In the first clause, the lexical choice of thrive adds a quality 'well' or 'vigorously' to the Process, and the circumstance on Glaxo answers the Manner: means interrogative 'what with?' (Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 318).
The second (reversible) clause identifies a happy baby with a happy mother; it does not construe a happy baby as member of the class a happy mother.*
The third clause assigns the membership of you to the class a happy mother.
* Cf. an attributive agnate which construes a mother as a member of the class happy:
Do you agree with GPT's approach?
ReplyDelete1) Your child (Actor) will thrive (Material: creative) on Glaxo (Manner: means)
You’re right that thrive is material, but “creative” is slightly off. In SFL, creative vs transformative applies to material clauses when they have Goal participants (e.g. She built a house → creative; She cleaned the house → transformative).
However thrive has no Goal — it’s intransitive and self-directed — so it’s usually analyzed as material: process of happening or material: process of doing without goal.
Process: material (happening)
Actor: your child
Circumstance: on Glaxo → Manner: means (answering how? by what means?)
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2) A happy baby (identified token) makes (relational: circumstantial: cause) a happy mother (identifier value)
Here you’re sensing that make encodes causation, which is right — but the clause is not relational in the standard SFL sense.
In Halliday’s system, relational clauses link a Carrier + Attribute (She is happy) or Token + Value (That is the truth).
The verb make instead introduces a causative material process: one participant causes another participant to become something (which could itself be relational in meaning).
In A happy baby makes a happy mother, the best analysis is:
Process: material (causative)
Actor: A happy baby
Goal: a happy mother
(Implied Resulting Attribute: happy)
or, if we expand the underlying congruent meaning:
A happy baby causes (the mother to be happy).
So it realizes a causative configuration, but it’s lexically material, not relational.
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3) Your happy Glaxo baby (attributor) will make (relational: intensive) you (carrier) a happy mother (attribute)
You’ve correctly picked up that the result of make here is relational (you = a happy mother).
The whole clause is causative relational — in Halliday’s terms, a relational: intensive – causative clause.
So we can refine it as:
Actor: Your happy Glaxo baby
Process: relational (intensive – causative) (will make)
Carrier: you
Attribute: a happy mother
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Takeaway
• You’re right that all three clauses encode causation, but they differ in process type and participant role configuration.
• The verb make acts as a bridge between material and relational meanings — that’s why these clauses are great teaching examples for causative relational processes in SFL.
• Only the third clause genuinely qualifies as relational (intensive); the others are material.
GPT has made an error in the first example.
DeleteIFG 4th ed. pg. 230
"‘creative’ clauses, where the Actor or Goal is construed as being brought into existence as the process unfolds"
So there are intransitive cases with no goal.
Examples given:
"What happened?" ---- Rocks formed.
"What happened to X (rocks)?" ----- They formed.
I found found this oddly confusing and so asked GPT for clarification.
DeleteIn SFL, Actor is not defined semantically as “the one who acts in the world,”
but functionally as “the participant that the clause construes as the source or driver of the material process.”
So when we say:
Rocks formed.
We are not saying that rocks did something to bring themselves into being.
Rather, we are saying that the clause’s grammatical structure places “rocks” in Actor function, even though semantically, they are coming into existence.
The grammar treats them as participants in the process of creation, even if logically they didn’t pre-exist.
→ This is why Halliday calls it a creative intransitive process.
So, the clause construes the coming into being of the Actor itself as a process from within the Actor’s perspective.
Halliday’s energy model of transitivity treats material clauses as flows of energy.
Normally:
• Actor → Process → Goal
But in creative intransitives, energy seems to emerge internally, not flow from elsewhere.
There is no external source — the energy “starts” with the coming into being of the Actor.
That’s why he says in IFG (4th ed., p. 224) that creative clauses “construe the bringing into existence of some participant” —
the grammar pretends the participant is already there to undergo the process.
