David Banks On Effected/Affected

 After Annabelle Lukin wrote asflanet on 5 Feb 2024 at 11:56:

I'm keen to hear thoughts on the analysis of this clause:

The earth formed some 4,600 years ago from a vast cloud of gas and dust.

David Banks replied on asflanet on 5 Feb 2024, at 19:41:

If "formed" is a creative process, and "the earth" is what is created, it can't exist before the process takes place. So it can't be the actor of that process. My memory tells me that somewhere (but I haven't got a refrerence to hand) Halliday talks about an "effected" - the participant created by a process (as opposed to an "affected" - the participant altered by a process). To avoid any confusion, with my (non-anglophone) students I used to use the term "result". I would suggest that "the earth" is effected/result.

Blogger Comments:

[1] See the clause analysis here.

[2] To be clear, in terms of ergativity, The Earth is the Medium of the Process formed, which, in an intransitive clause is the Actor.

[3] To be clear, the affectum/effectum distinction applies to transitive clauses, not intransitive clauses. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 148):

The subtypes that have been generally recognised in grammar are (1) intransitive/transitive; (2) within intransitive, action/event; and (3) within transitive, effectum/affectum. … The third is the distinction between a Goal that 'exists' prior to the doing of the deed (affectum: Mary threw the ball) and one that is brought into existence by the doing (effectum: Jack built a house). We shall use this distinction, referred to as dispositive/creative, to explain figures of doing in terms of their outcome in other figures.

[4] To be clear, this only creates confusion, since "effected" applies only to transitive clauses, and 'result' is a type of Cause circumstance, not a participant.

On the other hand, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 149) classify subtypes of figures of doing according to outcome:

David Banks On Process Type Criteria

David Banks replied to David Rose on SYSFLING on 6 Mar 2022, at 20:40:

With all due respect:

A happy baby makes a happy mother.

You say this must be identifying, so the baby and the mother refer to the same entity - that can't be right.

It's simple present — I see no reason why a simple present cannot be material: physical actions are material whether they are habitual or not.

"'I walk on the beach every day".

And you say it's reversible: this is perhaps true in the pragmatic sense that if the mother is happy the baby probably will be too, but that's not what the clause says, and "A happy mother makes a happy baby" is not the same thing as "A happy baby makes a happy mother". What about 

"A sunny day makes a happy tourist"?

What have I missed?

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is not true. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 276):

In the ‘identifying’ mode, some thing has an identity assigned to it. What this means is that one entity is being used to identify another: ‘x is identified by a’, or ‘a serves to define the identity of x’. Structurally we label the x-element, that which is to be identified, as the Identified, and the a-element, that which serves as identity, as the Identifier.

Cf. the identifying clauses:

• Peter owns the house and 
• asbestos dust causes mesothelioma

[2] This misses the point. It is not a question of whether or not the simple present tense can be used in material clauses, but whether or not it is the marked or unmarked option. Because the simple present tense is the marked option for material clauses, but the unmarked option for relational clauses, it is one diagnostic tool for distinguishing these two process types.

[3] To be clear, the 'reversibility' is one of voice:

• A happy baby makes ('produces') a happy mother [operative]
• A happy mother is made ('produced') by a happy baby [receptive]

and it distinguishes (reversible) identifying relational clauses from (non-reversible) attributive relational clauses. 

[4] See above.

David Banks On Process Types

After Wendy Bowcher wrote to SYSFLING on Thu, 3 Mar, 21:08:

I wonder if anyone can help out with the following:

(1) identifying what type of process 'thrive' is in the following clause. It seems to me to be Relational, but it's also kind of Material with a dash of Behavioural. :)I've given the clause within its cotext. And the clause comes from an historical advertisement.

"Your child will thrive on Glaxo when all else fails because it is a natural substitute for breast milk"

(2) And I just want to check the process type of 'make' in the following clauses - I have analysed these as Relational (attributive, intensive) ('cause to be something'), but I'm not 100% sure:

"A happy baby makes a happy mother"

"Your happy Glaxo baby will make you a happy mother"

David Banks replied to SYSFLING on Thu, 3 Mar, 21:16:

I would have no hesitation in analysing your first example (thrive) as material: it's about growing and increasing in good health, so about physical change. 

And I would have analysed your second example (make) as material too: it's causal, concerned with making the mother better, so again to do with physical change.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] Transitivity analyses of these clauses are provided here.

[2] To be clear, 'physical change' is not an exclusive feature of material processes, as demonstrated by the attributive clause the baby turned into a pig. Halliday (1994: 120):

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 159-165) provide a helpful discussion on material doing and relational being as complementary perspectives on change; (op. cit.: 161):

David Banks On 'Does'

After William Armour wrote to sys-func on 29 January at 13:19:

1) Is the function of the 'does' in

While this notion does make sense on the surface,

one of emphasis, or something else?

