|
Actor
|
Process:
|
|
material
|
Range:process
|
|
we
|
have
|
already
|
fought
|
so many fruitless wars
|
|
Subject
|
Finite
|
Adjunct
|
Predicator
|
Complement
|
|
Mood
|
Residue
|
|||
Monday, 16 January 2017
In Firing Range
Thursday, 15 December 2016
Metaphorical Kissing
Actor
|
Process: material
|
Goal
|
congruent
|
|
he
|
kissed
|
his sister
|
||
he
|
gave
|
his sister
|
a kiss
|
metaphorical
|
Actor
|
Process: material
|
Recipient
|
Goal
|
Because grammatical metaphor is a junctional construct, the metaphorical expression construes 'his sister' both as the Goal and as the Recipient of the Process 'kiss', and construes 'kiss' both as Process and as gift (Goal: the Medium of giving).
The advantages of the metaphorical construal of a process as a participant include:
- it can be sub-classified, as in he gave his sister a perfunctory and very reluctant kiss,
- it can be given thematic status in a message, and
- it can be given modal responsibility in a proposition.
Tuesday, 6 December 2016
Time Phase Vs Reality Phase In Identifying Processes
Phase: time: inceptive
that cute little baby
|
became
|
Adolf Hitler
|
Token
|
Process: relational: identifying: intensive
|
Value
|
Phase: reality: realised
his first novel
|
proved
|
the most successful
|
Token
|
Process: relational: identifying: intensive
|
Value
|
For time phase vs reality phase, see here.
Saturday, 3 December 2016
The Transitivity Of Labile Verbs
the pot
|
broke
|
Actor/Medium
|
Process: material
|
I
|
broke
|
the pot
|
Initiator/Agent
|
Process: material
|
Actor/Medium
|
See Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 339, 351-3).
Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 340):
Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 340):
As we noted above, if we examine the lexis of modern English, and look up large samples of verbs in a good dictionary, we find that many of them, including the majority of those that are in common use, carry the label ‘both transitive and intransitive’. If we investigate these further, we find that where the same verb occurs with each of these two values the pairs of clauses that are formed in this way, with the given verb as Process, are not usually intransitive/transitive pairs but non-ergative/ergative ones. There are intransitive/transitive pairs, like the tourist hunted/the tourist hunted the lion, where the tourist is Actor in both. But the majority of verbs of high frequency in the language yield pairs of the other kind, like the tourist woke/the lion woke the tourist, where the relationship is an ergative one. If we express this structure in transitive terms, the tourist is Actor in the one and Goal in the other; yet it is the tourist that stopped sleeping, in both cases. Compare the boat sailed/Mary sailed the boat, the cloth tore/the nail tore the cloth, Tom’s eyes closed/Tom closed his eyes, the rice cooked/Pat cooked the rice, my resolve weakened/the news weakened my resolve.
Saturday, 12 November 2016
Beta Clause As Theme In Clause Nexus [IFG4: 552]
Thursday, 10 November 2016
Theme & Mood Ellipsis
Theme
|
Rheme
|
it
|
will be basically (‘as follows’)*
|
a lot of like-minded people
|
get together
|
meet
|
|
inspire each other
|
|
bring a little more culture to this world
|
* The above analysis treats it will be, basically as a textual strategy — introducing what follows — as suggested by the information distribution and the simple present tense; cf basically, the thing is… . Treating the instance as a single possessive attributive clause downplays the function of a lot of like-minded people both as point of departure (Theme) and as the carrier of modal responsibility (Subject), as well as the cohesion provided by its ellipsis in the final three propositions.
Theme
|
Rheme
|
|
And
|
you
|
can just come in
|
(and)
|
just be inspired by the people
|
|
meet new people
|
||
(and)
|
create art itself of all forms
|
|
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