The Thought Occurs

Sunday 2 April 2017

The Ergativity Of Identifying Clauses

In identifying clauses, the Identified is the Medium of the Process, but the Identifier varies according to the direction of coding, functioning as
  • the Range of a decoding clause, where it maps onto Value, but
  • the Agent of an encoding clause, where it maps onto Token.

In other words,
  1. decoding: Token/Identified/Medium and Value/Identifier/Range,
  2. encoding: Token/Identifier/Agent and Value/Identified/Medium.
(The Identifier is the element that is most likely to be realised by tonic prominence — it is presented as New information.)

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