so that each environment is a possible domain of realisation for such a motif. These motifs are of the two primary types, expansion and projection…

Ideational Metaphor As Realisational Re-Mappings

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 639):

… grammatical metaphor within the ideational metafunction involves a ‘re-mapping’ between sequences, figures and elements in the semantics and clause nexuses, clauses and groups in the grammar. … In the metaphorical mode, the whole set of mappings seems to be shifted ‘downwards’: a sequence is realised by a clause, a figure is realised by a group, and an element is realised by a word.

Metaphor: Additional Layers Of Meaning And Wording

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 638):

Just like interpersonal metaphor, ideational metaphor introduces additional layers of meaning that are construed by the grammar as additional layers of wording.

Ideational Metaphor: Ontogenesis

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 636):

Unlike interpersonal metaphor, the other type of grammatical metaphor, ideational metaphor, is learned later by children and is not part of the grammar of ordinary, spontaneous conversation that children meet in the home and neighbourhood; rather it is associated with the discourses of education and science, bureaucracy and the law. Children are likely to meet the ideational type of metaphor when they reach the upper levels of primary school; but its full force will only appear when they begin to grapple with the specialised discourses of subject-based secondary education.

The Metaphorical Expansion Of Interpersonal Meaning Potential

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 636):

The expansion of the interpersonal semantic system through grammatical metaphor provides speakers with additional, powerful resources for enacting social rôles and relations in the complex network of relations that make up the fabric of a community of any kind.

The Interpersonal Metafunction And The Ontogenesis Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 636):

The interpersonal metafunction defines the environment in which children first learn the strategy of grammatical metaphor [a manifestation of a more general principle]. No doubt this is partly because interpersonal metaphors tend to make selections more explicit, as when probability is realised by a ‘mental’ clause projecting the modalised proposition (‘explicit’ orientation), and partly because the interpretation of interpersonal metaphors is often both supported and ‘tested’ immediately in the ongoing dialogic interaction.

Representing Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 634):

Both interpersonal and ideational metaphors can be represented in the same way, by postulating some congruent form and then analysing the two in relation to each other.

Metaphors Of Mood: Commands Realised As Indicative Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 632-3):

In addition to metaphors based on ideational projection, there are other kinds of metaphors of mood as well. One prominent type involves a shift in the realisational domain of commands from ‘imperative’ to ‘indicative’ clauses. The ‘indicative’ clause can be either ‘declarative’ or ‘interrogative’; … The ‘indicative’ realisation of proposals has the effect of blurring the line between proposals directed to the addressee and propositions about how the world ought to be.

Interpersonal Iconicity: Semiotic And Social Distance

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 631):

The potential for negotiation in dialogue created by metaphors of mood is directly related to the contextual variables of tenor. These are usually discussed in terms of status, formality and politeness. What they have in common is a very general sense of the social distance between the speaker and the addressee. Here interpersonal metaphor is part of a principle of interpersonal iconicity: metaphorical variants create a greater semiotic distance between meaning and wording, and this enacts a greater social distance between speaker and addressee.

Speech Function And Interpersonal Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 627):

… just like modality, speech function can be represented as a substantive proposition in its own right; and this proposition is a figure of sensing or saying that projects the original (i) proposal or (ii) proposition… .

Imperative Mood And Modulation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 627):

On the one hand, an ‘imperative’ clause imposes an obligation; on the other hand, the imperative tag checks the addressee’s inclination to comply… .

Interpersonal Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 626):

Interpersonal projection always involves the speaker or addressee as ‘projector’… . It is always implicit unless it is made explicit through grammatical metaphor, by ‘co-opting’ ideational resources to do interpersonal service.

The Metaphoric Strategy In Explicit Modality

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 626):

The metaphoric strategy is to upgrade the interpersonal assessment from group rank to clause rank — from an adverbial group or prepositional phrase serving within a simple clause to a clause serving within a clause nexus of projection.

The Systemic Effect Of Interpersonal Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 626):

Systemically, metaphor leads to an expansion of the meaning potential: by creating new patterns of structural realisation, it opens up new systemic domains of meaning.  And it is the pressure to expand the meaning potential that in fact lies behind the development of metaphorical modes of meaning.  Thus in the system of modality, the system of orientation is expanded by the addition of a systemic contrast in manifestation between ‘explicit’ and ‘implicit’…

The General Effect Of Interpersonal Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 626):

…the semantic domain of modality is extended through grammatical metaphor to include explicit indications of subjective and objective orientation: a modal proposition or proposal is realised, as if it were a projection sequence, by a nexus of two clauses, rather than by a single clause. Here the modal assessment itself is given the status of a proposition in its own right; but because the projecting clause of the nexus is metaphorical in nature, standing for an interpersonal assessment of modality, it is also, at the same time, a modal Adjunct in the clause realising the proposition/proposal. This is the general effect of grammatical metaphor: it construes additional layers of meaning and wording.

