Extending the description of process type within the

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Extending the description of process type within the system of transitivity in delicacy based on Levinian verb classes* Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

In this paper, I report on a long-term research project concerned with the elaboration of the description of the system of PROCESS TYPE (within the overall system of TRANSITIVITY), extending this description in delicacy, or degree of detail. I discuss the background to the research and different approaches that have been taken to the development of more delicate descriptions of PROCESS TYPE. Then I introduce the approach that I have taken — to classify Levin’s (1993) verb classes in terms of the systemic functional description of the system of PROCESS TYPE (Halliday 1967/8, 1985). Having outlined the approach, I summarize the outcome of the classificatory project, and go on to identify all the instances where it was necessary to split verb classes and all the cases where it was necessary to add verb classes. I characterize the classification in terms of the cline of delicacy (the continuum between grammar and lexis); in fact, the result of the classificatory project provides strong evidence in favour of Halliday’s (1961) hypothesis that lexis can be described as delicate grammar — what he called ‘the grammarian’s dream’. In addition, I indicate how the result of the classification can be used as a resource in the development of more delicate systemic descriptions of the type pioneered by Hasan (1987) in her pursuit of the grammarian’s dream.

1.

Introduction

In this paper, I will report on a long-term research project begun around 1998 (but going back to the development of the Nigel grammar, a computational grammar for text generation, which started in 1980 (see Matthiessen & Bateman 1991)) and designed to connect a general account of the grammar of different process types within the general description of transitivity (based on Halliday 1967/8, 1985; Halliday & Matthiessen 2004; Matthiessen 1995, 1999) with a more specific account of the grammar of ‘verb classes’ (drawing on Levin 1993). But let me start with the background to this project. Functions of Language 21:2 (2014), 139–175. doi 10.1075/fol.21.2.01mat issn 0929–998X / e-issn 1569–9765 © John Benjamins Publishing Company

140 Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen

In traditional grammar, transitivity was treated as a system of the verb and was thus concerned with categories such as ‘transitive verb’, ‘intransitive verb’, and ‘copula verb’; but in the last 50 years or so, linguists have ‘upgraded’ their accounts of transitivity from the domain of the verb to that of the clause and they have as a result been able to develop more holistic and explanatory accounts of transitivity (e.g. Halliday 1967/8; Hopper & Thompson 1980). Looking at this system ‘from above’, from the vantage point of semantics, we can characterize it as a resource for construing a quantum of change in our experience of the flow of events around us and inside us. In construing a quantum of change, the system of transitivity models it as a configuration of a process, participants directly involved in this process and attendant circumstances (cf. Tesnière’s (1959) notion of the clause as a drama), as in [participant:] he + [process:] took + [participant:] his case + [circumstance:] from his coat pocket. In the 1960s, there were at least two independent, pioneering strands of investigation into the grammar of transitivity — one British, developed as part of a general account of grammar based on Systemic Functional Linguistics by Halliday (e.g. 1967/8), and one US-American, more narrowly focussed on transitivity, the framework developed by Fillmore (e.g. 1968) that came to be known as Case Grammar. (Needless to say, there were important precursors, one being Hjelmslev’s (1935/7) classic study of case, taken up by various linguists such as Roman Jakobson; and there were influential contributions by other linguists around the same time, including Lyons (1968) and Anderson (1971).) Perhaps reflecting their European and American origins, Halliday’s and Fillmore’s accounts were paradigmatically and syntagmatically oriented, respectively (cf. Martin 1996). Both embodied a syntagmatic notion of ‘case frames’ (Fillmore) or ‘transitivity configurations’ (Halliday), but Halliday’s account was organized systemically rather than structurally, taking the paradigmatic axis as the ‘deeper’ principle of linguistic organization (cf. Halliday 1966), so the description of the system of process type became a central part of his account of the overall system of transitivity (but compare also Cook’s later, e.g. 1977, work on a matrix of ‘process types’ and participant roles, in a sense giving case grammar a more paradigmatic orientation). In the system of process type, clauses are differentiated according to the nature of the process and the participants directly involved in it; the process types identified in his description of English (Halliday 1985: Ch. 5) are ‘material’, ‘behavioural’, ‘mental’, ‘verbal’, ‘relational’, ‘existential’. At the time when Halliday first presented it (e.g. Halliday 1967/8), this paradigmatic orientation did not, as it were, resonate with concerns in the increasingly dominant American form of linguistics; but the situation has now changed rather dramatically as researchers in linguistics, computational linguistics (or Natural Language Processing), and Artificial © 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved

Extending the description of process type within the system of transitivity 141

Intelligence (AI) have become increasingly interested in ‘ontologies’ over the last 20 years or so (see e.g. Huang et al. 2010).1 During the period around the 1960s, there were, of course, also other valuable contributions. Thus Tagmemic linguists developed accounts of transitivity in a wide range of languages (e.g. Hale 1974; cf. Cook 1977; Longacre 1976). Within generative linguistics, Gruber’s (1965, 1976) study of ‘thematic structures’ has influenced subsequent generative accounts (one early example being Jackendoff ’s (1972) interpretative semantics), and Tesnière’s (1959) earlier posthumous work has been influential in later developments of accounts of transitivity based on some form of dependency grammar (e.g. in Hudson’s (1976) Daughter Dependency Grammar, where he combined the systemic orientation with a dependency conception of structure). Since the 1960s, systemic functional work on transitivity has continued to flourish as part of the world-wide development of Systemic Functional Linguistics. Halliday has extended the description he first proposed in the 1960s, presenting an account in Halliday (1985) that has come to serve as a reference framework for many studies, dealing with English (see e.g. Davidse 1999, among several other publications by her; Fawcett 1987; Hasan 1987) but also dealing with many other languages (e.g. Caffarel et al. 2004). Halliday (e.g. 1975, 2004) has investigated the ontogenesis of transitivity, and he has tested his description of the system of transitivity by using it in the analysis of many texts (e.g. Halliday 1992), as have numerous other researchers. His account has been used in many contexts where discourse analysis is deployed as a method to address research questions, including translation studies (e.g. Mason 2003), healthcare linguistics (e.g. Mortensen 1992) and educational linguistics (e.g. Martin & Veel 1998). It has also been used in the specification of computational grammars, in particular for text generation (e.g. Matthiessen & Bateman 1991), and informed the development of a semantic ontology of process configurations (see Bateman et al. 1989; Halliday & Matthiessen 1999; Matthiessen 1987).2 Similarly, since the 1960s, Fillmore’s case grammar has continued to stimulate research (e.g. Fillmore 1970, 1977). The notion of case (in the sense of ‘deep case’, or ‘transitivity role’) has been taken up in a range of linguistic and computational linguistic frameworks, stimulating not only work on grammar but also work on semantics and on knowledge representation; and the notion of a case frame has now been generalized (through work on lexis and frame semantics), and is part of the framework of Construction Grammar (e.g. Fillmore & Kay 1987; Goldberg 1995; and many more recent publications) and informs the lexical database FrameNet (e.g. Fillmore & Baker 2001; Ruppenhofer et al. 2006), both of which generalize the notion of construction or frame across different areas of grammar (including, but not limited to, transitivity). © 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved


