4. Patterns of Experience — Processes, Participants, Circumstances A fundamental property of language is that it enables us to conceptualize and deseribe our experience of the phenomena of the external world, of the internal world of our thoughts, feelings and perceptions. In this sense, the clause, being the most significant grammatical unit of language, permits us to encode semantically and syntactically this experience. Each clause becomes the linguistic expression of a pattern of experience, conceptualized as a situation type. As language-users, we are interested in participants, in the qualities we ascribe to them, in the process (what the participants do, say and feel) and in the eireumstances in which the processes take place, These four elements become the semantic framework for a situation: «Realized by the Predicator, the PROCESS represents a state, an action, an event, a transition (change of state), and a climatic phenomenon, a process of se saying, behaving or existing. We distinguish three main types of processes (@) Material processes, or processes of doing and causing (e.g. kick, jump, play, write, repair, give, etc.) (b) Mental processes, or processes of experienc: believe, like, love, hate, regret, ete.), © Relational processes, or processes of b seem, stand, lie, tur, get, ete.) * PARTICIPANT (person, object or abstraction) is the Agent of the action or who is affected by it, benefits from it or receives its effects. Grammatically we distinguish inherent participants: Subject, Direct Object and Indircet Object, and non-inherent participants: Instrument, such as in She hit him with ker umbrella. On the other hand, participants can be actualized (Ben kicked the ball = two participants, S + Od) or unactualized/unexpounded (Ben kicked hard = one participant, 8; the one affected by the action is not expressed), Sometimes participants are unexpounded because they can be understood in the situational context such as in: Will you pow? (tea, coffee, water, ete.) or He's washing himself) Statements about time, distance and weather have no participants and the pronoun Jt in “Te is raining. It’s a long walk there. It’s half past nine.” is a surface form necessary to realize the grammatical subject Traditionally, one-participant (die) and no-participant (rain) processes are called intransitive verbs, whereas processes with two or more participants (cut), be they actualized or unactualized, are called transitive verbs. Last but not least, the number of participants in process is called valency. Thus, we distinguish monovalent processes (with one participant), bivalent (with two participants) and trivalent (with three participants): The man died. The man hit the policeman. Peter gave John an umbrella. * The ATTRIBUTES ascribed to the participants characterize the entity or state its location in space and time. Subject Complements and Object Complements realize them. if or sensing (sce, feel, know, and becoming (eg. be, become,© The CIRCUMSTANCES include Adjuncts of time, place manner, means, cause, condition, concession, accompaniment and role, which are optional in the syntactic structures, A) PROCESSES 1. Processes of Doing and Causing Material processes are actions carried out by an Agent which may or may not affect other participants. In material processes, we have the following participant roles: Agent, Force, Affected, Effected, Recipient, Beneficiary and Causative Agent. LL Agent is the “doer” who caries out the action. The typical Agent is human, e.g. The State Secretary resigned. Ben kicked his friend. 1.2 Force or Inanimate Agents are natural phenomena (thunder, lightning, electricity, avalanches, wind, tides, flood, ete.) whose power and energy is unintentional, and psychological states (anxiety, fear, joy, ete.): e.g. The flood tore down the old bridge. Anxiety can ruin your health. 1.3 The Affected participant is the Patient, the one which is affected by the provess (Od in the active clause and the S in the passive clause): e.g. My brother is painting the wall. The cake was eaten by the child. 1.4 The Effected participant is the Result of the process, in other words, what is brought to being by the process (Od in the active clause): eg. Peter made an omelette. The dog dug a hole. 1.5 The Recipient is the additional participant, to whom the action is directed or who receives the “goods” and who ean be animate or inanimate. Syntactically it is realized by the Indirect Object (active clause), Subject (passive clause) or by the Prepositional Object containing fo, and the processes include give, send, lend, grant, pay’ e.g, I'll give the children some fresh fruit. We give the unemployment question priority. (animate/inat i The accused was granted bail. The children will be given some fresh fruit. 