TLGA 103: Types of Processes in Grammatical Analysis

Types of Process

The following list is the principle process types recognized in Systemic Functional Grammar. As can be seen, each individual process type is usually associated with a characteristic set of participant types.

Systemic Functional Grammar

Material processes

- They express the notion that some participant (called actor) does something (may be to some other entity, called goal).

- Verbs of action like run, kick, climb, spring are used.

Mental processes

- These are expressed by verbs of feeling,perceiving and thinking such as like,hate,love,know,think and understand.

- Here, participants have different names of Senser (the conscious being animate or inanimate that is feeling,thinking or seeing) and Phenomenon (that which is sensed or felt).

Relational processes

- In these clauses a relation is being set up between two separate entities.

- Relational clauses construe being and do this in two different modes – attribution and identification.These two types of this process have different sets of participants roles:

             1. Attributive clauses with Carrier + Attribute.

             2. Identifying clauses.

Behavioral processes

- They are expressed by verbs such as: 
 cough, yawn, smile, breathe, faint, sleep, look, watch, stare, listen, think, worry, dream, sing , dance, lie(down), sit up/down, chatter, grumble, talk, cry, laugh, smile, frown, sing, snarl,whine.

- As distinct from other groups, only one participant is required, the person doing the laughing,smiling and coughing or yawning.

- This participant is termed the BEHAVOR, a conscious being like the SENSOR but the process is more like one of  “doing”.

Verbal processes

- This is a large category that not only includes not only the different modes of saying (asking, commanding, offering, stating) but also semiotic processes that are not necessarily verbal (showing, indicating) as in:

      "His face tells stories untold"

- The central participant is the SAYER. The VERBIAGE is what is said and TARGET or RECEIVER is the person it is said to.

Existential processes

- These represent that something exists or happens, as in:

      "There was a cat" or "There was a solitary girl"

- In these cases what we are doing is affirming the existence of something,or someone.

- As with behavioral verbs there is only one participant here.

- In these clauses there acts as a grammatical subject but it doesn’t fulfill any function outside of its grammatical role.The only significant element is the thing ,or person,being affirmed as existing.This is termed the existent.

Verb processes according to systemic functional grammar. 

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TLGA 102: Basic Overview of Grammatical Analysis

It is necessary to know grammar, and it is better to write grammatically than not, but it is well to remember that grammar is common speech formulated. Usage is the only test. 

(William Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up, 1938)

What is Grammar?

- A theory of language

- A theory of competence of a native speaker

- An explicit model of competence

- A finite set of rules

The term grammar is derived from the Greek word grammatike, where gram meant something written. The part tike derives from techne meant art. Hence, grammatike means the art of writing.

Typical grammarian thought.

Grammatical Analysis

- Grammatical Analysis is about rules and meanings.  For example, in grammar, there are certain rules which need to be followed in creating sentence and every rule produces meaning to the sentence.

- According to Halliday A language evolves in response to the specific demands of the society in which it is used.

“the nature of language is closely related to the functions it has to serve” 

“It reflects aspects of the situation in which it occurs” 

- We use language as an instrument of thought or to conceptualize or represent the experiential or real  world to ourselves, including the inner world of our own consciousness. Therefore, another name for clause as representation is clause as experiential construct. 

- Halliday terms this aspect as the ideal function of language.

For more about GA: A complete guide to Systemic Functional Grammar.

TLGA 101: An Introduction to the Study of Language

(Source:  An Introduction to Language by Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman, 6th Ed.)

Every human knows at least one language, spoken or signed. Linguistics is the science of language, including the sounds, words, and grammar rules. Words in languages are finite, but sentences are not. It is this creative aspect of human language that sets it apart from animal languages, which are essentially responses to stimuli.

The rules of a language, also called grammar, are learned as one acquires a language. These rules include phonology, the sound system, morphology, the structure of words, syntax, the combination of words into sentences, semantics, the ways in which sounds and meanings are related, and the lexicon, or mental dictionary of words. When you know a language, you know words in that language, i.e. sound units that are related to specific meanings. However, the sounds and meanings of words are arbitrary. For the most part, there is no relationship between the way a word is pronounced (or signed) and its meaning.

Branches of Linguistics

Knowing a language encompasses this entire system, but this knowledge (called competence) is different from behavior (called performance.) You may know a language, but you may also choose to not speak it. Although you are not speaking the language, you still have the knowledge of it. However, if you don't know a language, you cannot speak it at all.

Creating sentences is never been this fun with Linguistics.

That is to be said, Linguistics has many sides of it which covers all components of language. One of the major courses of Bachelor of English Language and Literature (BENL) offered in International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), is about the use of language and computer. As a part of Computer Applications of Language Studies course project, this blog is a take on how to infuse the use of technology and computer with linguistics. We will be focusing on only one subject of linguistics; the Grammatical Analysis or GA for short. This blog will be solely dedicated to the teaching and learning of GA incorporated with computer applications.

And you thought grammar was simple, yes? Think again.

Happy teaching and learning GA.