The Apparent Paradox Of Modality

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 624-5):

The importance of modal features in the grammar of interpersonal exchanges lie in an apparent paradox on which the entire system rests — the fact that we only say we are certain when we are not.

Modality: Why Explicit Forms Are Metaphorical

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 624):

The explicitly subjective and explicitly objective forms of modality are all strictly speaking metaphorical, since all of them represent the modality as being the substantive proposition. Modality represents the speaker’s angle, either on the validity of the assertion or on the rights and wrongs of the proposal; in its congruent form, it is an adjunct to a proposition rather than a proposition in its own right.

Ability/Potentiality

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 621):

This is on the fringe of the modality system.  It has the different orientations of subjective (implicit only) realised by can/can’t, objective implicit by be able to, and objective explicit by it is possible (for …) to.  In the last of these, the typical meaning is ‘potentiality’… .  In the subjective it is closer to inclination; we could recognise a general category of ‘readiness’, having ‘inclination’ and ‘ability’ as subcategories at one end of the scale… .  In any case can in this sense is untypical of the modal operators: it is the only case where the oblique form functions as a simple past…

Modality Variables

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 619ff):

The basic distinction that determines how each type of modality will be realised is the orientation: that is, the distinction between subjective and objective modality, and between the explicit and implicit variants… .  The third variable in modality is the value that is attached to the modal judgement: high, median or low. … The median value is clearly set apart from the two ‘outer’ values by the system of polarity: the median is that in which the negative is freely transferable between the proposition and the modality… .  With the outer values, on the other hand, if the negative is transferred the value switches (either from high to low, or from low to high)… .  This generates a set of 4x4x3x3 = 144 categories of modality. … The actual number of systematic distinctions that are made in this corner of the language runs well into the tens of thousands;

Modulation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 618):

If the clause is a ‘goods–&–services’ clause (a proposal, which has no real congruent form in the grammar, but by default we can characterise it as imperative), it means either (i) ‘is wanted to’, related to a command, or (ii) ‘wants to’, related to an offer; in other words, some degree of obligation [‘deontic’ modality] or inclination. … Note that modulation refers to the semantic category of proposals; but all modalities are realised as indicative (that is, as if they were propositions).

Modalisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 618):

If the clause is an ‘information’ clause (a proposition, congruently realised as indicative), this means either (i) ‘either yes or no’, that is, ‘maybe’; or (ii) ‘both yes and no’, that is, ‘sometimes’; in other words, some degree of probability [‘epistemic’ modality] or usuality.

Modality [Defined]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 618):

Modality refers to the area of meaning that lies between yes and no — the intermediate ground between positive and negative polarity.

Metaphorical Realisation Of Probability

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 615-6):

What happens is that, in order to state explicitly that the probability is subjective, or alternatively, at the other end, to claim explicitly that the probability is objective, the speaker construes the proposition as a projection and encodes the subjectivity (I think), or the objectivity (it is likely), in a projecting clause.  (There are other forms intermediate between the explicit and implicit: subjective in my opinion, objective in all probability, where the modality is expressed as a prepositional phrase, which is a kind of halfway house between clausal and non-clausal status.)

Mental Clause As Metaphorical Realisation Of Probability

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 614):

What’s happened here is that there has been a realignment in the realisational relationship between semantics and grammar. … a modalised proposition is realised as if it was a sequence, by a clause nexus of projection.  The effect is that the modality and the modalised proposition are separated, each being realised by a clause in its own right…

Mental Clause As Metaphorical Realisation Of Probability

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 614):

…the probability is realised by a mental clause as if it were a figure of sensing.  Being metaphorical, the clause serves not only as the projecting part of a clause nexus of projection, but also as a mood Adjunct, just as probably does.  The reason for regarding this as a metaphorical variant is that the proposition is not, in fact, ‘I think”; the proposition is ‘it is so’.  This is shown clearly by the tag… .  It is the fact that a mental clause is a modal clause and serves as mood Adjunct that explains the tag… the Mood tag picks up the Mood element of the modalised proposition… .

