The Thought Occurs

Thursday 12 May 2011

Realisation (Token–Value) Vs Instantiation (Token–Type)

Data:
"You are Zaphod Beeblebrox?" he squeaked.
"Yeah," said Zaphod, "but don't shout it out or they'll all want one."
"The Zaphod Beeblebrox?"
"No, just a Zaphod Beeblebrox; didn't you hear I come in six packs?"

Realisation:
I am the Zaphod Beeblebrox = Token^Value

Instantiation:
I am a Zaphod Beeblebrox = Token^Type (ie Carrier^Attribute)

Sample Difficult Clause Analysis

DATA:

Four German children owe their lives to an early night

ANALYSIS:

Four German children = Token
owe = Process: relational: identifying: possessive
their lives = Value
to an early night = Cause: Reason realised incongruently as Beneficiary

Compare:
Four German children owe their life savings to an email scammer

[owe (somebody something) is a possessive verb of benefaction serving as an identifying process (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 246)]