Understanding Processes in Language: Transitivity Analysis and Participants | Appunti di Linguistica Inglese

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0 -15 min

The process is the center of the transitivity analysis and we do not say the verb, because

In the entirety of cases, the process is performed by a verb. A verb construes (builds) a process. Why do

we simply say that this is the system of experimental analysis of the verb?

For two reasons =

1. The process is the center of the analysis, but the goal of the analysis is the clause. Transitivity is

an analysis that starts from the process, but is actually at the clause level. The aim is to identify

the process, but also its participants and if present its circumstances. The first reason we don’t

say we’re analyzing the verb. We start from the verb → the verb is the center, but it’s the center in

so far as it is the process to which participants and circumstances are associated

2. In Functional Grammar you have much less formm-function correlation than you have in any

other system of grammar. In Structural Grammars (not only the one of Chomsky and Gervschion)

and all other grammars form-function is higher. This is the reason why we don’t say that (looking

at our hub and spoke system of processes) there are relational verbs, verbal, mental, behavioral,

material and existential verbs but we say that each of these are a kind of process.

+Form-function correlation is when a grammatical item has one and only one possible

interpretation. One kind of form-function correlation that Functional G keeps because

there's no other way of formalizing it, is parts of speech → an article is an article, a noun

is a noun. There are no other ways of explaining them but for processes it’s not exactly

the case that the process is always a verb → there are especially, in scientific language,

there are cases of verb normalization in which the process is actually a noun often ending

in -ition,-ation and they’re called grammatical metaphors (when we have a process that

is not performed by a verb).

“I am a fox” = we wouldn't say that to be here is a relational verb, but a relational process.

TOPIC OF THE DAY :

To go through all kinds of processes and see the other side of ideational meaning which is not

experiential but logical.

So we have 6 kinds of processes and we’ve seen that there

are three that are major processes, meaning that they

occupy the center, the hub of this wheel model. The most

important ones to represent reality in language are

1. relational processes (most of the time construed

with the verb to be or to have);

2. mental processes (talking about our emotions,

cognition, perception and desideration → want, desire,

yearn, long for)

3. material process (the most frequent one, based on

statistical analysis of language that is done with electronic

databases).

TO IDENTIFY PROCESSES AND PARTICIPANTS

Relation processes come in two types

1. attributive (I am a fox)

2. identifying (these are their only interests)

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0 -15 min The process is the center of the transitivity analysis and we do not say the verb, because In the entirety of cases, the process is performed by a verb. A verb construes (builds) a process. Why do we simply say that this is the system of experimental analysis of the verb? For two reasons =

The process is the center of the analysis, but the goal of the analysis is the clause. Transitivity is an analysis that starts from the process, but is actually at the clause level. The aim is to identify the process, but also its participants and if present its circumstances. The first reason we don’t say we’re analyzing the verb. We start from the verb → the verb is the center, but it’s the center in so far as it is the process to which participants and circumstances are associated
In Functional Grammar you have much less formm-function correlation than you have in any other system of grammar. In Structural Grammars (not only the one of Chomsky and Gervschion) and all other grammars form-function is higher. This is the reason why we don’t say that (looking at our hub and spoke system of processes) there are relational verbs, verbal, mental, behavioral, material and existential verbs but we say that each of these are a kind of process. + Form-function correlation is when a grammatical item has one and only one possible interpretation. One kind of form-function correlation that Functional G keeps because there's no other way of formalizing it, is parts of speech → an article is an article, a noun is a noun. There are no other ways of explaining them but for processes it’s not exactly the case that the process is always a verb → there are especially, in scientific language, there are cases of verb normalization in which the process is actually a noun often ending in -ition , -ation and they’re called grammatical metaphors (when we have a process that is not performed by a verb). “I am a fox” = we wouldn't say that to be here is a relational verb, but a relational process. TOPIC OF THE DAY : To go through all kinds of processes and see the other side of ideational meaning which is not experiential but logical. So we have 6 kinds of processes and we’ve seen that there are three that are major processes, meaning that they occupy the center, the hub of this wheel model. The most important ones to represent reality in language are
relational processes (most of the time construed with the verb to be or to have );
mental processes (talking about our emotions, cognition, perception and desideration → want, desire, yearn, long for )
material process (the most frequent one, based on statistical analysis of language that is done with electronic databases). TO IDENTIFY PROCESSES AND PARTICIPANTS Relation processes come in two types
attributive (I am a fox)
identifying (these are their only interests )