Why Clausal Assessment Can Be Transformed Into Nominal Assessment

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 613):

The range of assessments assigned to propositions within the domain of the clause and the range of assessments assigned to things within the domain of the nominal group are not, of course, the same. They overlap; but there are kinds of assessment specific to the realm of propositions just as there are other kinds specific to the realm of things. The common foundation is that they are both projections of the speaker’s assessment. This explains why clausal assessment can in fact be transformed into nominal assessment…

Projection As Modal Assessment: Subjective Vs Objective Orientation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 607):

The difference between ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ orientation in the ideational manifestation follows from the general difference between a projecting ‘mental’ or ‘verbal’ clause with a Senser or Sayer and a ‘relational’ clause without such a ‘projector’.  When the assessment is explicitly ‘subjective’, the Senser or Sayer has to be the speaker I.  If it is a person other than the speaker, the clause will still be a projecting one; but it will not be agnate with interpersonal assessment.

Projection As Modal Assessment: Explicit Vs Implicit Orientation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 606):

The ideational manifestations make explicit the orientation of the assessment: the logical manifestation is explicitly subjective whereas the experiential manifestation is explicitly objective. In contrast, the interpersonal manifestation leaves the orientation implicit…

Projection As Modal Assessment: Hypotactic Projection And Pre-Projected Facts

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 605-6):

… projection includes both hypotactic projection of ideas or reports and pre-projected facts serving in a ‘mental’ or ‘relational’ clause. A hypotactic projection is always ‘subjective’; the speaker is represented explicitly the Senser or Sayer. A pre-projected fact in a ‘mental’ clause is like hypotactic projection in representing the assessment as ‘subjective’ — the speaker is explicitly represented as the Senser. In contrast, a pre-projected fact in a ‘relational’ clause represents the assessment as ‘objective’.

Interpersonal Manifestations Of Projection: Modal Assessment

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 604-5):

Projection can also be manifested interpersonally in the form of a modal Adjunct. … Unlike the logical and experiential manifestations, the interpersonal manifestation does not represent the Sayer or Senser; rather it enacts the speaker’s opinion — an enactment of his or her degree of commitment to the proposition: the proposition is assessed as being projected by someone other than the speaker. This type of assessment is known as ‘evidentiality’: the modal Adjunct is used to indicate the evidential status of the proposition. … evidentiality is related to ‘verbal’ clauses and ‘mental’ clauses of perception.

Projection: Logical And Experiential Manifestations

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 604):

When the need arises in discourse to attribute information to some source, this can be done logically by means of a nexus of projection; but it can also be done experientially by means of a circumstance of Angle. … the projecting feature has thus been incorporated into the clause as one element of a transitivity configuration.

Metafunctional Manifestations Of Projection Vs Expansion

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 603):

Like expansion, projection is manifested both logically and experientially within the ideational metafunction; but outside the ideational domain, it is manifested interpersonally rather than textually, thus contrasting with the textual manifestation of expansion. That is, while there are conjunctions marking rhetorical relations of elaboration, extension and enhancement, there are no conjunctions marking relations of quoting or reporting; and while there are interpersonal resources for realising projection, there are no interpersonal Adjuncts or other interpersonal manifestations of expansion.

Agnate Variants Manifesting Expansion: Interpersonal Differences

Cohesively & Tactically Related Free Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 603):

When the domain of manifestation is a cohesive sequence of clauses, or a paratactic nexus of (free) clauses, the two figures related by expansion are enacted interpersonally as propositions or proposals.  This means that each can be negotiated in its own right — accepted or denied, complied with or refused, and so on… .  The same is true of the dominant (a) clause of a hypotactic nexus, since if it is a free clause, it realises a negotiable proposition or proposal.

Dependent Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 603):

… while the dependent (b) clause supports a proposition or proposal, it does not constitute one itself; and if it is non-finite, it is even further removed from the realm of negotiation.

Simple Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 603):

… when the causal [eg] relation is construed within the Process, it has become propositionalised or proposalised… .  Here it is no longer the cause or the effect that is held up for negotiation but rather the causal relation.  When they are construed as nominal groups, the cause and the effect are not negotiable at all.

Agnate Variants Manifesting Expansion: Textual Differences

Thematic Status Of Expansion: Cohesively & Tactically Related Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 601):

While a conjunction group with a structural conjunction such as so or because as Head is obligatorily thematic, there is a choice for conjunction groups with a cohesive conjunction such as consequently as Head.

Thematic Status Of Expansion: Hypotactic Nexus

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 602):

In a hypotactic nexus, there is a further textual contrast that is not open to cohesive sequences and paratactic nexuses: the dependent b clause […] may be either thematic or rhematic within the clause nexus.