1.6 The Beneficiary is the optional, not inherent participant for whom some service is done and who may not be necessarily the one receiving the goods. Syntactically it can be realized by the Indirect Object, and the processes include verbs like, make, buy, pour, cook, bake, mix, Anit, ete, representing services done for people: e.g. Could you fetch me the keys? Tl mix you a drink. Unlike the Recipient, the Beneficiary can rarely become Subject in a passive clause, The following are not acceptable: eg. *Tcould be fetched the keys. You are mixed a drink. ‘The Recipient and the Beneficiary can occur together in the same clause eg. [gave Jane ating for her daughter. (Jane = Recipient and her daughter = Beneficiary) ‘The Causative Agent: (a) brings about a change of state (make, tum, drive, have + participle for the passive construction) in the Affected participant, The resulting state is expressed by an Attribute e.g. He had his car washed. That noise is driving me mad, (b) causes the Affected pa perform an action, A change of state or location of the Affected may also be involved. Causative Agents are notnecessarily human, but may be instrumental participants, such as “stone” in the example below: e.g. Jane boiled the milk. — (human agent) A stone broke the window pane. — (instrumental agent) The situations described above with the Causative Agent expressed as Subject can also be expressed with the Causative Agent suppressed. It is the ease of ergative verbs (which can be used both transitively and intransitively to describe the same action): e.g. Jane boiled the milke. vs. The milk boiled. A stone broke the window pane. vs. The window pane broke. Peter rang the bell. vs. The bell rang. Closely connected to Material processes are the processes which are not extended to any participant, also known as one-participant processes, in which the single participant is either an Agent Subject of a voluntary process (e.g. Birds fly. Nobody turned up.) or an Affected Subject of an involuntary process (e.g. Tie dog died. The Government has fallen. He slipped on ice.) Processes which arc subdivided into: processes of perception (sce, hear, smell), of iow, think, believe, understand) and of affeetion (like, dislike love hate, please). For these kind of processes we have two participants: the Experiencer/Senser who is conscious and who thinks, feels, sees. likes, ete., and is typically human, but may also be an animal, and the Phenomenon, that which is perecived, known, liked, cte., and which may be a “thing” realized by a Nominal Group, but can also be a fact, a process or an cntire situation, realized by a clause Experiencer Mental process Phenomenon Who saw ‘What happened? John. knows the answer to that question, She believe that he is wrong, Children like going to the movies. 2.1 Perception processes describe: (a) non-volitionally received sensations (verbs describing the five senses: see. hear, feel, smell, taste), the participant in such situations being called Rect Experiencer: Recipient Experiencer (S)_[Non-volitional process (Py Phenomenon (Od) Pete saw a badger, We heard actash, 1 can smell ga, 1 can taste the sauce. ‘The child feels cold, (b) volitional material processes, realized by the dynamic verbs: look, wateh, listen, which can take Progressive aspect and which are accompanied by an Agentive Experiencer: jentive Bxperiencer (S) Volitional process P) Phenomenon (Od) Tom watched ‘the cat Kill the bird. He listened to the noise. She tasted the pie. The mother felt the child’s forehead.2.2 Cognitive processes, expressing intellectual activity, are realized by a series of stative verbs such as: believe, doubt, guess, know, recognize, think, forget, mean, remember, and understand. Their Phenomenon can be a wide range of things apprehended, including human, inanimate and abstract entities, realized by Nominal Groups, facts and situations, realized by different types of clauses: ‘Experiencer ‘Cognitive process Phenomenon ‘She ‘don’t know ‘what to think, Nobody remembered his face She forgot to leave the book My parents thought that you were leaving, 1 realized how late it was. 2.3. Affectivity processes express the ability to feel emotions (verbs of liking and disliking, of wanting, of surprise, worry, depression, dismay), but also hypothetical events and states viewed from the standpoint of speech time (wish, suppose, would rather). Most of these verbs have a Recipient Experiencer expressed by the Subject or the Direct Object, and a Phenomenon expressed by a Nominal Group (representing an entity, a fact, an idea) or a clause (representing a process or a situation): e.g. The outeome pleased us. We were pleased by the outcome. I detest hypoeris That their son never writes home depresses them. (Recipient Experiencer vs. Cats love sardines. (entity) That she initiated divorce proceedings surprised no one. (Subject) It surprised no one that she initiated divorce proceedings. (fact) No one was surprised that she should initiate divorce