The difference is whether you can reverse the order of the participants → their only interests are these. If you can read from left to right (normal in English) or you can read the constituence from right to left → if you can do so then the process is identifying and this impacts on the names of its participants but not on the name of the process. It’s still a relational process, it’s still a process of abstract relation (the fox is not doing anything by being itself; the interests are not performing any actions by being the only interest of human beings in the text) → there’s not action

Same process, but in the case in which you can reverse the order, this process expresses an identification (a kind of equation). + These (identifier) = their only interests. Their only interests (identified) = these ↪ their only interests = the full noun group If we wanted to reverse this identifying process and say “their only interests are these” the process would remain the same (relational), but the name of the participants would change because the one that gets identified here is this cataphoric that gets identified (these). The first participant (doer of the action even though relational processes are not done or performed, they’re abstract), the doer is the Identifier and the second one is the Identified. Talking about form-function correlation (not very frequent in Functional grammar but sometimes it can be helpful). If we can find some regular phenomena that are repeated and help us identify a certain function as a certain structure, it doesn’t hurt to use this one function correlation. In relational processes we have something like this and it is the form that the second participant takes.
For example in attributive processes (ones that we cannot reverse, ones that have a carrier as the first participant and an attribute as the second participant), we will find that the attribute in English is characterised by the presence in the noun group of a non-specific deictic (in the noun group) or the attribute is an adjective.
When we see a clause with the verb to be , and the argument of the verb to be is a noun group that begins with a non-specific deictic, we already know that that is an attributive relational process. 15-30 min Attributive Relational Processes → the second Participant is either a noun beginning with a non-specific deictic or an adjective. In a consequential way, in identifying relational process → the second participant is a noun preceded by a specific deictic, so it can be an article, a demonstrative, a possessive and so on. This happens only with the verb “ to be ”. We also have relational processes with the verb “ to have ”, but they’re attributive. There’s an exception (which, however, we don’t do at the exam) which is the saxon genitive. The saxon genitive is considered identifying (“This diary is Sabrina ’s ” → identifying ). However, with “to have” you also have relational process, but here the first participant is always called carrier and the second participant is always called attribute.
“I have no need of you” would be: “I” carrier, “have” relational process and “no need of you” attribute. Now, why is “of you” also a part of the attribute and not a circumstance? Because it is a post modifier of “need”. In transitivity analysis do we separate, for example, “no need” and “of you”? It depends on the context. In this specific example “of you” is a post-modifier of “need” because if you stop at “need” you don’t know what we’re talking about. “I have no need” has a general meaning, instead here it means “I don’t need you”. In this case, due to the meaning, it is a post-modifier.

