Linguistica inglese 1

Changes; If the Classifier Changes, the Thing Changes

Postmodifiers:

• Embedded clauses defining relative clauses
• Children [who hate chocolate] are uncommon
• They live in a house [whose roof is full of holes]
• Let's go to a country [where the sun always shines]
• There's something [you should know]
• The kind of person [that...] / [to...]
• Defining relative clauses are always Qualifiers, so it only applies to the preceding noun group, in direct contact with it, and without any punctuation in between.
• Non-defining relative clause hypotactic clause

It applies to a preceding noun or even to a longer stretch of the preceding text. It is often preceded by punctuation.

5 Ideational Meanings:

• Experiential (Transitivity) and Logical (Expansion, Projection, Dependency)

Ideational meanings are the only ones in FG that are divided into 2 different branches:

• Ideational meanings: experimental and logical

(what’s going on?)= experiential + logical meanings

The most important area is experiential= description of experience in grammatical terms

Ideational meaning seeing the clause through the context of FIELD what is going on?

Clause as Representation Ideational Metafunction 1. Experiential Transitivity Taxis (or interdependency) and Logico-semantic relations (or Expansion/Projection)

2. Logical

The TRANSITIVITY SYSTEM

Transitivity is the property of a verb to have a complement after it without anything in between / to support a complement without anything in between, that has a direct object

FG —> transitivity is something different—> it means the analysis of the Process and its Participants and Circumstances (functional grammar doesn’t care about what circumstance is)

The Process

One or more Participants

One or more Circumstances

Types of Process

Relational processo The process of being and of having are Relational Processes

categories: Attributive and Identifying

Relational Processes identify states, not real actions

Verbal Process Verb of saying (also 'describe' and 'remind')

Mental Process Emotion (e.g., love, hate); cognition (e.g. understanding, thinking, believing); desideration (e.g. want) etc... expresses feelings or thoughts

Material Process all others (expresses physical actions)

o Existential Process only the existential there (there is/was/are..) is a marker of Existential Processes; to exist is a Relational Process

Existential Processes express existence. It is characterized by the presence of 'there is/are exists' etc.

Behavioral Processes involuntary actions, caused by some biological/inevitable thing (e.g. sneeze, doze off, fall, asleep...)

Behavioral Processes are in-between Material and Mental. They indicate (largely involuntary) psychological and physiological activity. They have only one Participant (the Behaver).

Major Processes =

Relational + Mental they have more meaning, and they are the most frequent PARTICIPANTS OF EVERY PROCESS (vedi slide)

Relational processo

• Attributing Carrier [RP] Attribute (The dream was still vivid) / (Ms Puzzle had a sensual, suggestive dream.) Attributive Relational Processes = you can't exchange the position of the two Participants.
• Identifying Identifier [RP] Identified (I am the kind of person...) Identifying Relational Processes = you can exchange the position of the two Participants.

Material Process

• Actor [MP] Goal (David is looking after the kids)

Mental Process

• Senser [MP] Phenomenon (This particular self-assessment will have to be revised by me) / (I do love you)

Verbal Process

• Sayer [VP] Receiver | Verbiage (Ms Puzzle tells us her story) / (He whispered 'I do love you but we are not meant to be' Projected clause acting as Verbiage)

Existential Process

• There [EP] Existent (There is a parallel space)

Behavioral Process

Behaver [BP] (Then she woke up)

• TAXIS 'order', hierarchical order between clauses in a clause complex (main clause - hypotaxis = used to refer to a relationship in which one clause is dependent on another - parataxis = used when one clause follows on from another)

Logico-semantic-relations

• Projection joining of clauses when Verbal and Mental processes are involved
• Projection = direct / reported speech, but also for Mental Processes ("I have to give this away" says/thought David)
• Verbal Projected Locution; Proj Locution acts as Verbiage
• Mental Projected Idea; Proj acts as Phenomenon
• BOTH PROJECTED LOCUTIONS AND IDEAS CAN BE EITHER REPORTED OR DIRECT the reported version is hypotactic (variation, offering alternatives = while/without/besides/instead), the quoted one is paratactic
• Expansion intercausal relations
• Elaborating (Elaboration) (=) [Elaboration does twice the labor] ex. In fact

