The Thought Occurs

Saturday, 24 September 2022

How To Identify The Thing (And Head) Of A Nominal Group

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 394):
… while the Thing … is the entity that is functioning as participant in the transitivity structure of the clause … It is the Head that determines the value of the entity in the mood system, and therefore as a potential Subject.

To demonstrate: 

Here it is clearly the word picture that serves as Thing, since it was the picture that was eaten by the llama, not Dorian Grey.

For Matthiessen (1995: 656-7), on the other hand, it is Dorian Grey that serves as Thing in such nominal groups:

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