Since the 1950s at least, there have also been a number of descriptive contributions concerned specifically with verb patterns in English (and also, of course, in other languages), both within the particular context of the teaching of English and the general context of the description of English for a variety of purposes, including computational ones. Working in the educational context of the teaching of English, Hornby (1954) developed a set of 25 verb patterns, a number of which have subpatterns. These can be thought of as verb classes based on syntagms (in Halliday’s (1966) sense) — i.e. on sequences of classes (with some reference to grammatical functions such as Subject and Object) such as verb + (pro)noun + conjunctive + clause (Hornby’s Verb Pattern 16: tell, ask, inform, advise etc.). This pattern, like a number of other patterns, can be straightforwardly assigned to a term in the system of process type mentioned above; it belongs to ‘verbal’ processes. Hornby’s contribution was influential in ELT because it was also used in his Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Since his pioneering work, other schemata have also been developed, including the one used in the Longman Dictionary (related to the account in Quirk et al. 1985), and the Collins COBUILD verb patterns by Francis et al. (1996). Working in the context of the general description of English, a number of researchers have developed accounts of verb patterns and verb classes. These include the work by Fred Householder and his team from the 1960s and the work by the Lexicon Project at the MIT Center for Cognitive Science 1983–1987 distilled and presented by Levin (1993), a key reference work which I will be centrally concerned with in this paper.3 (Within natural language philosophy, there have also been interesting contributions by philosophers such as Georg von Wright, Zeno Vendler and Lennart Nordenfelt. Similarly, there have been relevant proposals within AI. However, because of space constraints, I will not discuss these contributions here.) Complementing such work on verb patterns and classes — often in an attempt to provide a foundation for this work — researchers have also been concerned with the decomposition of verb senses into very general or primitive senses such as ‘become’, ‘cause’, ‘begin’ (cf. also e.g. Wierzbicka (1987) for a description of verbs of saying along these lines). In this respect, such efforts are similar to componential analysis, as it was developed in (anthropological) linguistics in the 1950s and 1960s; like componential analysis, they are syntagmatic in their orientation to the description of meaning, treating verb senses as being composed of more primitive sense components; but while componential analysis was developed to describe semantic fields that are lexicalized (‘lexical semantics’), these efforts were specifically concerned with grammatical properties and generalizations based on the decomposition of verb senses. This decompositional work goes back to Generative Semantics in the 1960s, but since then it has been developed within a range of frameworks under different © 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved


headings such as ‘lexical conceptual structure’ (see e.g. Levin & Rappaport Hovav 2011). The relationship between this decompositional approach to verb senses — i.e. the decomposition of verb senses into combinations of more basic or primitive senses that are usually lexicalized by high-frequency verbs like make, cause, become, be, have, say — and verb classification is very important and relevant to the research I report on in this paper. However, in view of space constraints, I will have to leave a discussion of it for another occasion. In Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: Section 12.4), we contrast the decompositional approach drawing on the work by Dowty (1979) on the decomposition of verb senses (which he bases on Vendler’s (1967) classes) with our own paradigmatic approach. 2. Descriptions at different degrees of delicacy The accounts of transitivity developed in SFL and in Levin (1993) share some key concerns: they are concerned with paradigmatic contrasts (or as Levin calls it, with ‘diathesis alternations’ (argument alternations)), they see grammar and lexis as continuous, and they are based on the insight that grammar is semantically natural (cf. Haiman 1985; Halliday 1985); and they are clearly complementary in a number of ways, as I will show in this article. 2.1 Locations in delicacy A key part of the SFL account of transitivity is the description of the system of process type. Like the system of transitivity itself, this is a system of the clause. The entry condition is ‘major clause’, the terms are ‘material’, ‘behavioural’, ‘mental’, ‘verbal’, ‘relational’, and ‘existential’ in the description presented fully first in Halliday (1985) but going back to his work in the 1960s (e.g. Halliday 1967/8). This system is located at the least delicate end of the lexicogrammatical cline from grammar to lexis: see the top half of Figure 1. The description of the system has been extended several steps in delicacy by systemic functional linguists (see further below), but the starting point is the least delicate end of the cline of delicacy. It represents a grammatical view of lexicogrammar and lexis is approached through the extension in delicacy of systems that originate in the grammar — what Halliday (1961) called the ‘grammarian’s dream’ (see further Hasan 1987; Neale 2002, 2006; Tucker 1997, 2007; Wanner 1997).4 Terms in lexical systems are realized by lexical items; or to be more precise, combinations of terms are realized by lexical items, as demonstrated first by Hasan (1987). In contrast, Levin’s (1993) description of verb classes and alternations is located somewhere mid-way between the least delicate pole of the cline, grammar, and © 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved


Lexis

Grammar Least delicate Clause

Mid-range delicacy

6 primary types 17 secondary types (approximately)

Most delicate

Clause nuclei (‘frames’) differentiated according to more delicate process types

Re-interpreted as ..

Verb

Verb classes 47 primary classes 150 secondary classes 29 tertiary classes

Figure 1. The accounts of process type and of verb classes with alternations in terms of (1) delicacy and (2) rank — with ‘verb classes’ being reinterpreted as clause nuclei (or clause frames)

the most delicate, lexis: see the bottom half of Figure 1. Looked at from the grammar end of the cline, her description can be seen as dealing with micro-grammars5 of transitivity with specifications of ‘syntactic alternations’, like the transitivity of motion or the transitivity of perception; and looked at from the lexis end, it can be seen as identifying grammatical generalizations about verb senses that form lexical fields, like the field of motion or the field of perception. While Levin’s (1993) account is of ‘verb classes and alternations’, from a systemic functional point of view, it is really concerned with transitivity configurations within the clause — with ‘frames’ of process + participants (and certain inherent circumstances). In other words, as shown by the dashed arrow in Figure 1, I will interpret her ‘verb classes’ as clause nuclei, typically involving process + participants, but sometimes also circumstances. Thus we can look at the patterns that Levin describes either ‘from above’ (in terms of rank), i.e. from the vantage point of the clause, or ‘from below’, i.e. from the vantage point of the verb (for a general discussion of viewing a phenomenon being investigated from different angles, i.e. Halliday’s ‘trinocular perspective’, see e.g. Halliday 1996; Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 31, 119). In this article, I will report on my project designed to link the systemic functional account of process type with Levin’s (1993) account of English verb classes and alternations by classifying all verb classes (primary, secondary and tertiary) identified by her under the different process types. I will begin by summarizing the two accounts separately, and then discuss my work on linking them. © 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved


2.2 The system of process type The system of process type was first described as part of his account of the clause grammar of English in the 1960s by Halliday (e.g. 1967/8; 1969). The number and names of the primary process types have changed somewhat over time, e.g. ‘action’, Table 1. The system of process type — the first few steps in delicacy process type 1

process type 2

process type 3

systemic range; example They had always gossiped together about their servants.

behavioural inter-active intro-active conscious activity

[cognition, perception] As she deeply pondered over these things; perhaps the Government is simply not listening to its advice

physiological [bodily movement, pain, sensation, emission, characteristic sound, deterioration, suffocation] He spluttered and coughed existential entity

existence

There is also a lot to listen to.

existence plus

around the Merchandise Mart Plaza there sit men who chart crop reports Then, on July 2, there occurred another incident which set tongues to wagging at a furious clip

event material

creative

transformative

event

The crash occurred about 1.45 am

thing

In addition, the iodoamino acid formed in largest quantity in the intact thyroid is di-iodotyrosine. But he painted some of the boldest and most original pictures of his time

elaborating

[colour, shape, constituency, material integrity, surface image, state of preparation, role, value …] It caught Uncle and squashed him to death. He painted her room for her as ‘white as the snow’ he said.

enhancing

[change of circumstantial relation to Medium, e.g. place: motion, placement, coverage] I ran towards the truck. when she uncovered the first picture

extending

[aggregation, possession] where he gathered hay and grew fruit and vegetables The supporting rod was inserted into a 2 x 2 in. metal base. Recently Lions Club, Delhi (midtown) has donated an audiometric room to the school.

