Debater

Paradigmatic Lexicogrammar vs Syntagmatic Lexical Collocation

Graham Lock wrote to SYSFLING on 23 Mar 2023, at 11:21:

A question for the theorists among us. Like so many I have been trying out ChatGPT and have been astounded at what it can do. For example, I asked it to translate into English passages from an obscure Buddhist text in Classical Chinese that I am 99.9% sure has never been translated before and it produced a reasonably good translation. That is not particularly surprising. What did surprise me is that when challenged on parts of its translation, it was able to engage in a discussion of why it had translated in a certain way, including unpacking some metaphors (I can upload some screen shots if anyone is interested). It was also able to consider and evaluate alternative translations. How does it do this without some semantic “understanding”? I know nothing about AI, but from everything I have read and heard its language processing is entirely connectionist. It trawls through huge amounts of text identifying and matching patters, and making predictions. It can do some basic parsing of syntax but, I am assured, cannot do any kind of semantic analysis, including semantically oriented functional analyses.. Any semantic “understanding” it comes to must be gleaned through identifying and comparing intra text relations, i.e. collocations. So here’s my question. Was John Sinclair right when he said that SFL greatly exaggerated the role of (paradigmatic) lexicogrammar and greatly underestimated the role of (syntagmatic) lexical collocation in generating coherent text?

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, the claim attributed to John Sinclair misunderstands SFL Theory. The syntagmatic juxtaposition of words is the realisation of choices in paradigmatic lexicogrammatical systems in logogenesis. So it is not a matter of "underestimating the role" of one and "exaggerating the role" of the other. One is the (less abstract) realisation of the other.

Postscript:

There have been more than 50 replies to this post on Sysfling, not one of them answering Graham Lock's theoretical question.

A Close Examination Of Fontaine's 2023 ISFC Plenary Abstract

Grammatical Energy: the Powerhouse of Language

“Meaning is brought about by language; and the energy by which this is achieved, the source of its semogenic power, is grammar.”

(Halliday, 2005, p. 63)

Within the framework of systemic functional linguistics (SFL), language is modelled as a semiotic system.  At the heart of this language system is the lexicogrammar, which, for Halliday (2005 p 74), is the powerhouse of language. Despite its central role, however, there is generally a feeling that this core area is relatively understudied, at least for English, which has historically provided the foundation of the theory. While the expansive development and use of SFL for transdisciplinary purposes (Wegener et al, in preparation) is very welcome and indeed promising, the source of grammatical energy, the powerhouse itself, should also be the focus of our attention — not instead of, but in addition to, the wealth of work being done on the understanding of its effects on people and society at large. Accepting that language is a semiotic system implies that we should also accept that while it is "made of meaning", it has "to materialise — to become matter" (Halliday 2005 p 68). It follows that if the semiotic system is entirely semantic, the materialised form (matter) of language must be related to, but outside of (or at some boundary of) the semiotic system. We might agree that the materialised form is embedded in context, but the language system as a whole, i.e. its theoretical (abstract) representation, cannot be. For this reason, the distinction between instantiation and actualisation becomes significant, where "actualisation is defined as the relation between the actual and either the potential or the typical" (Wegener 2011 p 98). 

In this talk, I use the semantic profile of watch, as an atypical verb of visual perception, to demonstrate ways in which, at the lexical level, we can explore the relationship between instantiation and actualisation. I will also consider its semantic features in relation to several related verbs (see, stare, look and listen). The unique profile of watch makes it a challenging case study because it appears to defy categorisation and as such, provides a useful example to demonstrate the significance of the SFL concept of 'meaning potential' in a meaning driven account of lexical semantics (cf. Allwood 2003, Fontaine 2017). By shift [sic] our focus to the lexical side of the lexicogrammar stratum, we may shed more light on the theoretical powerhouse, ideally resulting in a better understanding of its grammatical energy.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this unsourced 'feeling' is self-contradictory. Since the lexicogrammar 'has historically provided the foundation of the theory' — Halliday's term for the theory is Systemic Functional Grammar — this 'core area' is demonstrably not 'relatively understudied', especially with regard to English, since the theory of grammar is elaborated in most detail in the description of English (Introduction to Functional Grammar 1985, 1994, 2004, 2014).

