Grounding Predication langacker:

Differences (grammatical choices) pertaining to the identification of nominal referents and

the status of the profiled process with respect to time and reality (the assessment is made
relative to the ground.

A grounding element specifies the status vis-à-vis the ground of the thing profiled by a
nominal or the process profiled by a finite clause. Through nominal grounding the speaker
directs the hearer’s attention to the intended discourse referent (which may or may not
correspond to an actual individual). Clausal grounding situates the profiled process with
respect to the speaker’s current conception of reality.

SOS: one property of the grounding elements is that the ground remains covert and an
implicit point of reference.

Grounding reflects the asymmetry between subject and object of conceptualization/

conception (conceptualizer vs. what is conceptualized)

Subject= the locus of the conceptualizing experience but its role as subject is not itself
conceived (remains implicit together with the conceptualizing mechanism/ construal
operations that allow him to construe the situation -perspective/ specificity/ prominence/
focusing)

Within the scope of the s’s full awareness is a certain region (the onstage region) within
which some onstage element is singled out as the focus of attention (object of
conceptualization)

S is construed with maximal subjectivity when it functions exclusively as subject: lacking self-
awareness, it is merely an implicit conceptualizing presence totally absorbed in
apprehending O

O is construed with maximal objectivity when it is clearly observed and well-delimited with
respect to both its surroundings and the observer.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/autobiographical-self

(conception subsumes perception as a special case)

Since meanings are conceptualizations the ground figures at least minimally in the meaning
of every expression. But in actual use, almost every expression evokes some facet of the
ground in addition to S and H in their role as subjects of conception. This connection need
not be salient and often leaves the ground at the margins of awareness (e.g. tomorrow).

A connection with the ground is also inherent in any expression whose import includes the
speaker’s attitude toward the onstage element.

As a special case the connection between the ground and the onstage situation consists in
selecting some facet of G as a focus of attention, onstage and objectively construed. The
profiled entity is then construed with the maximal degree of objectivity possible for such an
entity. Its construal can never be fully objective, since one factor contributing to objectivity
is distinctness from the ground.

Because of its dual role, a profiled speaker or addressee is construed less objectively than
something wholly distinct from the ground, and less subjectively than when it functions
exclusively as subject of conception.

Criteria for identifying grounding expressions:

1. While the ground has more than just a minimal presence, it is offstage and
subjectively construed (9 2b). A grounding element profiles nether a facet of the
ground nor its connection to the entity being grounded. It is the thing or the process
referred to by the nominal or the finite clause that is put on stage and profiled by
the element that grounds it (a full nominate/ finite clause has the same referent as
its grounding element (e.g. this/ that)
2. Excluded are expressions that either profile parts of the ground (I you now etc.) or
invoke it as a focused relational participant.
3. Lexical content: meanings of grounding elements are quite schematic and confined
to certain basic oppositions of an ‘epistemic’ nature. They offer minimal yet
 fundamental indications of what the speaker/hearer know regarding the status of
events and the identification of event participants (eg. Modals, demonstratives etc.)
4. They fall towards the grammatical pole of the grammar lexicon continuum: their
schematized meanings reside more in construal than in any specific conceptual
content.
5. A nominal or a finite clause profiles a grounded instance of a thing type or a process
type.