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‘mental’ and ‘relation’ in Halliday (1967/8), but they settled down to six primary types in Halliday (1985), ‘material’, ‘behavioural’, ‘mental’, ‘verbal’, ‘relational’ and ‘existential’ (see further e.g. Halliday & Matthiessen 2004; Thompson 2004; and for Table 1. (continued) process type 2

mental

cognitive

[knowing, thinking, understanding, doubt, memory …] He understood that both sides were at fault

desiderative

[decision, desire (longing, wanting), preference …] I wanted your father to buy a house

emotive

[happiness, fear, anger …] She had been thrilled by the experience

perceptive

[visual, aural, gustatory, tactile …] but I have never heard them sung in the 18 years I have lived in Australia

relational

circumstantial

intensive

process type 3

systemic range; example

process type 1

causal

The proposal caused anxiety

comparative Sales of transistors in 1960 exceeded $300 million, compared to $222 million in 1959 despite substantial price reductions in virtually all types. locative

Both the white and yolk are surrounded by membranes which enclose the egg in a fibrous sac.

matter

A further area concerned continual debates with people who belonged to other religions.

assigned

[projection, elaboration, enhancement] even if we considered him a mediocre president

non-assigned [neutral, measure, phase: reality, phase: time, …] He seemed annoyed. possessive benefactive non-benefactive verbal

non-projecting

I owed you a debt, a debt I couldn’t repay The company is now wholly owned by the Folonari family

communing But everyone spoke English to me targeting

projecting imperating indicating

Everyone praised Rukmini for her advice. He also ordered the company to issue new notice, accounts and reports [declaring: closed, declaring: open, interrogating] He said the unit was keen to become involved in this. I naively asked Mr Aleksandrovich what he thought of the idea.



a discussion of typological generalizations, see Matthiessen 2004). In this account, there are three major process types — ‘material’, ‘mental’, and ‘relational’ — and three minor ones — ‘behavioural’, ‘verbal’, and ‘existential’.6 These primary process types are shown together with a few further steps in delicacy in Table 1, which is adapted from the account presented in Matthiessen (1995: Ch4) (see also Halliday & Matthiessen 2004). The account presented by Halliday has been used extensively in various contexts of research and application, including in computational projects (e.g. Matthiessen & Bateman 1991), in the description of experiential semantics (see e.g. Halliday & Matthiessen 1999), and in many projects involving discourse analysis. It has also served as a frame of reference in the development of descriptions of transitivity in a range of different languages (see e.g. Caffarel et al. 2004); Teruya’s (1998) corpus-based account of process type in Japanese is particularly detailed (cf. also Teruya 2007). Researchers have also explored and developed related but different accounts of process types in English. Here the work by Fawcett (e.g. 1987) and his colleagues in Cardiff is particularly important, since it has also been used as a basis for extending the account in delicacy, in particular by Neale (e.g. 2002, 2006). Since Halliday (1985) first introduced the current version of the description of the system of process type in English, researchers have developed his account further (i) by extending it in delicacy and (ii) by trying to determine the relative frequency of the terms in the system through text analysis. These two lines of investigation are related in interesting ways and are brought together in Matthiessen (1999, 2006). 1. The work on extending the description of the system of process type in delicacy has been undertaken using two complementary descriptive strategies. (i) On the one hand, researchers have developed detailed systemic functional descriptions of particular semantic fields within a given process type. Hasan (1987; cf. also 1985) pioneered this line of investigation, demonstrating that a certain field within ‘material’ processes can be described systemically by extending the account in delicacy while still taking grammatical criteria into account (see also Cross 1992). This descriptive work produces fully systemic accounts that can be used for a variety of purposes. It is, however, very laborious, and it would take many person years to achieve the kind of coverage achieved by Hasan (1987) in the domain she chose across all the process types and based on extensive evidence from corpora (as is now possible). This descriptive challenge does not mean that we should not undertake the work, but it does mean that we need serious funding to complete such a project. Meanwhile, it is very helpful to develop large-scale approximations © 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved


that are taxonomic in orientation but not yet systemic (including of course approximations based on automated analysis of texts and of lexical resources). This leads to strategy (ii). (ii) On the other hand, the description of the system of process type can also be extended in delicacy on a larger scale than that of local hand-crafted system networks if we begin by linking this description to large-scale classifications of process configurations of the kind that has now been developed in lexical resources such as WordNet, FrameNet, Levin’s (1993) verb classes and alternations, and Francis, Hunston & Manning’s (1996) Collins COBUILD Grammar Patterns 1: Verbs. Such classifications are all located somewhere mid-way along the cline of delicacy shown in Figure 1. Taking an early step in the direction just indicated, Halliday (1976: 172) identified sections in Roget’s Thesaurus roughly corresponding to the primary process types and their subtypes; a version of this mapping is shown in Table 2 (adapted from Matthiessen 1995: 218). This descriptive sketch is interesting for various reasons. It illustrates the result of mapping a grammatical description (Halliday’s description of the system of process type) onto a lexical one (Roget’s taxonomy of fields of experience lexicalized in English). The lexical description cuts across grammatical categories; more specifically, it includes lexical items from all the open word classes, not only from the class of verbs. Roget’s primary sections may correspond to more than one primary process type; for example, section III [Matter] occurs under several primary process type headings. The next step in delicacy in Roget’s taxonomy, the subsections, are easier to locate uniquely within one process type, although even here two process types may relate to the same subsection (as with III [Matter].III [Organic]). More generally, we can expect that when we relate two different taxonomies to one another, it will be easier to find correspondences at higher degrees of delicacy. Since Halliday’s early mapping of process type onto classes in Roget’s Thesaurus, other systemic functional researchers have explored mappings of the terms of this system onto Collins COBUILD verb patterns (Neale 2002, 2006) and onto FrameNet and WordNet, with reference to SUMO (Chow & Webster 2008).7 In the next section, I will report on my own mapping of process type onto Levin’s (1993) verb classes. 2. Complementing the work on extending the description of process type in delicacy, researchers have also tried to establish the relative frequencies of the different terms of the system by undertaking manual analysis of texts taken from a range of registers (see Matthiessen 1999, 2006) or from some particular register. In my own work, I had analysed around 7,000 clauses from registerially varied texts by the time Matthiessen (2006) was written: see Figure 2. These results are, of course, only very preliminary; to develop a more reliable picture of the © 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved


Table 2. The system of process type and sections in Roget’s Thesaurus process type material

Section in Roget Subsection in Roget concrete

material operation

III [Matter]

I [Generally] II [Inorganic]

alteration

V [Volition]

(I) [Individual]

III [Matter]

I [Generally] II [Inorganic]

spatial

existence

II [Space]

form and location

I [Generally] II [Dimensions] III [Form]

abstract

creative

(cause, fuI [Abstract relasion, change) tions]

effective (disposition, V [Volition] control) VI [Affections]

IV [Moral] V [Religious]

mental

perceptive

III [Matter]

III [Organic]

cognitive

IV [Intellect]

(I) [Formation of ideas]

desiderative, emotive

VI [Affections]

I [Generally] II [Personal] III [Sympathetic]

verbal

IV [Intellect]

(II) [Communication of ideas]

relational ascriptive

III [Matter]

III [Organic]

IV [Intellect]

(II) [Communication of ideas]

identifying

probabilistic profile of the system of process type, we need a much larger and registerially varied sample. According to these preliminary findings, ‘material’ and ‘relational’ process clauses are almost exactly equally frequent. There is a big gap in frequency between these two types and the next primary process type — ‘mental’ process clauses. These are more common than ‘verbal’ process clauses, but the two occupy roughly the same frequency rank in comparison with the high frequency ‘material’ and ‘relational’ clauses on the one hand and in comparison with the low frequency ones on the other, i.e. with ‘behavioural’ and ‘existential’ clauses. These two endeavours — (1) extending the description of the system of process type in delicacy and (2) determining the relative frequency of the (primary) terms © 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved


Existential

Major clause

Relational Verbal Series 1

Mental Behavioural Material 0

Series 1

500

1000

1500

2000

Material

Behavioural

Mental

Verbal

2411

217

702

562

2500

3000

Relational Existential 2430

157

Figure 2. The system of process type: Relative frequency of selections of primary types in text (based on Matthiessen 2006)

in this system — might be thought to be unrelated research projects. However, it turns out that they are in fact related (Matthiessen 1999, 2006), even if the relationship is not entirely straightforward. The basic principle is this: the more frequently a process type is selected in text, the more highly elaborated it is systemically (i.e. in terms of the system of process types), which is reflected in terms of the number of verb classes that can be assigned to that process type, and the number of verbs that can be assigned to it (and thus the number of verb senses that can be assigned to it: one or more per verb, more frequent verbs of course tending to have more senses). The exception is ‘relational’ process clauses: while they are slightly more frequent than ‘material’ ones, they are far less highly elaborated in lexis; but this discrepancy makes very good sense — the very nature of ‘relational’ clauses suggests that the lexical elaboration is allocated to the participants of the clause rather than to the process, and this is precisely a key characteristic of ‘relational’ clauses. 2.3 Micro-process types: ‘Verb classes’ Let me now turn to accounts of processes that are located somewhere mid-way along the cline of delicacy, as shown in Figure 1. Such accounts include: –

–

Hornby’s Verb Patterns (Hornby 1954), used in successive versions of his Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (1948 onwards) — see Hunston & Francis (2000: 3–7); The Collins COBUILD Grammar Patterns: Verbs (Francis et al. 1996; cf. Hunston & Francis’ (2000) conception of ‘pattern grammar’);


Extending the description of process type within the system of transitivity

– –

Construction grammar and FrameNet (e.g. Ruppenhofer et al. 2006); Verb classes and alternations from the MIT Dictionary Project (Levin 1993), and developments based on it such as VerbNet developed by Martha Palmer (see further below).