[2] To be clear, the work that Fontaine positively appraises as 'very welcome and indeed promising' is her own collaboration:

Wegener, R., McCabe, A., Sellami Baklouti, A. & Fontaine, L. (In preparation) The Routledge Handbook of Transdisciplinary Systemic Functional Linguistics. London: Routledge.

[3] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the grammar is the CPU ('powerhouse') of language, and the CPU of the grammar is the clause. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 22, 10):

Grammar is the central processing unit of language, the powerhouse where meanings are created … The clause is the central processing unit in the lexicogrammar — in the specific sense that it is in the clause that meanings of different kinds are mapped into an integrated grammatical structure.

It will be seen that, despite the title of her paper, Fontaine is concerned here not with this 'powerhouse', but with lexis.

[4] To be clear, no semiotic system is entirely semantic, since every semiotic system also necessarily includes an expression plane, and in the case of language, the content plane includes a stratum of lexicogrammar as well as a stratum of semantics. ('Semiotic' does not mean 'semantic'.)

[5] To be clear, the 'materialised form' of language is the audible sound or visible marks made by bodily action. These are specified by the systems of the expression plane of language.

[6] To be clear, the materialised forms of language, audible sounds and visible marks, form part of the first-order material experience, whereas context is a plane of second-order semiotic experience. In SFL Theory, 'context' refers to the culture as a semiotic system. Clearly, here Fontaine is misconstruing 'context' as material.

[7] As Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 25) explain:

A language is a series of redundancies by which we link our eco-social environment to non-random disturbances in the air (soundwaves).

That is, language links two aspects of its material environment, and in that sense, can be said to be "embedded" in the material order (Fontaine's understanding of 'context'). On the other hand, in SFL terms, language construes and realises context: the culture as a semiotic system.

[8] This confuses a first-order semiotic, language ('the language system as a whole'), with a second-order semiotic, metalanguage ('its theoretical (abstract) representation').

[9] To be clear, the claim here is that because the language system as a whole cannot be embedded in the material environment ("context"), the distinction between instantiation and actualisation (Wegener 2011) becomes significant.

Wegener proposes actualisation as an interstratal relation (p98) between actual and either potential or typical (p95):

However, this distinction is motivated by a misunderstanding of instantiation (p95):

Instantiation as a relation is not contextualised. It is, as Halliday (1992) suggests, entirely intrastratal. Because it is intrastratal it does not reach the actual. The actual is interstratal and thus is contextualised.

To be clear, in SFL Theory, the 'contextualisation' of instantiation is the dimension of stratification. As such, the notion of 'actualisation' is a confusion of the dimensions of instantiation and stratification, proposed as an additional complementary dimension.

[10] To be clear, the verb watch is grammatically anomalous, as noted 29 years ago in Halliday (1994: 139):

The verb watch is anomalous: in I’m watching you, the tense suggests a behavioural process but the you appears as a participant like the Phenomenon of a ‘mental’ clause.

[11] To be clear, the concern 'at the lexical level' is with the meaning of lexical items in open sets, not with meanings of grammatical systems, such as the clause. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 604n):

We can talk of "lexical semantics" if we want to foreground the meanings of words (lexical items functioning in open sets), and of "grammatical semantics" if we want to foreground the meanings of closed grammatical systems;

[12] To be clear, in terms of 'grammatical semantics', the verb see typically serves as a mental process, whereas the verbs stare, look and listen typically serve as behavioural processes.

[13] To be clear, the verb watch is not unique in this respect. Other examples include observe, ogle, eye, view, contemplate and ponder. In each case, the tense suggests behavioural process, but each affords a Phenomenon, suggesting a mental process.

[14] Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 549-52) outline five types of ideational indeterminacy: ambiguities, blends, overlaps, neutralisations, and complementarities. Anomalies like clauses featuring the verb watch are cases of overlap: 'two categories overlap so that certain members display some features of each'.

[15] To be clear, the term 'meaning potential' in SFL Theory refers to language as system, as opposed to language as instance (text). Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 33):

The meaning potential itself is one pole on the dimension of instantiation: it is instantiated in the unfolding of text, with patterns of typical instantiation (specific domains of meaning) lying somewhere in between the potential and the instance.

∞

See also 

Lise Fontaine's Right To Stop Me Saying It

Lexis As Most Local Context (Fontaine 2017)

Lise Fontaine Personally Attacking Her Paper's Reviewer

Preferred Gender Pronoun

                Je suis une chaise. Mon pronom est 'elle'.