Thematic Status Of Expansion: Simple Clause

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 602):

When the domain of manifestation of expansion is a simple clause, the potential textual status of the manifestation […] depends on how it is manifested — (1) as minor Process within a prepositional phrase serving as a circumstance […], (2) as Process, or (3) as Thing within a nominal group serving as a participant in a circumstantial relational clause.

Thematic Status Of Expansion: Minor Process Within A Prepositional Phrase Serving As A Circumstance

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 602):

When it is manifested within a circumstance of Cause [eg], the cause may be given the status of either Theme or Rheme…

Thematic Status Of Expansion: Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 602):

When the causal [eg] relation is manifested as Process (either in a hypotactic verbal group complex in a clause of any process type, or as the nuclear process in a circumstantial relational clause), its textual status will most likely be rhematic.  More specifically, it is likely to be (part of) the transition between Theme and New.

Thematic Status Of Expansion: Thing Within A Nominal Group Serving As A Participant In A Circumstantial Relational Clause

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 602):

When the cause [eg] is manifested as Thing in a nominal group serving as a participant, it will have the thematic status assigned to that nominal group as a whole — either thematic or rhematic.  But in addition, it will be within the domain of operation of another textual system — the system of reference.  This means that it is given textual status as a discourse referent — either recoverable (identifiable) or non-recoverable (non-identifiable), and that it can be tracked in the development of the discourse.

Agnate Variants Manifesting Expansion: Ideational Differences: Manifestations Of Expansion Down The Rank Scale

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 601):

… this move involves a shift in metafunction … [and] the meaning of expansion changes with the change of metafunctional manifestation.  For example, the manifestation of cause changes from rhetorical relation (textual: consequently) via logico-semantic relation (logical: so, because) to process or minor process or even participant (experiential: cause, through; cause).  This means that the category meaning of ‘cause’ changes …

Agnate Variants Manifesting Expansion: Ideational Differences: Scale Of Integration Of Quanta Of Change

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 597):

At one pole, the experience of the flow of events is construed as two distinct quanta of change… . At the other pole, the experience of the flow of events is construed as a component part of quantum of change… . Intermediate between these two poles are various manifestations that represent a move from two distinct quanta of change via two interdependent ones to a single one. The scale is thus one of degree of integration of two quanta of change. This scale of integration is based on the rank scale.

Agnate Variants Manifesting Expansion: Ideational Differences

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 597):

From an ideational point of view, the difference in meaning relates most directly to the question of what is construed as a quantum of change in the flow of events.

Agnation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 597):

… agnation always embodies both similarity and difference. The similarity is the basis for interpreting the patterns as alike, bringing them together in a paradigm, while the difference is the basis for treating them as variant types rather than as tokens of the same type.

Compact Vs Dispersed Grammatical Realisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 593):

The grammatical realisation of figuration is ‘compact’, being confined to the transitivity system of the clause.  In contrast, the grammatical realisation of expansion is ‘dispersed’, ranging over more than one grammatical unit. (… compactly realised systems such as configuration [sic] may become dispersed in their realisation through the process of grammatical metaphor.)

Transgrammatical Semantic Domain: Grammatical Environments Manifesting Expansion

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 597):

… the environments of manifestation can be differentiated in terms of

(i) metafunction — textual (conjunction), logical (interdependency; modification) and experiential (circumstantiation; process type: relational), and

(ii) rank — clause and group/phrase [and below]. …

Collectively they thus construe expansion as a semantic system.  This means that for any given type of expansion we want to express, we have at our disposal a range of resources.

Transgrammatical Semantic Domain: Expansion Manifested In Experiential Mode

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 594):

On the one hand, expansion is manifested in the augmentation of the clause by circumstances: these circumstantial augmentations cover all three types of expansion, with enhancement being the most highly developed one. On the other hand, expansion is manifested in the relation of a ‘relational’ clause: ‘intensive’ clauses embody elaboration, ‘possessive’ clauses extension, and ‘circumstantial’ clauses enhancement. In the domain of the nominal group, there are also various manifestations of the three types of expansion. Thus the Qualifier may elaborate, extend or enhance the Thing…

Transgrammatical Semantic Domain: Expansion Manifested In Logical Mode

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 594):

… the three subtypes of expansion (elaboration, extension and enhancement) combine with tactic relations to link one clause to another in the formation of clause complexes … [and] … group and phrase complexes. In clause complexes and in group and phrase complexes, expansion is manifested within the logical mode of the ideational metafunction.

