When showing is construed as a temporal act of revealing, and hence can take the present in present, the construal is as a verbal process with the idea revealed as a projection.However, if this showing/signification becomes reified as an index and is no longer a time-bound process, this is now construal as relational, as a permanent representation. Hence you can say "a smile shows happiness" where a smile is reified as a Token of the Value happiness. You could also have "a smile shows that you are happy" where we have a Fact clause as Value.So the question is whether the Subject is demonstrating a phenomenon (verbal) or has come to stand for it (relational).The second example from Martin et al is interesting as it captures a bit of borderlinearity between revealing the relationship and coming to stand as a proxy for it - so we have a timebound process (shown by the past) suggesting that the results came to be a Token of the Value at the time they were produced - and still are - they still show this.
Blogger Comments:
[1] To be clear, it is not a matter of whether a Process can be expressed by the 'present in present' tense, but whether the choice of tense is marked or not. And the markedness of the tense is not criterial in distinguishing verbal from relational processes, because the unmarked present tense for both verbal and relational process types is the simple present (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 354).
[2] To be clear, this claim is invalidated by every relational clause whose Process is realised in the 'present in present' tense. For example:
[3] Trivially, the projection of a verbal clause is a locution, not an idea. An idea is a projection of a mental clause.
[4] To be clear, this confuses Process ('signification/showing') with Token ('index') and deploys the logical fallacy known as petitio principii (begging the question), since it assumes the point (signification, Token) it is trying to prove (that the clause is relational).
[5] To be clear, these are not criteria for identifying relational processes, because the relations construed can be both "time-bound" and impermanent, as shown by Donald Trump is the U.S. President.
[6] To be clear, both of these clauses can also be interpreted as verbal, if the word shows is taken to express the meaning 'says':
[7] To be clear, the question, in this instance, is whether the clause is construing 'a symbolic exchange of meaning' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 303) or a relation of identity.
A verbal clause does not involve a "Subject demonstrating a phenomenon", not least because a Sayer need not be Subject, and a Phenomenon is a participant in a mental Process. In a verbal clause, the verbal Process mediated by a Sayer ranges over Verbiage, or projects a locution.
Likewise, in an identifying relational clause, Subject can conflate either with Token ("stand for it"), as in an operative clause, or with Value ('what is stood for'), as in a receptive clause.
[8] To be clear, 'the second example from Martin et al' (Martin, Matthiessen & Painter 2010: 125) is:
- The result showed (meant, was) [[that the substance was potassium]]
which the authors, like Bartlett, interpret as relational, not verbal. However, on the same page the authors also write (ibid.):
One difference between the two process types is that a verbal clause will usually admit a Receiver whereas a relational one will not.
Ignoring the minor detail that 'Receiver' is not a structural function of a relational clause, it can be seen that the authors' analysis of the clause as relational contradicts their own criterion, since the clause readily admits a Receiver, thereby making it verbal, not relational:
- The result showed us that the substance was potassium
See also Borderline Cases Between Identifying And Verbal Processes: Indeterminacy.