A Close Examination Of Martin's 2023 ISFC Plenary Abstract

Mapping Feeling: Attitudinal Relations

In this presentation I will review issues arising from the description of attitudinal relations proposed in Martin & White's The Language of Evaluation (2005). This will include issues having to do with 

• stratification (developing discourse semantic systems), 
• instantiation (multiple coding, the inscribe/invoke continuum, technicalisation and iconisation) and 
• individuation (bonds and bondicons). 

In doing so I will stress the importance of interpreting appraisal systems in relation to the Systemic Functional Linguistics theory that underpins the description and the challenge of dealing with applications and critiques of the framework which in effect disembody the description from this theoretical ground.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, stratification is the construal of language as different levels ('strata') of symbolic abstraction. Strata are thus different perspectives on the same phenomenon, like thespians and the roles they play are different perspectives on the same phenomenon. The relation between any two adjacent strata is one of (intensive) identity: a relation of realisation between a lower level Token and a higher level Value. As such, each level can be used to identify the other. For example, for the two strata of the content plane, the higher stratum, semantics, can be used to identify the lower stratum, lexicogrammar (decoding); and the lower stratum, lexicogrammar, can be used to identify the higher stratum, semantics (encoding).

In SFL Theory, the stratum of lexicogrammar (wording) is lexicogrammatical form (modelled as a rank scale) interpreted in terms of its function: its function in realising meaning. For example, a verbal group is interpreted in terms of its function of realising the meaning 'process'. Because of this functional interpretation, lexicogrammar (wording) and semantics (meaning) are in agreement ('congruent') in the absence of grammatical metaphor. It is the disagreement ('incongruence') between wording and meaning in grammatical metaphor that motivates modelling the content plane as two strata, rather than as function and form.

[2] When Martin developed his discourse semantic systems (Martin 1992), he gave the false impression (Chapter 1 Discourse semantics: A proposal for triple articulation) that stratifying the content plane was his own initiative, despite the fact that such a stratification was explicitly identified in the main source of his work, Halliday & Hasan (1976: 5).

Importantly, Martin's development of his discourse semantic systems (ibid.) was based on serious misunderstandings of stratification. Specifically, he misunderstood strata as interacting modules (pp 55, 77-8, 90, 268-9, 390, 488) rather than different levels of symbolic abstraction, and he misunderstood all strata as levels of meaning — even phonology! This latter misunderstanding derived from his confusion of 'realising meaning' (stratification) with 'making meaning' (semogenesis).

Martin (1992) presented 3 motivations for setting up a stratum of discourse semantics: semantic motifs, grammatical metaphor and cohesion. By 'semantic motifs' (1992: 16), Martin meant commonalities shared by partially agnate clauses: behavioural, mental and relational. Having been set up as a justification for a discourse semantic stratum, this was not addressed in the remainder of the book, and Martin's discourse semantics provides no means of modelling the agnation.

Martin's second motivation for setting up a discourse semantics stratum, grammatical metaphor (1992: 16-7), was merely Halliday's motivation for setting up a semantic stratum. Importantly, however, Martin's discourse semantic stratum undermines the systematic description of grammatical metaphor because it does not set up congruent relations between strata by which to contrast the incongruent relations of grammatical metaphor, and it sets up incongruent relations in the absence of metaphor.

Martin's third motivation for setting up a discourse semantics stratum was cohesion (1992: 17-9). Ignoring lexical cohesion, ellipsis-&-substitution and reference, Martin's argument was that agnate manifestations of expansion relations, logically in clause complexing and textually in cohesive conjunction motivate a discourse semantic stratum. However, as with grammatical metaphor, this only motivates Halliday's original semantic stratum, not a new and distinct discourse semantic stratum.

The original four discourse semantic systems set up by Martin (1992) were NEGOTIATION, IDENTIFICATION, CONJUNCTION & CONTINUITY and IDEATION. (CONJUNCTION & CONTINUITY was later renamed CONNEXION). All of these are rebrandings of systems originally set up by Halliday ± Hasan. While NEGOTIATION is a rebranding of a previous semantic system, Halliday's SPEECH FUNCTION, and its development by other scholars, the remaining three are rebrandings of previous lexicogrammatical systems, the systems of cohesion in Halliday & Hasan (1976). Specifically:

• IDENTIFICATION is Martin's rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's REFERENCE (and ELLIPSIS-&-SUBSTITUTION),
• CONJUNCTION & CONTINUITY, now CONNEXION, is Martin's rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's CONJUNCTION, and
• IDEATION is Martin's rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's LEXICAL COHESION.