To some extent, these accounts complement one another. For example, while the Collins COBUILD verb patterns are informed by corpus investigation, Levin’s (1993) verb classes are not; but her classes are paradigmatically oriented (her notion of ‘argument alternations’ such as the ‘causative alternation’ and the ‘dative alternation’), whereas the Collins COBUILD account is focussed on syntagmatic patterns (just like earlier contributions such as Hornby’s Verb Patterns). The most widely used resources in (computational) linguistics are probably FrameNet and Levin’s (1993) verb classes, both of which have also been linked to WordNet.8 These two resources are compared by Baker & Ruppenhofer (2002), two of the developers of FrameNet. Here I will focus on Levin’s (1993) contribution. Since I started my project in 1998, other systemic functional linguists have undertaken complementary projects based on other resources: Neale (2002, 2006) relates the description of process type developed by Robin Fawcett and his group in Cardiff to the Collins verb dictionary classes, and Chow & Webster (2008) report on a study of FrameNet, WordNet and SUMO in terms of the description of the system of process type used here. One reason I decided to begin with Levin’s (1993) account in the 1990s, choosing it over e.g. the Collins COBUILD account (although the latter has a strong grounding in corpus evidence) was the paradigmatic orientation of her account embodied in her notion of argument alternations mentioned above. Another was her emphasis on the semantic basis of the verb classes differentiated according to grammatical criteria (cf. my comments above on semantically natural grammar). Levin (1993) classifies verbs in different senses into verb classes based on transitivity configurations. The classification extends to a maximal taxonomic depth of three, as illustrated in Table 3 for class 51, ‘verbs of motion’. There are 48 primary classes, numbered 9 through 57,9 150 secondary classes, and 29 tertiary classes. Around 3,100 verbs are assigned to these classes, each assigned to a distinct class representing a distinct sense of the verb. The verb classes are designed to correspond to semantic classes. This is reflected in labels for verb classes such as ‘verbs of motion’, but a number of classes are instead named after a representative verb in the class as in the case of ‘roll verbs’ and ‘run verbs’. Each verb class can, as I have put it, be interpreted at clause rank (see Figure 1 above) as a transitivity configuration consisting of a process, of inherent participants and sometimes also of inherent circumstances. It is characterized by various lexicogrammatical properties. For instance, ‘verbs of motion’, class 51, all favour


151


Table 3. Example of Levin’s (1993) verb classification Primary class Secondary class 51. Verbs of motion

Tertiary class

51.1 Verbs of inherently directed motion 51.2 Leave verbs 51.3 Manner of motion

51.3.1 Roll verbs 51.3.2 Run verbs

51.4 Verbs of motion using a vehicle

51.4.1 Verbs that are vehicle names 51.4.2 Verbs that are not vehicle names

51.5 Waltz verbs 51.6 Chase verbs 51.7 Accompany verbs

circumstances of Place, but they pattern in different ways with respect to the transitivity systems of agency and ranging (see Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: Ch5; Matthiessen 1995: Section 4.6): see Table 4. (While Levin’s 1993 work is not corpus-based, the properties we identify for each class must eventually be based on investigations of corpora; this is part of my long-term project, but falls outside the scope of the present report — cf. Matthiessen 1999, 2006.) The properties given in Table 4 come from two transitivity systems other than the system of process type, viz. the systems of agency and ranging. In general, transitivity systems other than that of process type are all relevant to the differentiation of ‘verb classes’ but so are other ideational systems such as the system of tense (see further below). Levin’s (1993) account has been used widely and developed further by a number of researchers. For example, Bonnie Dorr has extended the account by adding WordNet senses to verb entries,10 Martha Palmer has developed VerbNet based on Levin (1993), adding classes, verb senses and also links to both WordNet and FrameNet (e.g. Dang et al. 1998).11 These contributions are complementary to the research I am reporting on here. They are concerned with adding further specifications to verb classes and verb entries, whereas my primary concern is with grouping of verb classes into more general classes based on the systemic functional description of process types introduced above. However, future publications should certainly discuss these extensions to Levin’s original account.



balloon bicycle bike boat bobsled bus cab canoe caravan chariot coach cycle […]

[some, induced] he walked them across the street

√ they walked amble backpack bolt bounce bound bowl canter carom cavort charge clamber climb clump coast crawl creep dart dash dodder drift file flit float fly frolic gallop gambol glide [many more]

51.3 Manner of motion: 51.3.2

51.4 Verbs of motion using a vehicle: 51.4.1

[most:] she bounced them (into the corner)

√ they bounced (into bounce coil drift drop the corner) float glide move revolve roll rotate slide spin swing turn twirl twist whirl wind

√ they cycled

[some, induced] he cycled them home

–

51.3 Manner of motion: 51.3.1

√ they left

abandon desert leave

51.2 Leave verbs

–

√ they advanced

advance arrive ascend climb come cross depart descend enter escape exit fall flee go leave plunge recede return rise tumble

51.1 Verbs of inherently directed motion

agency: effective

agency: middle

Verbs

Secondary class of ‘verb of motion’

ranging: ranged: elaborating

they walked a leisurely walk

[some:] they walked the streets

[some:] they cycled the streets

–

–

√ they deserted us

[some:] they descend- – ed the hill

ranging: ranged: enhancing

Table 4. Levin’s (1993) secondary verb classes within her ‘verb of motion’ class characterized in terms of transitivity properties based on the systemic functional description


–

[some] they shepherded – him into the garden

accompany conduct escort [some] they accomguide lead shepherd panied him into the garden

51.7 Accompany verbs

√ they danced the latest version of tango into the dining room

ranging: ranged: elaborating

–

chase follow pursue shadow tail track trail

51.6 Chase verbs

[some:] they sailed the lake

ranging: ranged: enhancing

–

√ [induced] she danced them into the dining room

√ they danced into the boogie bop cancan clog conga dance foxtrot jig jit- dining room terbug jive pirouette polka quickstep rumba samba shuffle squaredance tango tapdance waltz

51.5 Waltz verbs

[some] they chased after √ they chased him him

[some, induced] he sailed them home

cruise drive fly oar paddle √ they sailed pedal ride row sail tack

agency: effective

51.4 Verbs of motion using a vehicle: 51.4.2

agency: middle

Verbs

Secondary class of ‘verb of motion’

Table 4. (continued)



