Experiential Semantics: Types Of Participant, Types Of Thing

(Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 182, 190)

Qualities Of Projection Vs Qualities Of Expansion

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 209-10):

Qualities of projection are agnate with processes in figures of sensing; … In contrast qualities of expansion display patterns of agnation within being & having … This fundamental difference explains other differences; for example, qualities of projection tend to occur in agnate pairs of the ‘like’ and ‘please’ type that we find with figures of sensing … whereas qualities of expansion do not.

Material Vs Semiotic Abstractions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 190ff) provide a taxonomy of simple things based on the participant roles they play in semantic figures — critically those of Senser, Sayer and Actor.

The most general distinction is between conscious and non-conscious.

Within non-conscious, the distinction is between material and semiotic.

Within material, the distinctions are animal, object, substance and abstraction.

Within semiotic, the distinctions are institution, object and abstraction.

Material abstractions — eg depth, colours — typically play the roles of Phenomenon, Carrier and Value. They have no extension in space and are unbounded, and are typically some parameter of a material quality or process.

Semiotic abstractions — eg information, truth — are typically realised by the Range of mental and verbal processes. They are unbounded semiotic substance with no material existence.

There are also intermediate categories in this taxonomy. For example:

Human collectives — eg family — are intermediate between conscious beings and institutions.

Discrete semiotic abstractions — eg thoughts and fears (mental entities) and questions and orders (speech functions) — are intermediate between semiotic objects and and non-discrete semiotic abstractions.