proceedings. (idea) (Phenomenon) 3. Processes of Being and Becoming, as relational processes, express the notion of being something or somewhere, not “bein; 5 sting. In relational clauses, there are two parts to the “being”: something is being said to “be” something else. In other words, a relation is being set up between two separate entities reflected languages in diffe in The Post Office is ich of these comes in two ng (“a is the identity of x”). intensive in e.g. He is generous.), circumstantial ( over there.) and possessive (‘x has a” in Peter owns a piano.) distinct modes: attributive (“cis an attribute of x”) and identi This gives six categories of relational process: Mode: attibutive identifying Type: (characterizing) (1) intensive Sarah is wise Toms the Teader, the leader is Tom Q) circumstantial the fair is on a Tuesday tomorrow is the 10" the 10" is tomorrow 3) possessive Peter owns a piano the piano is Peter's Peter's is the piano: From this Table we ean see one important difference between the attributive and the identifying mode: the identifying ones are reversible: Tom is the leader / the leader is Tom. 31‘The attributive ones are not reversible: “wise ix Sarah” is an archaic or literary variant which is not systematically related to “Sarah és wise.” Other differences are: (a) only the attributive can be realized by an adjective (e.g. The river we crossed was wide = a wide river; vs. The river we crossed was the Danube = which is identifying), (b) characterizing Attributes are usually realized by indefinite NGs while identifying Attributes are usually definite NGs (e.g. Tom is a good player vs, Tom is the leader). The participant in a relational process is called the Carrier (Sarah, he, the Post Office, the fair, Peter). The process itself appears to have less meaning than do material and mental processes, and serves merely to relate the Carrier to its Attribute (wise, generous), to a Circumstance (over there, on a Tuesday) or to the semantic function expressing Possession (owns = encoded as a process; Peter’s = encoded as property of the possessor) 3.1. Intensive relational processes between the Carrier and its Attribute. That is to say, the Carrier is in some way the Attribute. The contribution of the Attribute is to elar or to identify it, as scen in the Table and the examples above. ‘The process can be expressed cither as a state, with the verbs: be, keep, remain, stay, seem, appear (for current Attributes) or as a transition, with the verbs: become, get, turn, turn out, grow, run, end up (for resulting Attributes). cterize ‘Current Attribute Resulting Attribute ‘We Kept quict. We fell silent He remained the leader. He became the leader. She felt exhausted, She ended up exhausted, ‘The steps are smooth, ‘The steps have wom smooth, ‘The water feels cold. ‘The water has run cold, My face was red. My face tumed red. ‘There is also a wide variety of verbs in English, which express both states and transition: look (=seem), sound, smell, taste, and feel: Carrier (5) Process (P) Attribute (CS, Recipient (A) This test Tooks easy (tome) His name sounds familiar (to me) ‘That fish smells bad (to me) Mangos taste delicious (to me) ‘The surface feels rather rough (to me) ‘The child feels hot (io me) In expressions referring to climatic phenomena such as: i is hot, cold, sunny, wind frosty, cloudy, foggy. there is no Carrier and the greater part of the meaning is expressed but the Attribute. relational processes are processes of being, in which the essential to the situation, not peripheral to it, There are many types of circumstances in an intensive relationship with the Carrier: * location in space: The theater is on Main Street. * location in time: ‘Their next rehearsal will be on March 12. + extent in space: The lake stretches as far as the eye can see + extent in time: The performance lasted three hours. © measurement: The window measures wo meters by one.cost: ‘The book costs five dollars. + weight: My duffel bag weighs 15 kilos. © means Entrance to the exhibition is by invitation, © Agent: The symphony is by Schubert. © Beneficiary: ‘These roses are for her. * metaphorical meanings: He’s off alcohol. He's on the wagon. Everyone's into yoga nowadays. Examples as: Today is Sunday. Tomorrow witl be July I are reversible and can therefore be considered as identifying circumstantial pracesses. 