2) How does it compare to

While this notion makes sense on the surface,

? No emphasis?

David Banks replied on 11 February at 19:46:

I'm not sure that "emphasis" is the "mot juste". I think context is important: (1) seems to imply a context where the opposite (".. does not make sense ..") has at least been envisaged by the proponents in the discourse. (2) seems to be neutral in this respect.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the difference between the wording of (1) and (2) is that the former distinguishes the Finite from the Predicator, whereas the latter conflates them:

While	this notion	does	make	sense	on the surface
	Subject	Finite	Predicator	Complement	comment Adjunct
	Mood		Residue

While	this notion	makes		sense	on the surface
	Subject	Finite	Predicator	Complement	comment Adjunct
	Mood		Residue

The separation in (1) makes it possible to single out the Finite does as the focus of New information ("emphasis"):

While	this notion	does	make	sense	on the surface
	Subject	Finite	Predicator	Complement	comment Adjunct
Given		New: contrastive	Given		New: contrastive

[2] To be clear, in (1), the "opposite context" is realised in language, on the one hand, by highlighting both the positive polarity of the Finite does and the qualified validity of the comment Adjunct on the surface as contrastive New information.

On the other hand, the "opposite context" is also realised in language by the choice of KEY.  The unmarked TONE feature for such a dependent clause is tone 4 (fall-rise), which, in the case of declarative MOOD, can realise 'reservation'.  In (1), 'reservation' is instantiated twice, with positive polarity and qualified validity the focus of each.

[3] To be clear, it is not that (2) is "neutral in this respect", but that 'reservation' is only instantiated once, with the qualified validity of the comment Adjunct as the only contrastive focus.

While	this notion	makes		sense	on the surface
	Subject	Finite	Predicator	Complement	comment Adjunct
Given					New: contrastive

David Banks On "Complex Verbal Groups"

In answer to the query:

1. In a structure like: "Honey, don't forget to pay the bill before the week is over" should I say that 'forget to pay' is a complex verbal group? O should I say that 'forget' is a mental process that projects the clause complex 'to pay the bill before the week is over'? 

2. If I compare these two uses of "want":

1. "I want to visit the Vatican"
2. "I want Mary to visit the Vatican"

I'd say that in number 1, 'want to visit' is a complex verbal group, where 'want' shows inclination phase, while in number 2, 'want' is a process that projects 'Mary to visit the Vatican' am I right?  

3. Finally, a case similar to the one with 'forget': in a clause like "that afternoon, we decided to go over the wall" should I say that "decided to go" is a complex VG or should I say that "decided" is a mental process that projects "to go over the wall"

 David Banks wrote to sysfling on 5 October 2018 at 19:47:

1. It seems to me that you can only say that it is a complex verb group if there is only one process involved (e.g. continue to pay). Here, it seems obvious that forgetting and paying are quite separ[a]te processes, so it is not a complex verb group. 

2. It does not seem logical to have completely different analyses for these two examples. The fact that English "understands" the subject of "visit" in 1, to be the same as the subject of "want" does not alter the fact that it is basically the same structure as 2. 

3. The answer to this is the same as for No.1.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Trivially, a verbal group complex is not a complex verbal group.  The former is a complex of verbal groups, and a theoretical term, whereas the latter is a single verbal group deemed to be "complex".

[2] To be clear, it is important to distinguish between Process (clause rank) and Event (group rank).  A verbal group nexus construes two Events as one Process; examples provided by Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 569, 574, 580, 587) include:

• decides to write
• would like to paint
• forget to do
• remind to do
• want to do
• ask to do
• anticipate doing
• profess to do.

That is, the instances in question, forget to pay and decided to go, can be interpreted as verbal group complexes that construe two Events as a single Process.

[3] The two different analyses correspond to the preferred analyses of Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 584-6), who provide the reasoning on which the analytical distinction is based.

But, to be clear, the two instances do not have "basically the same structure", since, if both are interpreted as projecting clause nexuses, the second projected clause includes a topical Theme, an Actor and an explicit Subject, and so a Mood element, whereas the first has none of these.

However, a functional theory gives priority, in grammatical reasoning, to the view from above: to system and function, rather than to structure and form (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 49).  From above, the two instances differ in terms of the interpersonal meaning being realised.  In the first clause complex, I want to visit the Vatican, the desiderative Process projects an offer, whereas in the second, I want Mary to visit the Vatican, it projects a command.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 584) explain:

We saw in Chapter 7, Section 7.5.4.2 that a mental process of desideration projects an exchange of the goods-&-services type, i.e. a proposal. If the Subject of the projection is the same as that of the mental process clause, the proposal is an offer, as in she wants to do it; if the two are different, then the proposal is a command, as in she wants you to do it. In the first type, the Subject is not repeated, but is carried over from the desiderative clause. (It can then be made explicit by a reflexive, as in she wants to do it herself.)