Transgrammatical Semantic Domain: Expansion

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 593):

For example, the expanding relation of ‘addition’ may be realised

(1) cohesively by a conjunction such as also or

(2) structurally by

(a) an additive paratactic clause complex marked by the structural conjunction and,

(b) a circumstance of accompaniment marked by the preposition with or

(c) an additive paratactic group complex marked by and … . 

These realisational variants are distinct in the grammar, since they constitute different grammatical environments; but they are semantically agnate in that they all have the feature of ‘addition’. … One semantic system, the system of expansion, has thus evolved to bring together patterns of wording within grammatically distinct units, thereby extending its overall meaning potential.

Transgrammatical Semantic Domains: Expansion And Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 593):

… there are semantic domains that are construed in more than one place in the grammar, by more than one system local to one particular grammatical unit. These semantic domains range over two or more grammatical domains, spanning two or more grammatical units. There are two fundamental semantic domains of this kind — expansion and projection.

Transgrammatical Semantic Domains: Modality

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 592):

… there are semantic domains that range over more than a single grammatical unit.  Thus the semantic domain of modality is construed in more than one place in the grammar; for example, it is construed by clauses such as I suppose and it is possible, by verbal groups with finite modal operators such as may and by adverbial groups and modal adverbs such as perhaps.  These modal patterns within different grammatical units are not interchangeable/synonyms; they have distinct values within the overall semantic system of modality. … This means that the semantic system of modality is more extensive than the modal features of any one given grammatical unit would suggest; it is realised not by a single grammatical unit but by a range of units: semantic unit a ø grammatical units m, n and o.

Metaphorical Realisation: Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 592-3):

… there are realignments in the realisational relationship between semantic units and grammatical ones. … a sequence is realised by a clause complex; the combination of a figure, a proposition (proposal), and a message is realised by a clause; … a participant is realised by a nominal group, a process by a verbal group and a circumstance by and adverbial group or a prepositional phrase. But once these couplings between the two strata of the content plane have been established, “cross–couplings” become theoretically possible. For example, while sequences are realised by clause complexes and figures by clauses, it is theoretically possible that, under certain conditions, sequences would be realised by clauses — that is, as if they were figures. This is the possibility of metaphorical realisation … . But the two forms of realisation are not, of course, synonymous, so the effect is one of expanding the meaning potential of the language.

Information Flow, Exchange & Episodic Patterns

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 591):

These intermediate patterns are the ones that are very likely to vary from one register to another: there will be variation both in the nature of the patterns and in the degree to which there is a compositional scale between the text and the message/proposition (proposal)/figure.

Sequence Combinations: Episodic Patterns

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 590):

Figures combine to form sequences; and these in turn may combine to form episodic patterns, as in narratives and other chronologically organised texts or chronological passages within other kinds of text.

Proposition/Proposal Combinations: Exchange Patterns

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 589-90):

Propositions/proposals combine to form patterns of exchange involving two or more interactants … .

Message Combinations: Information Flow Patterns

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 588):

Messages combine to form periodic movements of information… . Such phases of messages help construct the flow of information as the text unfolds and we can refer to them simply as information flow patterns.

More Extensive Semantic Patterns

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 588):

Messages, propositions or proposals, and figures can combine with units of the same metafunctional type to form more extensive semantic patterns in the creation of text. These patterns are distinct for each metafunction.

The Lower Region Of Semantic Compositional Scales

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 588):

This is the region where semantic units are realised by lexicogrammatical ones. … The clause is a multifunctional construct in the grammar, one that realises three different semantic units, one for each metafunction: textual — message, interpersonal — proposition or proposal, and experiential — figure. … The three semantic units deriving from the three metafunctions are all mapped onto the clause, which thus unifies the three metafunctional strands of meaning.

Semantic Compositional Scale?

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 588):

In the grammar, there is a single, generalised compositional scale — the grammatical rank scale … . But in the semantics, it is far from clear whether there is a single compositional scale that is generalised across all registerial varieties of a language.

Upper Bounds Of Meaning And Wording

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 588, 588n):

The upper bound of the semantic stratum is the text: this is the most extensive unit of meaning. The upper bound of the lexicogrammatical system is the clause: this is the most extensive unit of wording. … By saying that they are the upper bounds, we are not ruling out complexes — text complexes and clause complexes … . But complexes are not higher–ranking units but rather expansions of units of a given rank.

The Relation Of Text To Clause: Realisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 587):

A text does not ‘consist of’ clauses (clause complexes) — there is no part–whole or ‘constituency’ relationship between a text and a clause (complex) and there is no single rank scale with text and clause as ranks. Rather, a text is realised by clauses (clause complexes), the two being located on different strata — semantics (the stratum of meaning) and lexicogrammar (the stratum of wording), respectively.