Extending the description of process type within the system of transitivity

3. The classification of ‘verb classes’ under process types Having introduced the systemic functional account of process type and Levin’s (1993) account of verb classes, I can now report on the results of my project of classifying her verb classes under the different process types. I carried out this classification systematically according to the descriptive criteria embodied in the two accounts by means of SysVerb, a relational database of verb classes and verbs that Wu Canzhong and I created using FileMaker Pro. It includes all Levin’s (1993) classes and verbs, but, where there were gaps in Levin’s account, I have also added classes and verbs drawing on e.g. Matthiessen (1995). However, here I will be concerned with the findings resulting from my classification of Levin’s classes according to the terms in the system of process type rather than with SysVerb as a resource, which will be discussed elsewhere (cf. Wu 2000). I will begin by sketching the general picture of the result of the classificatory operation, and then I will report on a number of particular findings. 3.1 General picture It would, of course, be conceivable that it would not be possible to classify Levin’s verb classes under the terms of the system of process type. However, it turned out to be possible to classify all the verb classes under these terms. In a number of cases, primary verb classes had to be split between process types according to secondary verb classes, and this even happened with secondary classes, as I will show below. Not surprisingly, most of the verb classes and most of the verbs as well turned out to be ‘material’ — around 60% for both. The distribution of verb classes and verbs according to process type is summarized in Table 5.12 The number of verb classes and the number of verbs allocated to each process type can be taken as a measure of its systemic elaboration — the degree to which each process type is extended further in delicacy (cf. Matthiessen 1999, 2006). Apart from the fact that ‘material’ processes dominate at around 60%, there are a number of other noteworthy outcomes of my classification: 1. Even though they are about as frequent in text as ‘material’ processes, as shown in Figure 2 above, ‘relational’ processes account for a much smaller number of verb classes (13.5%) and of verbs (8.3%) than do ‘material’ ones. 2. Even though they constitute a minor rather than a major process type, ‘behavioural’ processes account for about one tenth of all verb classes (10.4%) and verbs (9.0%), thus contrasting with the sense that they constitute a minor process type, which is reflected in the relatively low relative frequency in discourse (see Figure 2 above).


155


Table 5. Distribution of verb classes and verbs according to terms in the system of process type verb classes

verbs

#

%

#

%

129

58.1%

2734

61.4%

behavioural

23

10.4%

400

9.0%

mental

20

9.0%

464

10.4%

verbal

14

6.3%

350

4.5%

relational

30

13.5%

370

8.3%

existential

5

2.2%

79

1.8%

material

3. In contrast with ‘behavioural’ processes, ‘existential’ ones account for only a small proportion of verb classes (2.2%) and verbs (1.8%), thus reinforcing the sense that they constitute a minor process type (see Figure 2 above). The first two classificatory outcomes require explanations. 1. The discrepancy between the high frequency of ‘relational’ clauses in discourse and their relatively low degree of systemic elaboration is due to the fact that ‘relational’ clauses usually have high frequency verbs, in particular be and have, and the ‘lexical content’ is located within nominal groups serving as participants rather than within the verbal group serving as Process (cf. Matthiessen 1999). 2. The discrepancy between the relatively high systemic elaboration of ‘behavioural’ processes and the relatively low frequency in discourse (see Figure 2 above) is almost certainly due to the nature of the description rather than a reflection of the phenomena being described. In Levin (1993), ‘behavioural’ processes are given a great deal more attention than either ‘verbal’ or ‘mental’ ones for the simple reason that she has decided to exclude considerations of ‘sentential complements’ (cf. Levin 1993: 18, 88).13 I have added a number of classes to the ‘verbal’ and ‘mental’ process types, but this addition probably still does not redress the balance. This general picture is thus an interim snapshot of an ongoing long-term effort to extend the description of process type in delicacy and it certainly includes various imbalances among the process types. This interim snapshot is represented graphically by means of the radial diagram in Figure 3 (which can be accessed via http:// dx.doi.org/10.1075/fol.21.2.01mat.additional). The diagram is organized around ‘clause’ in the middle. From this feature, the different process types radiate. The first several steps in this classification are a part



Relational

Mental Behavioural

Verbal PROCESS TYPE

Existential

Material

Levin’s verb classes

Figure 3. Classification of Levin’s (1993) verb classes according to the system of process type; each oval represents either a term in a system such as process type or a Levinian verb class

of the established description of the system of process type (cf. Table 1 above), but beyond this inner circle of systemicized process types and subtypes, the diagram shows Levin’s (1993) verb classes. Figure 4 (which can be accessed via http:// dx.doi.org/10.1075/fol.21.2.01mat.additional) shows a detail of the diagram, part of the region of ‘material’ processes. For example, ‘material’ processes with an ‘enhancing’ outcome bring together a number of Levin’s (1993) verb classes, including the class of ‘motion’. The radial diagram in Figure 3 is a visual representation of the result of my classificatory project to date, but it does not show the status of Levin’s (1993) verb classes in relation to systemic terms in the system network that they have been classified under. The verb classes are not yet terms (features, options) in systems, unlike terms such as ‘material’, ‘behavioural’, ‘mental’, ‘verbal’, ‘relational’, and ‘existential’ in the system of process type or ‘perceptive’, ‘cognitive’, ‘desiderative’, and ‘emotive’ in the more delicate system of sensing type. The classes are thus taxonomic, but not systemic. They are pre-systemic candidates that may be transformed into systemic terms, but when an experiential field such as the field of ‘motion’ is systemicized — i.e. described systemically (as in



Figure 4. Classification of Levin’s (1993) verb classes according to the system of process type

Hasan 1987), the verb classes may be re-arranged. For example, while Levin’s (1993) scheme is a strict taxonomy, a systemic description represented in a system network is not; there are often simultaneous systems in a system network, such as the systems of process type and agency, and interactions between simultaneous systems of the kind illustrated in Table 4 must be taken into account when the systemic description of motion or of any other experiential field is extended in delicacy. The result is likely to be a multi-dimensional description of a field such as motion of the kind that can be accommodated in a system network (see e.g. Hasan 1987)14 rather than a one-dimensional one of the kind that can be accommodated in a strict taxonomy. To show the difference between the purely systemic and the purely taxonomic parts of the classification shown in Figure 3, we can adopt a hybrid representation that includes both, as is illustrated for ‘material’ processes of ‘motion’ in Figure 5 (which can be accessed via http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/fol.21.2.01mat.additional). This representation shows that there is a set of Levinian verb classes that can be classified under the ‘enhancing’ type of ‘transformative’ processes (for these subtypes, see Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: Ch 5)), but that these classes still haven’t been systemicized (for a recent overview of the extensive research on the language of motion — set in motion by Talmy (1985) — see e.g. Beavers et al. 2010).



Inherently directed motion ]24] advance, arrive, ascend, climb, come back, come, cross, depart, descend, enter, escape, exit, fall, flee, go, go back, leave, plunge, reach, recede, return, rise, tumble, withdraw

Elaborating

‘Leaving’ (deserting) Motion Body-internal motion [16] buck, fidget, flap, gyrate, kick, rock, squirm, sway, teeter, totter, twist, twitch, waggle, wiggle, wabble, wriggle Asumming position [19] bend, bow, crouch, flop, hang, kneel, lean, lie, perch, plop, rise, sit, slouch, slump, sprawl, squat, stand, stoop, straddle Lingering -&-rushing [3] hasten, harry, rush [8] daily, dawdle, delay, dither, hesitate, linger, loiter, tarry Motion (existence)

Material: transformative

Extending

[35] bob, bow, creep, dance, drift, eddy, flap, float, flutter, hover, jiggle, joggle, oscillate, pulsate, quake, quiver, revolve, rock, rotate, shake, stir, sway... Avoiding [6] avoid, dodge, duck, evade, shun, sidestep Sending-&-carrying [11] barge, bus, cart, drive, ferry, row, shuttle, truck, wheel, wire [15] carry, drag, haul, heave, heft, haist, kick, lug, pull, schlep, shove, tote, tow, tug, [2] bring, take [5] bounce, float, move, roll, slide, [24] airmail, convey, deliver,dispatch, express, fedex, forward, hand, mail, pass, port, post, return, sendoff, shijt, ship, shunt, slip, smuggle, sneak, transfer, transport, ups Throwing [30] bash, bat, bunt, cast, catapult, chuck, fire, flick, fling, flip, hit, hurl, kick, knock, lob, nudge, pass, pitch, punt, shoot, shove, slam, slap, sling, smash, tap, throw, tip, toss Putting

Enhancing

[13] arrange, immerse, install, lodge, mount, place, position, put, set, situate, sling, stash, stow [9] dangle, hang, lay, lean, perch, rest, sit, stand, suspend [26] bang, channel, dip, dump, funnel, hammer, ladle, pound, push, rake, ram, scoop, scrape, shake, shovel, siphon, spoon, squash, squeeze, squish, sweep, tuck, wad, wedge, wipe, wring [5] drop, hoist, lift, lower, raise, [7] dribble, drip, pour, slop, slosh, spew, spill [9] coil, curl, loop, roll, spin, twril, twist, whirl, wind, [49] brush, cram, crowd, cultivate, dab, daub, drape ... [95] adorn, anoint, bandage, bathe, bestrew, bind ... [103] asphalt, bait, blanket, blindfold, board, bread ... [54] archive, bag, bark, beach, bed, berth, billet ...