3.3. Possessive relational processes express the relationship between the two entities: one entity possesses another. The notion of possession is expressed either by the Attribute, or by the process itself (a) Possession as Attribute: the verb is be and the Attribute is realized by a genitive pronoun (mine, yours, hers, his, ours, theirs) or by an °s genitive (John's), (b) Possession as process. In English, this is realized with the verbs have, own and possess, the Carrier being the possessor and the Attribute the possessed, and with the verbs be and belong—when the functions are reversed—the Carrier becoming the possessed and the Attribute the possessor. Also included in the category of possessing are the notions of not possessing: Lack, need, do not possess, of being worthy to possess: deserve, as well as the abstract notions of inclusion, exelusion and containment: include, excluce, contain: Carrier Process ‘Attribute Those gloves are ny sister's. Neither of these is mine, ‘The house belongs toa bank manager. ‘These shoes aren't John’s. Possessed Possessor Hlis uncle owns a boat, She lacks confidence. Plants need water. The price includes postage. ‘The price excludes breakfast, ‘That can contains gas. 1 don’t possess a gun. He deserves a prize, Possessor Possessed mental and relational, we ing and of existing/ Besides these three principal types of processes: material, distinguish two other subsi muni happening. 4. Processes of saying or communicating are realized by such verbs as: say, tell, announce, ask and report. They have one participant, the Sayer, and a second essential participant, the Verbiage (what is said, asked or reported). A Recipient may also be present in some verbal processes. The Verbiage is realized either by a NG, or by a clause (reported statement, reported question, reported directive)Sayer ‘Verbal process | Recipient Verbiage/Reported Speech Peter told) me a joke. ‘That sign says “No smoking.” Big Ben tells the time in London, Our correspondent | reports renewed fighting on the frontier. voice announced that the train was 10 minutes late, She asked the lady how much it cost ‘The old man urged us to stay a little longer. 5. Processes of existing or happening are existential processes which state the existence, or non-existence of something, very frequently together with its location in time or place. The word there in such processes has no representational function, but it is needed as a Subject. The single participant is the Existent, which may refer to a countable, an uncountable entity or an event: e.g. There’s aman at the door. (countable entity) There’s some ice in the fridge. (uncountable entity) There was a blast. (an event) The process in existential clauses is typically expressed by be, that is why these processes resemble relational processes. Other verbs used are: exist, remain, arise, oceur, come about, happen, take place, sit, stand, lie, hang, rise, stretch, emerge, grow, follow, ensue, ett. eg. On the wall there hang a mask. There followed an extraordinary scene. Below the castle stretches a vast plain, There remain many problems. B) ATTENDANT CIRCUMSTANC ‘The circumstantial element in English covers a great variety of meanings, of which the most common are those related to: space, time, manner, contingency, accompaniment, modality, degree, role, matter, range and instrument. 1. Spatial and temporal circumstances There are many parallel expressions of space and time, in many cases introduced by the same preposition: extent +end-point ‘Space Time Tocation ‘athome, in the park, below LS o'clock, in May, years ago direction towards the south towands midnight direction + end-point | to the south pole up to now starting-point from the north since Christmas since I saw you extent for several miles for several vears as far as Bucharest relative hire, there, nearby now, then recently in front, behind us before, after tea above our heads distributive al intervals intervals ‘every 100 vards here and there until we meet again by Tuesday every so offen now and then off and on2. Manner Here we include, as well as manner in the sense of ‘quality’, the notions of means and ‘comparison, as illustrated below: WH-form ‘manner as quality how? Don't doit that way; abruptly, gently, means how? It's cheaper by train, ‘what with? He watered the flowers with a hose. comparison what...Like? Snow lay /ike a blanket on the ground. 3. Contingency covers eause, purpose, reason, concession and behalf: cause What cause? __] The child took the pen oui of emy ‘They are dying of thirst purpose | what...for? He is studying for a degree. ‘The tem is training to win. reason why? We left on account of bad weather. He stopped because he wanted to take a picture. concession | how? No matter hose hard they iry, they won't win the match, Inspite of the delay, we got there in time. behalf whoiwhat for? | Give up smoking for the sake of your health. T'll speak to the principal on your behalf. condition _| fFclause Send an e-mail, if necessavy. 4. Accompaniment expresses a joint participation in the process, involving the notions of “togetherness” or “additionality,” be they positive or negative: togethemess positive He came with his dog. togetherness negative He came without the books. additionality positive He came as well as John. additionality negative He came instead of John. 5. Modality expresses the notions of possibi . probability, certainty, ete. possibility His new book will possibly appear next month. probability It will probably be well received. certainty Itwill certainly cause a lot of controversy. 