Text: A Unit Of Meaning (Only) At The Instance Pole Of The Cline Of Instantiation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 587):

A text is thus a unit of meaning — more accurately, a unit in the flow of meaning that is always taking place at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.

Logogenetic Patterns Of Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 587):

The patterns that are developed in this way are, however, patterns of meaning, not patterns of wording; they are patterns at the level of semantics rather than the level of lexicogrammar. This is so because text is, as we have emphasised, a semantic phenomenon in the first instance; it is meaning unfolding in some particular context of situation. For example, the grammatical system of conjunction gives speakers and writers the resources to mark transitions in the development of a text — that is, to mark rhetorical relations used to expand the text step by step; and the rhetorical relations that are marked in this way are semantic relations organising the text as a flow of meaning.

Cohesion: Marking Textual Transitions And Manipulating Textual Statuses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 586-7):

Cohesion includes 

(1) the system of conjunction for marking textual transitions in the unfolding text and 

(2) the systems of reference, ellipsis and substitution, and lexical cohesion for manipulating textual statuses of elements in the flow of information.

Logogenetic Patterns: Instantial & Registerial Systems

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 586):

The logogenetic patterns that emerge as a text unfolds form a transient system that is specific to that text; but from repeated patterns over many such transient systems may in turn emerge a generalised system characteristic of a certain type of text or register.

Logogenetic Patterns

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 586):

… in the course of unfolding of text, lexicogrammatical selections create logogenetic patterns at all ranks. This patterning in the text that has nothing to do with composition or size: instead of composition (the relationship between a whole and its parts), the patterning is based on instantiation (the relationship between an instance and a generalised instance type). The patterning represents a slight move up this cline from a single instance to a pattern of instances, as in a news report where one projecting verbal clause after another is selected until this emerges as a favourite clause type.

Lexicogrammatical Resources Beyond The Upper Limit Of Compositional Organisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 586):

… although the grammar does not extend its compositional organisation beyond the rank of clause, the resources of lexicogrammar make two fundamental contributions beyond this upper limit of grammatical units:

(i) the creation of logogenetic patterns and

(ii) the marking of cohesion.

Phase–As–Process As Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 185n):

In hypotactic verbal group complexes, the phase (starting, continuing; trying, succeeding; and so on) is an expansion of the process itself; but [where] the phase is construed as a process in its own right … such examples are in fact often metaphorical variants of clauses with phased verbal group complexes.

(Second Order) Agent In Mental Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 301):

… mental clauses with an Inducer …

Mental Clauses: Emanating Vs Impinging As Middle Vs Effective

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 301):

… the mental distinction between ‘emanating’ and ‘impinging’ is … the distinction between ‘middle’ and ‘effective’.

Ergative Vs Transitive Structure Types

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 300-1):

The ergative structure is open–ended, and a further round of agency can always be added on:

the ball rolled : Fred rolled the ball : Mary made Fred roll the ball : John got Mary to make Fred roll the ball : …

The transitive structure, on the other hand, is configurational; it cannot be extended in this way. Thus, from a transitive point of view, Mary made Fred roll the ball is not a single process; it is two processes forming one complex.

Analytic Causatives: Second Order Agents

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 300):

From a transitive point of view, in these initiating structures there is a feature of cause added. … From an ergative point of view, these clauses simply add a feature of agency. If the clause already has an Agent in the structure, the only way this can be done is by using an analytic causative; this makes it possible to bring in an Agent of the second order …

Analytic Causatives With ‘Make’: Material ~ Attributive

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 299-300):

There is a large class of material processes of this kind where the agnate causatives are, or may be, attributive: the sun ripened the fruit/made the fruit ripen, her voice calmed the audience/made the audience calm; these will belong to the ‘initiating’ type — if we say the sun ripened, her voice calmed, the meaning changes from ‘make (ripe/calm)’ to ‘become (ripe/calm)’.

Transitive Variants Viewed Ergatively

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 299):

In ergative terms, ‘a does something to x’ and ‘a makes x do something’ are both cases of ‘x is involved in something, brought about by a’.