So to answer your question directly:
"How can an Actor be construed as being brought into existence? Doesn’t that mean they’re bringing themselves into existence?"
Yes — semantically, that’s paradoxical, but grammatically, it’s allowed.
Language doesn’t require ontological consistency.
It simply assigns roles based on how experience is construed, not how it actually happens in the world.
So “rocks formed” ≠ “rocks made themselves”;
it just means “the event of forming occurred, resulting in the existence of rocks.”
GPT is wrong on all three points.
Delete(1) Intransitive clauses can be creative (IFG4: 234, 238).
(2) The clause is relational "in the standard SFL sense" (IFG4: 269, 294).
(3) Actor is not a participant in a relational process.
If you want GPT to be reliable, you have to instruct it to ignore all SFL sources other than Halliday. Otherwise it tries to assemble a coherent response from all the misunderstandings in its dataset that outnumber Halliday.
Gemini has a different analysis. In regards to the circumstantial sub-type, I was glancing over IFG4's treatment but it was a bit over my head. Nonetheless, Gemini does make some sense. I regards to the material analysis, I think that it's much less likely but the idea of the "effected goal" was fascinating. I think the claim "makes (process: relational: causative: attributive)" where the the carrier is ellipsed is quite appealing.
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Problems with Your Analysis
Process: Relational: Circumstantial: Cause
This label mixes categories. In SFL, a Relational: Circumstantial process is one of 'being' in a circumstance, like "The party (Carrier) is (Process) on Friday (Circumstance: Time)."
"Makes" signifies Causation. This causation is the process itself, not a circumstance. You've correctly identified "cause," but it's not a subtype of "Circumstantial." It's a Causative Process.
Therefore, the process label Relational: Circumstantial: Cause is incoherent.
Participants: Identified Token and Identifier Value
This structure is for Identifying clauses, which function like an "equals" sign (x = y). For example, "A happy baby (Token) is (Process) the cause of my joy (Value)."
Your clause is "A happy baby makes a happy mother." If we apply your labels, it means: A happy baby = a happy mother.
This is semantically false. The baby and the mother are two different entities; one does not equal the other. One causes a change in the other.
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Analysis 1: The Simple "Material Process"
This is the most straightforward and common analysis. We treat "makes" as a verb of "doing" or "creating."
A happy baby (Actor)
makes (Process: Material)
a happy mother (Goal: Effected)
Explanation: The Actor (the baby) performs an action (makes) that brings a Goal ("a happy mother") into existence. In SFL, we distinguish between a Goal that is "affected" (e.g., "The baby kissed the mother") and one that is "effected" or created (e.g., "The baby made a mess").
In your clause, "a happy mother" is the result or effect of the baby's action, so it's an Effected Goal.
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Analysis 2: The Complex "Relational: Causative"
This analysis captures the "causes to be" meaning more precisely, but it requires us to assume an elided (missing) participant.
The full underlying meaning is: "A happy baby (Agent) makes [the mother] (Carrier) a happy mother (Attribute)."
A happy baby (Agent) - The participant who causes the process.
makes (Process: Relational: Causative: Attributive)
[the mother] (Carrier) - The participant who "is" the Attribute (this is implied in your clause).
a happy mother (Attribute) - The quality or state that the Carrier is made to be.
This analysis is common for clauses like "The news (Agent) made him (Carrier) happy (Attribute)." Your clause is a common variation where the Carrier is omitted and fused with the Attribute.
More of the same. Circumstantial relational clauses are all metaphorical: circumstantial meanings are realised as participants or process. Gemini fails to recognise the circumstance-as-participant as a participant, and falsely assesses the circumstance-as-process as incoherent.
DeleteThe claim that the participants of an identifying clause must be the same entity is false. This only applies to the 'intensive' type. It does not apply to either the 'circumstantial' type, or to the 'possession' type, the latter demonstrated by 'Peter owns this piano'.
As I said, Chatbots whose datasets include all the misunderstandings of SFG that have been published are unreliable.