6. Degree either emphasizes or attenuates the process: emphasis, T completely forgot to bring my assignment. attenuation ‘You can hardly expect me to believe that. 7. Role indicates in what capacity the participant is involved in the process: capacity Tm speaking to you ax your best friend, As an actor he's not outstanding, but as a dancer he's brilliant. 8. Matter is related to verbal processes, being the circumstantial equivalent of the Verbiage — “that which is described, referred to, narrated, ete.” The interrogative is what about? Matter is expressed by prepositions such as: about, concerning, with reference to, of: e.g. [worry about her health. The company kept quiet on the subject of compensation. They talked of many things. As for that, I don’t believe a wordof it, Help yourself to a glass of wine. 9. Range is the nominal concept implied by the process as its seape or range. It covers ities, measurements and real processes. eg. sing a song, play games, run a race, smile a mysterious smile, fight a clean fight, sleep a deep sleep, live a peaceful life, die a horrible death: (entities) 10 kilos, 5 pounds, two miles, ete. (measurements) have a bath, do a dance, have a walk, take a dip, etc. (real processes) 10. Instrument is the entity which a human Agent uses in order to carry out or initiate the process. The preposition which introduces the nominal realization of the Instrument is with. Instrument differs from the circumstance Means because the former can become Subject in the same basic clause: e.g. [broke the window with a stone. vs. A stone broke the window. They polluted the river with chemicals. vs. Chemicals polluted the river. He watered the garden with a hase, * 4 hose watered the garden. (Means) In passive clauses, the distinction between Agent and Instrument is sometimes hard to draw, since both ean occur in passives in a by-phrase: eg. He was killed by a fanatic. (Agent) vs. He was killed by a hand-grenade, (Instrument) With some verbs the notion of Instrument is incorporated into the process itself: eg. He elbowedhis way through the crowd. ‘The player headed the ball into the net. ‘The builders bulldozed the site HIGHLIGHTS = Semantically, a clause represents a pattem of experience, conceptualized as a situation type. + Situation types consist of Processes, Participants, Attributes and Circumstances. + Participants (one, two, three, unexpounded, no participants) arc: animate, inanimate or abstract entities + Processes: (a) material, mental, relational (basic types) (b) of saying, existing or happening (additional types). «Attributes: qualities or circumstances of the participants, + Circumstances: time, place, manner, cause. etc., of the whole situation. PRACTICE TASKS, 1.) Identify the processes in the following examples: Bees make honey. I prefer ballet to opera. The ground is soggy after the heavy rain. Do you know the author's name? The wounded soldier staggered down the road. The abbey is now a ruin, I don’t trust his judgment. She writes romances about rich and beautiful people. The weather has tumed cold, The days are becoming colder. You don’t seem convinced by his ‘argument.2.) Say whether the participant is acting or acted upon or whether properties of the participant are being expressed: This kind of material cuts easi The car broke down. Your letter got lost in the mail. Glass reoyeles well. He ruled with an iron hand. For Heaven’s sake, don’t hesitate. Peaches won't ripen in this climate, Two of the deputies arrived late. The chimney pot crashed to the ground. 3.) Write an alternative construction so that the Experiencer coincides with the Subject: ‘Neither of the proposals pleased the members of the commission, ‘The news delighted us. ‘The dramatic increase of crime in the cities is alarming the government, His presence of mind amazed us. The fact that she seems unable to lose weight worries her. Will the fact that you forgot to phone annoy your wife? 4.) Write two ten-line paragraphs, one on the things you enjoy doing most, the other on the things vou dislike doing most, 5.) Identify the circumstantial element in the following clauses: Trains to Bath run every twenty minutes in off-peak periods. It’s supposed to be quicker by first-class mail. In spite of the forecast for storms, they set off a rowing boat to cross the lake. Someone must have done it out of spite. He speaks German as well as French. Payments must be made by the end of the month. As a do-it-yourself decorator, I’m not the most enterprising 6.) Identify the circumstantial elements of Instrument and Range: ‘They blocked the road with dustbins. We crossed the Channel by hovercraft. Rita won the jackpot. She managed to open the suitease with a hairpin, They lead a quiet life.