In terms of metafunction, all the original systems of Halliday & Hasan are systems of the textual metafunction, but Martin distributes his discourse semantic rebrandings across the metafunctions, without providing supporting argument, thereby creating theoretical inconsistencies. While IDENTIFICATION, like REFERENCE (and ELLIPSIS-&-SUBSTITUTION), is presented as textual, CONJUNCTION & CONTINUITY, now CONNEXION, is presented as logical, and IDEATION is presented as experiential. 

Further theoretical misunderstandings in each of these discourse semantic systems serve to disguise the fact that they are indeed rebrandings of Halliday & Hasan's systems. For example, in setting up his textual IDENTIFICATION, Martin confuses REFERENCE with the interpersonal DEIXIS of nominal groups and confuses reference items with the nominal groups in which they occur, while also confusing REFERENCE with LEXICAL COHESION ('bridging').

In setting up his logical CONJUNCTION & CONTINUITY, now CONNEXION, Martin confuses cohesive CONJUNCTION (textual metafunction) with CLAUSE COMPLEXING (logical metafunction), and misinterprets and misapplies many of Halliday & Hasan's logical types. Moreover, because PROJECTION does not feature in Halliday & Hasan's model, since it does not function cohesively, Martin's logical discourse semantic system lacks a system of PROJECTION. This creates the theoretical inconsistency of a lexicogrammatical system with no meaning to realise, which has the further consequence that any grammatical metaphor involving projection cannot be accounted for.

In setting up his experiential IDEATION, Martin confuses (textual) lexical cohesion with lexis as most delicate grammar (lexical sets), and misapplies logical relations to grammatical structures.

In later publications, Martin added two more systems to his discourse semantic stratum: PERIODICITY (textual) and APPRAISAL (interpersonal). In Martin (1992), what later became known as PERIODICITY was modelled as an interstratal interaction pattern, with strata misunderstood as modules, but in Martin & Rose (2007), for example, PERIODICITY is remodelled as a discourse semantic system. However, the theoretical validity of PERIODICITY is undermined by the fact that it is a rebranding of writing pedagogy, not linguistic theory:

• 'macro-Theme' is Martin's rebranding of the 'introductory paragraph' of traditional writing pedagogy,
• 'hyper-Theme' (a term taken from Daneš and misunderstood) is Martin's rebranding of the 'topic sentence' of traditional writing pedagogy,
• 'hyper-New' is Martin's rebranding of the 'paragraph summary' of traditional writing pedagogy,
• 'macro-New' is Martin's rebranding of the 'text summary' of traditional writing pedagogy.

Moreover, there are no macro- or hyper- Rhemes or Givens to contrast with these proposed elements and complete the proposed structures.

For the evidence on which the above assessments of Martin's discourse semantics systems are based, see the detailed review of Martin (1992) at English Text: System And Structure, the detailed review of John Bateman's review of Martin (1992) at Thoughts That Didn't Occur …, and the detailed review of Martin & Rose (2007) at Working With Discourse: Meaning Beyond The Clause.

 

The systems of APPRAISAL, however, differ from all the other discourse semantic systems in that they were developed through the collective efforts of Martin's colleagues and PhD students, with a first, early version of the key subsystem of ATTITUDE set out in 1994 by Iedema, Feez and White in their monograph, Media Literacy. Martin is possibly often regarded as the founder of the theory on the basis of references he made to APPRAISAL in a 1997 paper ("Analysing Genre: Functional Parameters") and/or his fuller treatment in his 2000 paper ""Beyond Exchange: Appraisal Systems in English". (The 1997 chapter presented an account of the sub-system of APPRECIATION, which was also developed through collaboration, most notably through Rothery's work on visual arts education.) However, key elements of what is now the widely referenced version of the framework were first presented in White's 1998 PhD thesis and then in White's 2002 paper, "The Language of Evaluation and Stance" (Handbook of Pragmatics.)". The version of the framework now most widely deployed in textual analysis was outlined in Martin and White's 2005 The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. It includes accounts of the following sub-systems: AFFECT (drawing on earlier work by Martin), JUDGEMENT (collaboration by Martin, Iedema, Feez and White), APPRECIATION (collaboration by Martin and Rothery), ENGAGEMENT (from White's 1998 PhD thesis), GRADUATION (White and Martin collaboration).