sing = material process a song = the range, a goal that we call a range (meaning implicit in the process) What happens if instead of a song, I mention the type of a song → Ex : I sing “all by myself” It’s a particular case we could interpret in 2 ways The title as goal, because it’s not implicit that when you sing, you always sing by yourself The interpretation of sing as a verbal process because you could interpret this to be a Verbiage A verbiage is another kind of participant that identifies something that is being said. It wouldn’t be a Range, because the title of the song is not implicit in the verb. Instead if we do I sing the song “all by myself”, then the song = a Range “all by myself” = a postmodifier. Examples = “He plays games with me” is an idiomatic phrase. To play games means to cheat on someone, not by having a lover but by not being honest. He = actor plays = material process games = range with me = circumstance (because it’s the affected person) Question = When there’s an internal direct object, then the goal is called Range? YES, so what would count as a goal in the Internal Direct Object clause (i sing a song, i play a game) you call it Range instead. Question = Is “I sing a song” a verbal process or can it still be considered a material process? No, “to sing a song” is considered a material process. To sing can be a verbal process, when you have the literal express of what was sung. For example : I sing “God save our gracious queen” → this would be a quotation so for this reason it would not be a Range but because the purpose of a clause like this is to report the beginning of the text, the purpose is to report it so it’s not implicit in the verb. It is something new that is said and the emphasis is on the saying. VERBAL PROCESSES They are all processes that involve the use of your voice. So to perform a verbal process you need your voice. This is why “to sing” can be a verbal process, if what follows the verb is some kind of direct speech (the title of a song or the lyrics of the song). Two types of verbal processes (we know them because the two types of verbal activity are either reported or quoted like direct and indirect speech). What’s the difference between these two phrases? In the second example we have a sentence in inverted commas, which is reported exactly as it was said. So there’s no change in the sequence of tenses and also there’s no subordination. Basically the difference is that if you report speech directly, it’s not really reported but quoted (we call the inverted commas quotation marks). If we take these two clauses, from the point of view of their meaning, logical-semantically they’re the same. The meaning that’s conveyed is the same but there’s a change that involves the level of dependency. So in the first example we have a clause that tells us what is being said, a clause’s verbiage that is hypotactic → hypotaxis

Whereas in the second example we have a verbiage again because we have something that is being said (the same thing as before) without the sequence of tenses changed (it’s literally taken from the fox’s speech), but there’s no hypotaxis here → the two clauses are coordinated Verbiage = what is being said So the first example, with hypotaxis/subordination is called a Reported Locution → it is that because this is a verbal process. If this sentence had been “the fox thought that he wasn’t tamed” then this would still be a kind of reporting but it wouldn't be a reported locution because by thinking you don’t necessarily use your voice (thought is a mental process). This would be a reported idea (with mental processes). << >> = hooked brackets The presence of the that clause creates the hypotactic relation The quotes (“”, //, << >>) create a paratactic relation. So regardless of which quotation marks you use, when the speech is reported literally you have a quoted Locution. In both cases, these clauses (in the first case hypotactic, in the second case paratactic) act as Verbiage.

55 - 1h12. We start from the Verbiage because it’s the only thing that needs to be explained in the verbal process. but the verbal process has another particular feature: it’s the possibility to have some kind of adresse like in the example we have here: “the fox told the little prince that he wasn't tamed”. english has this specific feature: it has two ways to express the basic verbal process:

to say it
to tell→ you need a receiver, you tell someone, unless you are in a situation of a phraseological structure → ex “to tell the truth” (fixed phrase) → to tell it’s the basic verbal process that needs and adresse called RECEIVER you can use a Receiver with “to say” too but you have to use a circumstance like “the fox said to the little prince i’m not paying” but grammatically it wouldn't be appropriate, why? because “ to say to” has an additional tense, it has a directive shade of meaning (if I say something to you it’s not only an exchange of information but it’s also a request for some kind of services) tell and say are the two basic verbs that create the verbal process but whenever you have a verb in a context in which a verb expresses a process that needs your voice that it’s a verbal process (added, reminded). There are two verbs in remember (remember and remind). What happens usually it that you have the first one that it's a mental process and the second one that it's a verbal process (not like this in italian). to summarise→ the participants in a verbal process are the sayer (one that speaks) , the verbiage (can also be and often is a clause), receiver (the person that is told something) this is one of 3 or you can count them on one hand because there are a few examples of total on function correlation in functional grammar and this is one of there. whenever you have a structure (there is, there are, there where, there exist…) are existential processes → represented by 0 called
zero -> in mathematic
nought → in general
oh -> when you list number In the example “there are no chickens' ' the only participants are “no chickens” and the process here it’s not relational, because there is a relation that is related to a carrier. the chickens just are, they exist, or not exist. BEHAVIORAL PROCESSES are so marginal that some functional grammarian don’t even consider them and there are largely involuntary actions that are typical of human being, even if there it’s a good objection here to make that even non human cough, smile, sneeze, to cry ( EXPRESS SOME KIND OF DISTRESS) they typically don’t have a second participant “the fox sight” , without and object

Understanding Processes in Language: Transitivity Analysis and Participants, Appunti di Linguistica Inglese

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