Extending (Extension) (+) [‘and’ makes the clause tense] ex. And,or (CAN be hypotactic) • Enhancing (Enhancement) (x) dependent prepositions are mostly enhancements• Relations of Extension and Elaboration are, for the most part, paratactic, but not always- I’ll add a teaspoon of baking powder (that is going to give them anice rise) non – defining relative clause represent hypotactic Elaboration - Hypotactic Extension Don’t speak while you eat = Enhancement; BUT while, without, besides, instead of can behypotactic Extensions X is eating while Y is eating while Z is drinking6 INTERPERSONAL MEANINGS – MOOD   Tenor who is taking part? Clause as exchange moodMood the system that defines interactional meaning in the clause in terms of o verbal exchange between speaker/writer and the audience (What the clause does in terms of interaction)[VPs may involve more than one verb] Mood Block it comprises Subject, Finite, Modal

We will now look at the clause in its context. If we look at the language through the textual meaning metafunction, we see how speakers construct their message in a way that makes them fit smoothly into the unfolding language event. They organize the way their message is worded in order to signal how the present part of the message fits in with other parts.

There are 3 main ways in which textual meaning are structured in a text: repetition, conjunction and thematization.

repetition of meaning. The function of repetition is typically to show that parts of the text are related in some way. Thus, the speaker signals that they are keeping to the same topic.

Conjunction shows how parts of the text are related. Conjunctive Adjuncts (ex. Therefore), and certain kinds of noun (ex. The reason) can perform the same kind of function. Conjunction and Repetition work primarily between two clauses.

Thematization relates not to the way individual components are expressed but to the structuring of the clause itself – the order of the elements. The Theme of a clause is the first constituent of the clause. Cooperative speakers select something that will make it easier for their hearers to 'hook' to this clause onto earlier clauses. What is not Theme is called Rheme.

The different choice of Theme has contributed to making a different meaning. The Theme can be naively described as 'what the clause is about', but this can lead into problems (the

Subject can also be described as that). The Theme can be therefore described as the 'point of departure of the message', or 'that which locates and orients the clause within the context'.

7.1 DECLARATIVE CLAUSES

Here, the Theme is usually most straightforward to identify. In most cases, with this kind of clause Theme and Subject are the same (= they are conflated). So, the Subject is the unmarked Theme choice.

The subject may be fairly extensive, if, for example, the nominal group acting as Subject includes a long Postmodifier the whole nominal group is the Theme. The Subject may be a nominal group complex, where, for example, two coordinated nominal groups function together as Subject. The Subject may be an embedded clause.

7.2 OTHER CONSTITUENTS AS THEME

Often the Adjunct is Theme. The position of Adjuncts is fairly flexible, and they can be placed in Theme without this seeming particularly unusual. The Adjunct may be quite long, too.

It is possible to have a

All the rest we'll do for you.

Friends like that I can do without.

What I saw inside I do not want to describe.

Particularly significant was the way the subjects reacted to the third task.

All these are said to have marked Theme, because they only occur when contextual reasons overrule the unmarked choice of Subject as Theme.

Looked at from the speaker's point of view, it makes sense to start the clause with the constituent that combines both these types of 'aboutness'. This is why Subject is the natural choice as Theme. Theme and Subject have been separated when they could in principle have been conflated to highlight a contrast between the thematized element and something in the preceding text.

Adjuncts their position in the clause is typically flexible. Therefore, when an Adjunct is used as Theme, it is somewhere

In the middle on the scale of markedness. For simplicity, they are labelled as marked Theme. Subject is chosen as Theme when there is no good reason to choose anything else. When there are contextual pressures, such as the speaker’s wish to establish a contrast or signal a particular form of organization in their discourse, another element (Adjunct or Complement) may be chosen instead.

7.3 THEME IN NON-DECLARATIVE CLAUSES

7.3.1 Interrogatives

The basic reason for asking a question is to find out some ‘missing’ information. In WH interrogatives, the WH-word or group itself represents the missing information th