Receptive Voice: Complements To Prepositions As Subject

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 298):

… then there are the ‘indirect participants’ functioning as Complements to prepositions, some of which … are potential Subjects; these give various other kinds of receptive such as ‘Location–receptive’, for example the bed hadn’t been slept in, ‘Manner–receptive’, for example this pen’s never been written with, and so on.  Normally these are also medio–receptives, that is, they are middle not effective clauses.  But receptives with idiomatic phrasal verbs, such as it’s been done away with, she’s very much looked up to, that prize has never been put in for, are often ‘true’ receptives in the sense that the prepositional phrase really represents a participant …

Receptive Voice: Beneficiary & Range As Subject

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 298):

… there are other potential Subjects besides Agent and Medium. There are the other participants, the Beneficiary and Range, either of which may be selected as Subject of the clause; the verb will then similarly be in passive.

Receptive Voice & Agency In Spoken Language

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 298):

In spoken English the great majority of receptive clauses are, in fact, Agent–less … The speaker leaves the listener to locate the source.

Receptive Voice [Function]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 298):

The reasons for choosing receptive are as follows:

(1) to get the Medium as Subject, and therefore as unmarked Theme … and

(2) to make the Agent either

(i) late news, by putting it last … or

(ii) implicit, by leaving it out.

Effective Clauses: The Feature ‘Agency’

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 297-8):

Strictly speaking an effective clause has the feature ‘agency’ rather than the structural function Agent, because this may be left implicit … The presence of an ‘agency’ feature is in fact the difference between a pair of clauses such as the glass broke and the glass was (or got) broken: the latter embodies the feature of agency, so that one can ask the question ‘who by?’, while the former allows for one participant only.

Middle & Effective Agency; Operative & Receptive Voice

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 297):

A clause with no feature of ‘agency’ is neither active nor passive but middle. One with agency is non-middle, or effective, in agency. An effective clause is then either operative or receptive in voice. In an operative clause, the Subject is the Agent and the Process is realised by an active verbal group; in a receptive [clause] the Subject is Medium and the Process is realised by a passive verbal group.

Voice: Transitive Pattern

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 297):

In a transitive pattern the participants are obligatory Actor and optional Goal; if there is Actor only, the verb is intransitive and active in voice, while if both are present the verb is transitive and may be either active or passive. This is still the basis of the English system; but there is little trace of transitivity left in the verb, and voice is now more a feature of the clause.

Complements In Prepositional Phrases

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 296-7):

… the Complement of a preposition can often emerge to function as Subject … This pattern suggests that Complements of prepositions, despite being embedded in an element that has a circumstantial function, are still felt to be participating, even if at a distance, in the process expressed by the clause.

Circumstances: ± Preposition

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 296):

… just as those elements which are treated essentially as participants can sometimes occur with a preposition, so at least some elements which are treated essentially as circumstances can sometimes occur without one. With expressions of Extent and Location there is often no preposition …

Agent, Beneficiary And Range: The Textual Function Of ± Preposition

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 295-6):

… the choice of ‘plus or minus preposition’ with Agent, Beneficiary and Range … serves a textual function. … The principle is as follows. If a participant other than the Medium is in a place of prominence in the message, it tends to take a preposition (ie to be construed as ‘indirect’ participant); otherwise it does not. Prominence in the message means functioning either

(i) as marked Theme (ie Theme but not Subject) or

(ii) as ‘late news’ — that is, occurring after some other participant, or circumstance, that already follows the Process.

In other words, prominence comes from occurring either earlier or later than expected in the clause; and it is this that is being reinforced by the presence of the preposition. The preposition has become a signal of special status in the message.

Agent, Beneficiary And Range As Mixed Categories

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 295):

Semantically, therefore, Agent, Beneficiary and Range have some features of participants and some of circumstances: they are mixed. And this is reflected in the fact that grammatically also they are mixed: they may enter in to a clause either directly as nominal groups (participant–like) or indirectly in prepositional phrases (circumstance–like).

Agent, Beneficiary And Range From A Transitive And Ergative Perspectives

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 295):

These, seen from a transitive perspective, are circumstantial: Agent is a kind of Manner, Beneficiary is a kind of Cause and Range is a kind of Extent; and they can all be expressed as minor processes. But seen from an ergative point of view they are additional participants in the major process: the nucleus of ‘Process + Medium’ has an inner ring of additional participants as well as an outer ring of circumstances surrounding it …

Ergative Model As Nuclear

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 295):

… the ergative is a nuclear rather than a linear interpretation; and if this component is to the fore, there may be a whole cluster of participant–like functions in the clause: not only Agent but also Beneficiary and Range.

Transitive Model As Linear

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 295):

The transitive is a linear interpretation; and since the only function that can be defined by extension in this way is Goal (together with, perhaps, the analogous functions of Target in a verbal process and Phenomenon* in a mental process of the please [‘impinging’] type), systems which are predominantly transitive in character tend to emphasise the distinction between participants (ie direct participants, Actor and Goal only) and circumstances (all other functions).

