Gramática Inglesa II
Grado en Estudios Ingleses (Universidad de Granada)
Departamento de Filologías Inglesa y Alemana
1.3. Syntactico-semantic relations: processes, participants, attributes and
circumstances
Semantically, a clause represents a pattern of experience, conceptualised as a situation
type.
Situation types consist of
o Processes
o Participants
o Attributes
o Circumstances
The type of process (established by the predicate) usually determines the number and
type of participants
Verb valency zero participants e.g. It is raining
one participant e.g. The dog barked
two participants e.g. The dog bit the postman
three participants e.g. Mary gave the Red Cross a donation
PREDICATE
Major types of processes
o Material Process
(1) Mary kicked the ball
(2) The government has fallen
o Mental Process
(3) He heard the explosion
(4) He understands the lesson
(5) He hates linguistics
o Relational Process
(5) Susan is my cousin
(6) Peter is in London
(7) The car is mine
Minor types of process
o Verbal Process
(8) He said that he went to London
o Existential Process
(9) There is three eggs in the fridge
(10) There remains one problem
SUBJECT
In Material Process
Agent: (1) Martin, the Irish detective, drove the car
Causative Agent: (2) She made him stronger
Instrument: (3) This key opens the front door
Force: (4) The earthquake destroyed the skyscrapers
Affected: (5) The ball was kicked
Recipient: (6) She was given a black Mercedes
Positional: (7) Charles Boon was sitting in the first class cabin
(8) The hijacker was holding a bomb