Because of its distinct provenance, APPRAISAL, unlike other discourse semantic systems, is not merely Martin's rebranding of other people's work on semantics (NEGOTIATION), lexicogrammatical cohesion (IDENTIFICATION, CONNEXION and IDEATION) or writing pedagogy (PERIODICITY). In fact, Halliday (2008: 49) locates APPRAISAL within lexicogrammar, as representing more delicate options within the general region of evaluation, and characterises the system of ATTITUDE as 'a grammatical system that is realised by a selection of lexical items' where 'each such item is uniquely identified as a set of intersecting grammatical features' (ibid.: 179). Like all grammatical systems in SFL Theory, APPRAISAL realises the meaning of semantic systems, and in the absence of metaphor, is congruent with its semantics.

[3] To be clear, the process of instantiation is the selection of features and the activation of realisation statements in logogenesis, the unfolding of text. The cline of instantiation is the scale from potential to instance; that is, from system to register/text type to text.

Multiple coding, on the other hand, can refer either to indeterminacy in the instantiation of features in a text, or to accounting for indeterminacy in the analysis of instances. Indeterminacies include ambiguities, blends, overlaps, neutralisations, and complementarities.

To be clear, the 'inscribe/invoke' contrast is the distinction between explicit and implicit realisations of APPRAISAL system features, and to place these on a continuum is to model degrees of indeterminacy between the two options.

[4] To be clear, Martin has presented two models of a 'cline of individuation': one derived from the work of Bernstein and the other from the work of his PhD student, Knight. The Bernstein-derived model is a cline from 'reservoir' to 'repertoire', where 'reservoir' refers to the potential of the community and 'repertoire' refers to the potential of the individual. Bernstein (2000: 157):

I shall use the term repertoire to refer to the set of strategies and their analogic potential possessed by any one individual and the term reservoir to refer to the total of sets and its potential of the community as a whole.

Applied to language, this is a model of the meaning potential of meaners (language users). The organising principle of the cline is elaboration and ascription (intensive attribution), since 'repertoire' is both a subtype of 'reservoir' (elaboration), and a member of the class 'reservoir' (ascription); cf. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 145).

However, it is the Knight-derived model that is relevant to a discussion of 'bonds' and 'bondicons'. Martin et al (2013):

A second, complementary perspective on individuation looks at how personæ mobilise social semiotic resources to affiliate with one another — how users attitude and ideation couplings, in Knight's (2010) terms, to form bonds, and how these bonds then cluster as belongings of different orders (including relatively "local" familial, collegial, professional, and leisure/recreational affiliations and more "general" fellowships reflecting "master identities" including social class, gender, generation, ethnicity, and dis/ability).

Like the Bernstein-derived model, the organising principle is again elaborating ascription, since each point on the cline is a subtype and member of the points above as types, but unlike the Bernstein-derived model, the individuation here is not of the meaning potential of meaners but of the meaners themselves. This inconsistency leads to a more serious inconsistency: the conflation of two different types of hierarchy.

Affiliation differs from individuation in that its organising principle is extension, not elaboration, since it is concerned with composition and association (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 146). That is, where individuation is a hyponymic taxonomy (an elaboration of types), affiliation is a meronymic taxonomy (a composition of parts).

Because of this difference, affiliation can not be mapped onto the cline of individuation. For example, the bonding of meaners through shared evaluations does not affiliate them as a master identity such as gender or ethnicity. Gender and ethnicity are not created by people making the same interpersonal assessments, and the meaners (personæ) of the same gender or ethnicity can differ markedly in their interpersonal assessments.

[5] To be clear, Martin's concern here is to consolidate Appraisal as his discourse semantic system within SFL Theory. To the same end, he has previously claimed that Appraisal is not a theory, on the grounds that SFL is the theory, and here he echoes this claim by identifying Appraisal with description, rather than theory. However, a part of a theory is also a theory (e.g. transitivity theory), and in SFL Theory, every system network constitutes a theory. Moreover, in SFL, at least, the term 'description' refers to the application of the theory to individual languages (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: xxiii, 55). That is, Appraisal Theory can be used to provide descriptions of appraisal in English, Chinese, etc.