Moreover, the second clause complex is also an instance of an interpersonal metaphor of modality, being the metaphorical counterpart of Mary should visit the Vatican; see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 693).

David Banks Conflating Participant And Circumstance

David Banks wrote to sysfling on 24 September 2018 at 19:14:

Alternatively (and I think I would prefer this), one could think of this as being some sort of physical action which resulted in our being in this situation. This would give something like:

I	got	us into this
Actor	Material process	Result

I	'm gonna get	us out
Actor	Material process	Result

Blogger Comments:

[1] Trivially, this flouts the descriptive convention of capitalising the function, Process, rather than its subtype, material.

[2] This conflates participant (us) and circumstance (into this, out) into a circumstance of Cause: result, realised by a nominal group.  On a material reading of such clauses, the conflation is of Goal and Location.  (On a relational reading, the conflation is of Carrier and locative Attribute.)

Interestingly, the conflation arises from confusing result, in the sense of a type of circumstance, with the (locative) outcome of a material Process; see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 225-36).

As a consequence, both clauses are misinterpreted as intransitive instead of transitive, and the Actor as Medium instead of Agent.

David Banks' Reasons For Not Identifying 'Accompaniment'

 David Banks replied regarding Annabelle Lukin's query on sysfling on 2 November 2017 at 22:09:

It seems to me that if you say "between Iraqi and British forces" is a circumstance, that means that it is functioning at the level of the clause, and it is a circumstance of the predicator "have been". But I don't feel that holds water. If "between Iraqi and British forces" is related to a process, then that process is "clashes", which is a nominalized process, and the relationship is not circumstantial but agentive, so in the unpacked variant "Iraqi and British forces clashed", "Iraqi and British forces" functions as actor. This is not unusual; it is common in cases of grammatical metaphor, for the putative actor of a nominalized process to be encoded in a prepositional phrase functioning as qualifier of the nominalized process. It is the reciprocal nature of the process in this case that gives us the process "between" rather than "by".

and on 3 November 2017 at 05:36:

If we simply ask: what is "between Iraqi and British forces" doing, surely the answer is: telling us about the nature of "clashes", that is, it is describing "clashes". Since "clashes" is a noun, an element which describes it is a modifier or qualifier. 

The only complication arises because "clashes" is a nominalized process. Who is doing the "clashing": answer: "Iraqi and British forces". So the qualifier encodes the putative actor of the nominalized process.

and on 3 November 2017 at 19:22:

Among the numerous variants we have:

"Iraqi forces clashed with British forces"
"British forces clashed with iraqi forces"
"Iraqi and British forces clashed"

So, I feel, you can't get away from the fact that "Iraqi forces" and "British forces" are the participants in the process of "clashing", and the grammatical metaphor (used for reasons we do not know since it's out of context) means that the participants are encoded as a qualifier of the nominalized process.

to which John Bateman replied on 3 November 2017 at 23:56:

I agree with almost everything David wrote, with the possible exception of needing to agree to disagree! :-)

Blogger Comments:

Reminder: the clause under discussion is

there have been more clashes between Iraqi and British forces.

[1] Trivially, a circumstance is attendant on a Process (experiential), not a Predicator (interpersonal), and have is Finite and been is Predicator.

[2] This is incorrect.  The Process of this clause is have been, not clashes; clashes functions as the Thing/Head of the nominal group more clashes which functions as the participant Existent.

[3] This is true; clashes is a nominalised process, which is why it doesn't function as the Process of this metaphorical clause.  It is in the more congruent agnates, which Banks cites, that it functions as Process.

[4] The agency of both the metaphorical clause and its congruent agnates is 'middle', not 'effective';  that is, there is no Agent.

[5] This part is true, but irrelevant, because the query is about the metaphorical clause, not its more congruent agnates.

[6] An instance of this type would be there have been more attacks by British and Iraqi forces.  In this type, the prepositional phrase is indeed functioning as Qualifier, since, unlike the clause under discussion, it can't be thematised without more attacks; see previous post on determining constituency.

[7] Here Banks repeats Bartlett's misinterpretation of 'joint participation in the process' as 'reciprocality'; see previous post.  Since the process is not 'reciprocal' — the British and Iraqi forces didn't "clash each other" — this is not the reason for the minor Process being between rather than by.  The function of between is to construe the joint participants as a circumstance; see [8].