[3] abandon, desert, leave Manner of motion: ‘rolling’ [18] bounce, coil, drift, drop, float, glide, move, revolve, roll, rotate, slide, spin, swing, turn, twirl, twist, wirld, wind Manner of motion: ‘running’ [124] amble, backpach, bolt, bounce, bound, bowl, canter, carom.Cauort,charge,clambt>r,chmb, Manner of motion: ‘running’ [124] amble, backpach, bolt, bounce, bound, bowl, canter, carom, cavort, charge, clamber, climb, clump, coast, crowl, creep, dart, dash, dodder, drift, file, flit, float, fly, frolic, gallop, gambol, glide, goosestep, hasten, hike, hobble, hop, hurry, hurtle, inch, jog, journey, jump, leap, limp, lollop, lope, lumber, lurch, march, meander, mince, mosey, nip, pad, parade, perambulate, plod, prance, promenade, prowl, race, ramble, roam, roll, romp, rove, run, rush, sashay, saunter, scamper, scoot, scram, scramble, scud, scurry, scutrer, scuttle, shamble, shuffle, sidle, skedaddle, skip, skitter, skulk, sleepwalk, slide, slink, slither, slog, douch, sneak, somersault, speed, stagger, stamp, stray, streak, stride, stroll, strut, stumble, stump, swagger, sweep, swim, tack, tear, tiptoe, toddle, totter, traipse, tramp, travel, trek, troop, trot, trudge, trundle, vault, waddle, wade, walk, wander, whiz, zigzag, zoom Vehicular: name of vehicle [39] balloon, bicyde, bike, boat, bobsled, bus, cab, canve, caravan, chariot, coach, cycle, dogsled, ferry, gondola, helicopter, jeep, jet, kayak, moped, motor, motorbike, motorcycle, parachute, punt, raft, rickshaw, rocket, skate, skateboard, ski, sled, sledge, sleigh, taxi, taboggan, tram, trolley, yacht Vehicular: “drive” [10] cruise, drive, fly, oar, paddle, pedal, ride, row, sail, tack ‘Waltzing’ [20] boogie, bop, cancan, clog, conga, dance, faxtrot, jig, jittterbug, jive, pirouette, polka quickstep, rumba, samba, shuffle, squaredance, tango, tapdance, waltz ‘Chasing’ [7] chase, follow, pursue, shadow, tail, track, trail ‘Accompanying’ [6] accompany, conduct, escort, guide, lead, shepherd

Removing: banishing [7] banish, deport, evacuate, expel, extradite, recall, remove Concealing [11] block, cloister, conceal, curtain, hide, isolate, quarantine, screen, seclude, sequester, shelter Extension of process type in delicacy: material clauses with an ‘enhancing’ outcome: ‘verb’ classes from Levin (1993). Classified and diagrammed by C.M.I.M. Matthiessen.

Holding-&-kceping [7] clasp, clutch, grasp, grip, handle, hold, wield [4] board, keep, leave, store ...

Figure 5. Hybrid representation of classification where systemic description and taxonomic description are distinguished (‘motion’ is Levin’s (1993) class 51 ‘verbs of motion’)



3.2 Splitting primary classes according to secondary classes When I classified the Levinian verb classes under different process types, I had to split some of the primary verb classes and assign their secondary classes to different primary process types. A key example of this is Levin’s (1993) class 30, ‘verbs of perception’: see Figure 6.

Clause

(types of process)

Verb(al group)

(types of event)

Major clause

PROCESS TYPE

Material Behavioural Mental Verbal Relational Existential

Peer verbs Sight verbs See verbs Stimulus subject Perception verbs

Perception verbs

Figure 6. Levin’s (1993) primary class of ‘verbs of perception’ distributed across primary process types according to secondary classes

This verb class has four secondary classes, ‘peer verbs’, ‘sight verbs’, ‘see verbs’ and ‘stimulus subject perception verbs’. 1. The class of ‘peer verbs’ is classified under ‘behavioural’ processes; verbs in this class denote perceptual activity. The basic transitivity configuration here is Behaver: nominal group: conscious + Process: ‘peer verb’; the phenomenon being perceived is construed circumstantially as a(n abstract) circumstance of Place (e.g. she peered at the dog). 2. The class of ‘see verbs’ is classified under ‘mental’ processes; verbs in this class denote inert perceptual sensing. The basic transitivity configuration is Senser: nominal group: conscious + Process: ‘see verb’ + Phenomenon: nominal group/ clause: non-finite/ finite, where the Phenomenon may be realized by a nominal group (e.g. she saw the street), a non-finite clause (e.g. she saw them crossing the street) or a finite clause (e.g. she saw that they had crossed the street). 3. The class of ‘sight verbs’ includes verbs that can be used either in a ‘behavioural’ clause, with the sense of perception as activity (unmarked present tense: present-in-present (i.e. the so-called present progressive or present continuous, cf. Matthiessen 1996)), or in a ‘mental’ one, with the sense of perception as inert sensing (unmarked present tense: the simple present). The two senses of ‘sight © 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved


verbs’ correspond to different transitivity configurations, those set out under (1) for ‘behavioural’, with the added possibility of Phenomenon, and under (2) for ‘mental’. 4. The class of ‘stimulus subject perception verbs’ is classified under ‘relational’; the basic transitivity configuration is Carrier + Process: ‘stimulus subject perception verb’ + Attribute (e.g. he looked harmless). Corpus examples of each type are given below: behavioural: introactive: perceptive: peer verbs (1) Her shadow fell across my book. I looked up, she was gazing at me kindly. behavioural: introactive: perceptive: sight verbs (2) Frieda, of course, was a German aristocrat, and by 1916 Lawrence had come a good way from Eastwood, but is it not possible that their middle-class friends were witnessing in these open rows the continuance of a different tradition? (LOB_C) mental: perceptive: sight verbs (3) The archbishop had been alerted to the grinding poverty in the nearby garbage tip by a 12-year-old boy. The Papal Nuncio had noticed the lad coming to his house each day to collect the rubbish. One day the archbishop went home with the boy. He witnessed a community of people struggling for life amidst mountains of garbage. mental: perceptive: see verbs (4) The Papal Nuncio had noticed the lad coming to his house each day to collect the rubbish. (5) When she looked at his paintings, she could hear the auction bids and smell the fish and pebbles, she could feel the sticky salt in the women’s hair and the tired sweat on the men’s faces. (LOB_P) relational: intensive & non-assigned: phase: reality (stimulus subject perception verbs) (6) He returned five minutes later looking more composed. (LOB_A)