But, in any case, Appraisal Theory can be used by linguists who are not acquainted with SFL Theory, as has been proved many times over. 

[6] To be clear, this is the challenge of dealing with applications and critiques of Appraisal Theory by those who do not acknowledge it as one of Jim Martin's discourse semantic systems in SFL. The intellectual way of dealing with this is to critically examine the work by reasoning on the basis of evidence, but this is also the way of dealing with applications and critiques of Appraisal Theory who do acknowledge it as one of Jim Martin's discourse semantic systems in SFL. In other words, whether or not Appraisal Theory is acknowledged as one of Jim Martin's discourse semantic systems in SFL is irrelevant to sound academic practice. Consequently, here Martin is merely concerned with maintaining the public perception that Appraisal Theory is one of his discourse semantic systems in SFL.

Hasan On The Bi-directionality Of Realisation

Realisation works somewhat differently in the two directions. In the encoding view, it is an activation of some possible choice at the next lower level: thus in the production of an utterance, context activates meaning, meaning activates wording. By contrast, in the reception of the utterance, realisation is construal of the relevant choice at the higher level: thus in decoding an utterance, the choice in wording construes meaning, the choice in meaning construes context. (Hasan, 2010: 12).

Blogger Comments:

If we turn SFL Theory back on itself, 'realisation' is an intensive identifying process that relates lower and higher levels of symbolic abstraction. Applied to the stratification hierarchy

• wording (Token) realises (Process) meaning (Value);
• meaning (Token) realises (Process) context (Value).

Identifying processes have two directions of coding: encoding and decoding:

• in encoding, the identity encodes the Value by reference to the Token;
• in decoding, the identity decodes the Token by reference to the Value.

Applied to the stratification hierarchy, in encoding

• the identity encodes meaning by reference to wording;
• the identity encodes context by reference to meaning.

Applied to the stratification hierarchy, in decoding

• the identity decodes wording by reference to meaning;
• the identity decodes meaning by reference to context.

However, Hasan interprets encoding as higher level (Value) activates lower level (Token)

• context activates meaning;
• meaning activates wording.

and interprets decoding as lower level (Token) construes higher level (Value)

• wording construes meaning;
• meaning construes context.

The key problem with Hasan's interpretation is that neither 'activate' nor 'construe' serves as an intensive identifying process, and so neither can serve as a 'direction' of the intensive identifying process 'realise'. 

'Activate' can be interpreted as either a material process or a qualitative attributive process ('make active'), and 'construe' here serves as a metaphorical mental process, with the lower level as Senser and the higher level as Phenomenon (which has the effect of assigning consciousness to the lower level in each case).

Importantly, while 'activate' is inconsistent with the principle on which the stratal hierarchy is founded, 'construe' is not, though it is not synonymous with 'realise'. With 'construe', the claim is the lower level 'intellectually constructs' the higher level. That is, meaning is intellectually constructed by wording, and context is intellectually constructed by meaning.

A further problem is the proposed one-to-one association of encoding with production and decoding with reception, since decoding and encoding are involved in both production and reception

• wording is decoded by reference to meaning (meaning identifies wording);
• meaning is encoded by reference to wording (wording identifies meaning).

Both the speaker and the listener are simultaneously decoding wordings by reference to meanings and encoding meanings by reference to wordings in a speech event.

Winning The Debate

The Verb 'Exist'

 Thompson (2014: 110-1):

It is useful to compare an existential process with a possible rewording using the verb ‘exist’:

Maybe some other darker pattern exists.

Although this is very close in meaning, the verb ‘exist’ itself is best analysed as a material process: the rewording reflects at least partly a choice to represent the entity (‘pattern’) as involved in a ‘going-on’ (which happens to be that of existing). The analyses of the two clauses are given in Figure 5.20 for comparison (‘Maybe’ is, of course, left unlabelled since it has no experiential meaning).

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, such clauses are existential, not material, on several criteria.

1. They satisfy the category meaning of existentials 'being (existence)', but not of materials 'doing (doing, happening, doing to/with)'.
2. There is no pro-verb, as there is for materials ('do, do to/with').
3. The unmarked present tense is the simple present ('exists') of existentials, not the present in present ('is existing') of materials.

See Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 354) for criteria distinguishing process types.

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