[8] The prepositional phrase metaphorically construes the joint participants in what is congruently a material Process, 'clash', as circumstantial to the existential Process have been.  The type of circumstance that construes joint participation is 'Accompaniment' (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 174; Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 324).

[9] This correctly identifies agnates of the metaphorical clause, demonstrating both Accompaniment (with British forces, with Iraqi forces) and its relation to 'joint participation' (Iraqi and British forces), but still fails to make the theoretical connection.

[10] What we can say is that the grammatical metaphor reconstrues a very material process as one of merely existing, and reconstrues the participants of that Process, both Agent and Medium, as merely circumstantial.  Given that it was Britain that illegally invaded Iraq, and not the contrary, we can take a wild stab in the dark and suggest that one reason the metaphor was used was to hide the agency of British humans in the "clash", along with the fact that their actions impacted on Iraqi humans.

[11] See [1] to [10] above.  See also Thoughts That Didn't Occur…

David Banks On The "Non-Existence" Of Behavioural Processes

David Banks wrote at 18:27 on October 30 2014 to sysfling:

The simple (but brutal, and with all due respect to all the other contributors) is that there are no distinguishing criteria because behavourial process does not exist. What is usually discussed under this heading is a rag-bag of unrelated phenomena that do not form a coherent category. The phenomena in question are better dealt with at a more delicate level than that of process types. My article on this question is forthcoming in a book edited by Donna Miller and Paul Bayley.

Blogger Comments:

 [1] Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 135-6) provide some grammatical reactances which distinguish behavioural from other process types and which thus identify what they have in common:

• Like material clauses (but unlike mental clauses) the unmarked present tense in behavioural clauses is present-in-present (he is watching) rather than the simple present (he watches).

• Behavioural clauses include conscious processing construed as active behaviour (watching listening, pondering, meditating) rather than just passive sensing (seeing, hearing, believing).

• Like the Senser in a mental clause, the ‘Behaver’ in a behavioural one is endowed with consciousness; whereas in other respects behavioural clauses are more like material ones.

• Like material clauses (but unlike mental ones), behavioural clauses can be probed with do: What are you doing? — I’m meditating but not I’m believing.

• Behavioural clauses normally do not project, or project only in highly restricted ways (contrast mental: cognitive David believed —> the moon was a balloon with behavioural: David was meditating —> the moon was a balloon;

• Behavioural clauses can not accept a ‘fact’ serving as Phenomenon (mental: David saw that the others had already left but not behavioural: David watched that the others had already left).

Criteria for distinguishing process types are listed in Table 5(45) in Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 301).

[2] The existence, or not, of metalinguistic distinctions depends on whether or not they are projected into semiotic existence as ideas and locutions by linguists.  This depends, in the short-term, on whether or not they prove useful, and in the long term, on whether they are consistent with the other distinctions on which they depend.

[3] As Halliday & Matthiessen make clear:

• '‘behavioural’ process clauses are not so much a distinct type of process, but rather a cluster of small subtypes blending the material and the mental into a continuum' (2004: 255), and
• 'these can be interpreted as a subtype of material processes or as a borderline category between material and mental' (1999: 136).

David Banks On Behavioural Processes

David Banks wrote at 19:52 8/12/12 on the Sysfling list:

I've been following this string with interest. Earlier this year, at the Bertinoro conference, I gave a paper on Behavioural Process, in which I argued that if one tries to synthesize what is said about Behavioural Process in various introductions, the result is contradictory and incoherent. At the risk of being called a heretic (again!), I suggest that it is preferable to uses a system with 5 process types, eliminating Behavioural Process. I treat Verbal Process as being processes of communication, within which it is possible to distinguish two sub-groups: those that project, and those that don't.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Indeed, the treatment of behavioural processes in Deploying Functional Grammar (Martin, Matthiessen & Painter 2010) is clearly inconsistent with Halliday & Matthiessen (2004).  For example, the former analyses the clause the tyres went 'screech!' as behavioural, whereas the latter characterises behavioural processes as processes of psychological and physiological behaviour.  See 'Deploying Functional Grammar' On "Behavioural" Processes.

[2] Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 248-50, 255) already acknowledge that:

They are the least distinct of all the six process types because they have no clearly defined characteristics of their own; rather they are partly like the material and partly like the mental. … ‘behavioural’ process clauses are not so much a distinct type of process, but rather a cluster of small subtypes blending the material and the mental into a continuum …

and suggest (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 136):

These can be interpreted as a subtype of material processes or as a borderline category between material and mental.

 [3] Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 256) already specify verbal processes that don't — or rarely — project reported locutions:

Verbs that accept a Target do not easily project reported speech; this type of clause is closer to the Actor + Goal structure of a ‘material’ clause …