* It strikes me that this should be Senser, not Phenomenon.

Range: Common Features Across Process Types [Definition]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 295):

There may be in each type of clause one element which is not so much an entity participating in the process as a refinement of the process itself. This may be the name of a particular variety of the process, which being a noun can then be modified for quantity and for quality … Since here the kind of action, event, behaviour, sensing or saying is specified by the noun, as a participant function, the verb may be entirely general in meaning … Or, secondly, this element may be an entity, but one that plays a part in the process not by acting, or being acted upon, but by marking its domain … It is characteristic of this second type that they are on the borderline of participants and circumstances; there is often a closely related form of prepositional phrase …

Range In Identifying Relational Clauses: Value*

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 294-5):

… in the identifying, the criteria tend to conflict. For purposes of simplicity, we will interpret the Token as Medium and the Value as Range in all types, although this does ignore some aspects of the patterning of such clauses in text.

*  For less simple purposes, in Halliday (1994) and elsewhere in Halliday & Matthiessen (2004), it is the Identified that is Medium (which corresponds to the Token in decoding clauses, but the Value in encoding clauses); the Identifier is the Range in decoding clauses (where it is also the Value), but the Agent in encoding clauses (where it is the Token).

Range In Attributive Relational Clauses: Attribute

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 294):

In the attributive, the Attribute is clearly analogous to a Range.

Range In Verbal Clauses: Verbiage

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 294):

The two kinds of Verbiage, that which refers to the content, as in describe the apartment, and that which specifies the nature of the verbal process, such as tell a story, are analogous respectively to the material ‘entity Scope’ and ‘process Scope’.

Range In Emanating Mental Clauses: Phenomenon

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 294):

[In the like [‘emanating’] type of mental process] the Phenomenon bears no kind of resemblance to a Goal.  But it does show certain affinities with the Scope.  It figures as Subject, in the ‘receptive’, under similarly restricted conditions; and it appears in expressions, such as enjoy the pleasure, saw the sight, have an understanding of, which are analogous to material Scope expressions of the ‘process’ type, such as play a game, have a game.  So we can interpret the rôle of the Phenomenon in the like type of mental process as a counterpart of that of Scope in the material; it is the element which delimits the boundaries of the sensing.

Range In Material & Behavioural Clauses: Scope, Behaviour

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 294):

In a ‘material’, the Range is the Scope; in a ‘behavioural’ clause, the Range is the Behaviour.

The Range [Definition & Distribution]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 293):

The Range is the element that specifies the range or domain of the process. A Range may occur in ‘material’, ‘behavioural’, ‘mental’, ‘verbal’, and 'relational' clauses — but not in ‘existential’ ones.

Beneficiary As Subject

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 293):

The Beneficiary regularly functions as Subject in the clause; in that case the verb is in the ‘receptive’ voice.

Beneficiary In Attributive Relational Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 293):

There are also a few ‘relational’ clauses of the ‘attributive’ mode containing a Beneficiary, for example him in she made him a good wife, it cost him a pretty penny. We shall just refer to this as a Beneficiary, without introducing a more specific term, since these hardly constitute a recognisably distinct rôle in the clause.

Beneficiary In Material Clauses: Realisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 293):

The Beneficiary is realised by (to +) nominal group (Recipient) or (for +) nominal group (Client); the presence of the preposition is determined by textual factors.

Beneficiary In Material & Verbal Clauses: Recipient, Client, Receiver

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 293):

In a ‘material’ clause, the Beneficiary is either the Recipient or the Client. … In a ‘verbal’ clause, the Beneficiary is the Receiver.

The Beneficiary [Definition & Distribution]

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 293):

The Beneficiary is the one to whom or for whom the process is said to take place. It appears in ‘material’ and ‘verbal’ clauses, and occasionally in ‘relational’ ones. (In other words, there are no Beneficiaries in ‘mental’, ‘behavioural’ or ‘existential’ clauses.)

Identifying Clause: Decoding Is Medium + Range, Encoding Is Agent + Medium

Halliday (1994: 165):

[With] decoding clauses (those where Token = Identified/Medium) the passive [ie receptive] is … rather rare. By contrast, in an encoding identifying clause, where the Token is Identifier/Agent and the Value is Identified/Medium, passive [ie receptive] is more or less as frequent as active [ie operative] … but only the active [ie operative] will accommodate a further agency …