The dispersal of verbs of perception across the different process types is quite consistent with Viberg’s (1984) findings in his study of the typology of verbs of perception in different languages (cf. also Viberg 2008). Languages construe different aspects of perception within different process types, each type providing different transitivity configurations for modelling our multifaceted experience of perception. Languages differ in patterns of lexicalization, e.g. the extent to which the same verb is used in different environments. As in English, visual perception, closely followed by auditory perception, tends to be most highly differentiated © 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved


lexically, e.g. ‘behavioural’: watch, look; ‘mental’: see; ‘relational’: look; but with other senses one and the same verb may be used in different senses corresponding to the different process types, e.g. smell: ‘behavioural’: he is smelling the flower; ‘mental’: he can smell the flower; ‘relational’: the flower smells good. How can we reconcile the two classificatory pictures of processes of perception, the one presented in Levin (1993) and the one first presented in Halliday (1985)? The general principle would seem to be as follows. Our experience of goings-on is construed in the first instance as a quantum of change in the flow of events within the domain of the clause, where it is construed as a configuration of a process, participants directly involved in it and attendant circumstances (cf. Halliday & Matthiessen 1999). In the clause, it will be construed according to one of a small number of grammatical models that is specific to particular types of process — ‘material’, ‘behavioural’, ‘mental’, ‘verbal’, ‘relational’, and ‘existential’. For example, our experience of perception will be modelled as activity — as observable behaviour (the ‘behavioural’ model), as inert sensing — as inner consciousness (the ‘mental’), or as ascription — as class-membership based on a perceived relationship (the ‘relational’ model). These models all involve a Process element differentiated according to the participants involved in it and the attendant circumstances. The Process is realized by a verbal group — i.e. by a unit at the rank immediately below that of the clause. At this rank, it is possible to generalize across the different transitivity configurations — across the different transitivity models associated with the different process types. For example, it is possible to factor out a perception event that is common to the different environments at clause rank of Perception as:

Clause [particularized]

Material

Behavioural Activity

Group: verbal [generalized]

Mental

Verbal Relational Existential

Sensing

Ascription

Event

Figure 7. The lexicogrammatical construal of our experience of perception — at clause rank, as process (in a transitivity configuration, according to process type), and at group rank, as event



process configurations: see Figure 7. Once we have descended to group rank, the properties of the different transitivity configurations associated with the different process types have been neutralized: this is why Levin’s (1993) primary verb classes such as ‘verbs of perception’ that are further classified into secondary verb classes have no set of shared properties; in such cases, the distinctive and distinguishing properties are associated with the secondary (rather than the primary) classes — i.e. with the classes that can be classified under particular process types. The general principle articulated above and illustrated for the construal of perception in Figure 7 applies to a number of other cases, in addition to that of perception: –

–

–

–

–

Class 23, ‘verbs of separating and disassembling’: This class belongs to ‘material’ processes with the exception of subclass 23.4, ‘differ verbs’ (differ, diverge), which belongs to ‘relational’ processes (although at least diverge has both a ‘relational’ sense (‘be markedly different’) and a ‘material’ one (‘develop in different directions’)). Class 27, ‘engender verbs’ (beget, cause, create, engender, generate, shape, spawn): This class has no subclasses, and the verbs seem to have both ‘material: creative’ senses and ‘relational: circumstantial’ ones; in ‘relational’ clauses, they are likely to be metaphors of ‘cause’. Class 29, ‘verbs with predicative complements’: This class is characterized in syntactic terms, and its subclasses belong, not surprisingly, to different process types, ‘material’, ‘mental’, and ‘relational’: i. ‘material’: 29.8 captain verbs, 29.6 masquerade verbs, 29.7 orphan verbs; ii. ‘mental: cognitive’: 29.5 conjecture verbs; iii. ‘relational: intensive: assigned’: 29.1 appoint verbs, 29.2 characterize verbs, 29.3 dub verbs, 29.4 declare verbs, 29.6 masquerade verbs, 29.7 orphan verbs. (Two of the subclasses, 29.6 and 29.7, have both ‘material’ and ‘relational’ readings.) Class 47, ‘verbs of existence’: This class is distributed across ‘material’, ‘relational’, and ‘existential’ processes: i. ‘material’: 47.3 verbs of modes of ‘being’ involving motion, 47.4 echo verbs, 47.5 verbs of group existence, 47.6 verbs of spatial configuration, 47.7 meander verbs, 47.8 verbs of contiguous location; ii. ‘relational: circumstantial’: 47.8 verbs of contiguous location; iii. ‘existential’: 47.1 exist verbs, 47.2 verbs of entity-specific modes of being. (One subclass, 47.8 verbs of contiguous location, includes verbs that can be used in either ‘material’ clauses or in ‘relational’ ones.) Class 48, ‘verbs of appearance, disappearance and occurrence’: This class has subclasses that belong to either ‘material’ or ‘existential’ processes:



i.

‘material’: 48.1 verbs of appearance, 48.2 verbs of disappearance, 48.3 verbs of occurrence; ii. ‘existential’: 48.1 verbs of appearance, 48.3 verbs of occurrence. This class lies on the borderline between ‘material’, coming into existence, and ‘existential’, being in existence; and two subclasses include verbs with both ‘material’ and ‘existential’ senses. In summary, there are six primary classes with verbs that are assigned to more than one process type: see Table 6; a number of these splits were anticipated in Matthiessen (1995: 219–228). Here I have commented on one of these, class 30, ‘verbs of perception’, in some more detail; but all are worth exploring along similar lines. As can be seen from the table, all other classes involve a split between ‘material’ and ‘relational’ and/ or ‘existential’. If the Levinian verb classes are extended, it is likely that we will also find other such domains of overlap involving other pairs of process type, such as the domain of symbolization ‘split’ between ‘verbal’ and ‘relational’. Certain fields of experience are particularly complex, and this experiential complexity is likely to be handled by the lexicogrammar of a language through the evolution of different models for construing them associated with different process types. One example is our experience of pain, as shown by Halliday’s (1998) study of the construal of our experience of pain in English (cf. Hori (2006) on Japanese; Lascaratou (2007) on Greek); another is our experience of emotion, as shown by Matthiessen (2007).

Table 6. Primary verb classes split between terms in the system of process type Primary verb class

material behavioural mental verbal relational existential

23. Verbs of separating and material disassembling

relational

27. Engender verbs

material

relational

29. Verbs with predicative complements

material

30. Verbs of perception

mental

relational

behavioural mental

relational

47. Verbs of existence

material

relational existential

48. Verbs of appearance, disappearance and occurrence

material

existential



3.3 Splitting secondary classes In the previous subsection, I identified six primary Levinian verb classes that are split between two or more primary process types. Now I will turn to secondary verb classes that are split between two primary process types.15 They are summarized in Table 7. A number of these splits have already been mentioned in the previous section. Table 7. Secondary verb classes split between terms in the system of process type material mental relational

behavioural [1] 30.2 Sight verbs

[2] 26.5 Turn verbs; [3] 43.3 Verbs of smell emission; [4] 29.6 Masquerade verbs; [5] 47.8 Verbs of contiguous location; [6] 54.1 Register verbs

Interestingly, all splits identified in Table 7 are splits between ‘material’ and ‘relational’ except for secondary class 30.2, ‘sight verbs’. There is a generalization common to them all: they are splits between the more dynamic or active process types, ‘material’ and ‘behavioural’, and two of the more static or inert ones, ‘mental’ and ‘relational’. This distinction has various reactances (in Whorf’s (1956) sense) in the grammar of English. One of these is the nature of the unmarked present tense (see e.g. Halliday 1985) — the present-in-present (the so-called present progressive or present continuous, cf. again Matthiessen 1996) for the more ‘dynamic’ process types and the simple present for the more ‘static’ ones. This happens to be one grammatical property that Levin (1993) did not use in distinguishing verb classes, so it makes very good sense that we find a number of splits precisely along these lines. Let me now comment briefly on each split, using the numbers specified in Table 7. 1. ‘Behavioural’ / ‘mental’: class 30.2 ‘sight verbs’ (descry, discover, espy, examine, eye, glimpse, inspect, investigate, note, observe, overhear, perceive, recognize, regard, savor, scan, scent, scrutinize, sight, spot, spy, study, survey, view, watch, witness). As already noted above, verbs in this class serve as the Process in ‘behavioural’ clauses with the sense of ‘perception as activity’, and they serve as the Process in clauses with the sense of ‘perception as inert sensing’. 2. ‘Material’ / ‘relational’: class 26.5 ‘turn verbs’ (alter, change, convert, metamorphose, transform, transmute, turn). In the ‘material’ case, verbs in this class simply denote a transformation of a thing from one state into another; the outcome of the transformation may be specified, but it can be left out. For example:



(7) He chose music from the Beatles (of course), from Hair, Neil Diamond, Simon and Garfunkel plus many 60s hits. Perhaps they don’t transcribe well to the orchestral milieu but there was not enough variation in the Heartbeat sound composition (OZNEWS)

In the ‘relational’ case, they have an inchoative sense; they are variants of ‘become’. Here the outcome of becoming must be specified (typically marked by into); for example: (8) Mr Drury’s President and senators who reveal themselves gradually through 760 pages (at least in the American paperback edition) have had to be transformed into Mr Preminger’s Franchot Tone, Don Murray, Lew Ayres, and the rest of an experienced team who can make the most of their splitsecond timing to create their characters … (LOB_A)

3. ‘Material’ / ‘relational’: class 43.3 ‘verbs of smell emission’ (reek, smell, stink). In ‘material’ clauses, verbs in this class have the concrete sense of a smell emanating from an object; the source of the smell may be construed by an of-phrase; for example: (9) L’Odeon does not reek of popcorn. (TIMES)

In ‘relational’ clauses, they have the abstract sense of pejorative evaluation; the offending element may be construed by an of-phrase; for example: (10) The urban centres reek of a casual cynicism, all over-built to over-function, like they were plotted in five minutes on some kind of Simcity megadrive game. (UKMAGS)

Here the Process is, as it were, fused with a negatively assessed Attribute (cf. Matthiessen 1995: 325–6). 4. ‘Material’ / ‘relational’: class 29.6 ‘masquerade verbs’ (act, behave, camouflage, count, masquerade, officiate, pose, qualify, rank, rate, serve). In ‘material’ clauses, verbs in this class have the sense of acting in a certain role; for example: (11) Because if they can masquerade as normal people perhaps the rest of us aided by make-up artists, lighting technicians and £1,000 frock makers, could look like them. (TODAY)

In ‘relational’ clauses, the sense is one of identity; for example: (12) These products masquerade as real fruit but apart from some added vitamin C have none of the other valuable ingredients. (TODAY)

5. ‘Material’ / ‘relational’: class 47.8 ‘verbs of contiguous location’ (abut, adjoin, blanket, border, bound, bracket, bridge, cap, contain, cover, cross, dominate, © 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved


edge, encircle, enclose, fence, fill, flank, follow, frame, head, hit, hug, intersect, line, meet, miss, overhang, precede, rim, ring, skirt, span, straddle, support, surmount, surround, top, touch, underlie). In ‘material’ clauses, verbs in this class have the sense of change in location from one place to another — of bringing into contiguous location;16 for example: (13) El Dorado was surrounded by a mob. They overflowed the parking lot, making progress by automobile difficult. Long before he reached the protection of the stage door, Andy was recognized. (BROWN L)

In ‘relational’ clauses, verbs in this class have the sense of ‘be + around, in, after’ etc.; for example: (14) Both the white and yolk are surrounded by membranes which enclose the egg in a fibrous sac. (ACE E)

A number of the verbs, e.g. abut, underlie, have only the ‘relational’ sense. 6. ‘Material’ / ‘relational’: class 54.1 ‘register verbs’ (measure, read, register, total, weigh). In ‘material’ clauses, these verbs are used to denote an Actor’s act of measuring, registering, totalling or weighing an object; for example: (15) It was such a solid anaesthetic that the patient remained asleep for two and a half hours after the operation was completed while Mick nervously measured the blood pressure every ten minutes and helped the breathing with a respirator when it became too shallow. (ACE G)

In ‘relational’ clauses, these verbs are used to denote the assignment of a measure to an object; for example: (16) The heart weighed 510 gm, and at the outflow tracts the left and right ventricles measured 19 and 3 mm, respectively. (BROWN J) (17) In all the brigade will total four thousand men. (BBC)

3.4 Addition of classes In the previous two subsections, I have discussed cases of mismatch between Levin’s (1993) verb classes and the systemic functional account of the system of process type — cases where the Levinian classes had to be ‘split’ between different process types. As already noted, the classification of Levin’s verb classes under the terms of the system of process type (‘material’, ‘behavioural’, ‘mental’, ‘verbal’, ‘relational’, ‘existential’) revealed that certain process types were under-represented in terms of Levinian verb classes. This is due largely to a principled decision taken by Levin,



the decision to exclude from coverage patterns involving ‘complement clauses’. In systemic functional terms, this means that projection (reporting and quoting) is not considered systematically in the postulation of verb classes in Levin (1993). This affects ‘verbal’ and ‘mental’ process in particular, so these process types are likely to need further differentiation in terms of ‘verb classes’. 4. Conclusion In this article, I have reported on certain aspects of a long-term project concerned with extending the description of the system of process type in English in delicacy, moving from grammar towards lexis. The project involves different sources of material, both primary sources in the form of corpora and analysed texts and secondary sources in the form of accounts of verb classes or delicate process types. Here I have focussed on the latter, reporting in particular on my classification of Levin’s (1993) verb classes in terms of the system of process type. After the completion of my classification, we now have a clear general picture of how the Levinian verb classes are distributed across the six process types of the system of process type, as shown in Figure 3. Each terminal node in this radial diagram is a verb class (primary, secondary or tertiary, depending on the depth of Levin’s classification at that point in the account), represented by anywhere between a couple of verbs to well over 100. More generally, the fact that it proved possible to classify all her verb classes in terms of the six process types and their more delicate subtypes can be seen as powerful evidence for current views that grammar and lexis form a continuum — anticipated already by Halliday (1961) in his formulation of the ‘grammarian’s dream’. This general picture can serve as a rough guide to the development of systemic descriptions of the kind pioneered by Hasan (1987). However, when systemic descriptions are developed, we are likely to find that they impose additional organization on Levin’s (1993) verb classes. In other words, we cannot assume that it will be possible just to take a single class and ‘systemicize’ it. This can be seen when we examine Hasan’s description of verbs of acquisition and deprivation. The verbs she deals with systemically are located within two primary Levinian classes and six secondary classes, viz. ‘acquisition’: class 13.5.1 ‘get verbs’ (e.g. buy, gather); 13.5.2 ‘obtain verbs’ (e.g. accumulate, collect); ‘deprivation’: class 9.5 ‘pour verbs’ (e.g. pour, spill); class 9.7 ‘spray/ load verbs’ (e.g. scatter, strew); class 13.2 ‘contribute verbs’ (e.g. distribute); class 13.1 ‘give verbs’ (e.g. give). Cutting across the contrast between ‘acquisition’ and ‘deprivation’ is another general contrast, between ‘benefacile’ and ‘non-benefacile’; and these terms divide the Levinian classes just mentioned in a different way from the contrast between ‘acquisition’ and ‘deprivation’. © 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved


In addition to the general picture, we also now have a detailed inventory of classificatory issues — the need to split verb classes and the need to add verb classes. The exploration of these issues reveals two motifs. One is the complementarity of the more ‘active’ process types — ‘material’ and ‘behavioural‘ — and the more ‘inert’ ones — ‘mental’, ‘verbal’, ‘relational’ and ‘existential’. The other is the need to take projection (reporting, quoting) into account, as we supplement Levin’s verb classes. In continuing the research I have reported on here, we need to test the whole classification against corpus evidence (cf. Baker & Ruppenhofer 2002). This will certainly raise new issues, and provide evidence for revising the scheme: thanks to corpus-based research, we now know that collocational and phraseological patterns (cf. Cheng et al. 2009; Hunston & Francis 2000) are an essential part of the overall picture: verbs that have been assigned to the same class may turn out to be fairly distinct in terms of their collocations (a property that is reflected in the notion of lexical functions, see e.g. Mel’chuk 1982). At the same time, we also need to check the scheme against other accounts such as the Collins COBUILD verb patterns (cf. Neale 2002, 2006) and FrameNet (cf. Chow & Webster 2008). In addition, the classification also needs to be viewed in the light of multilingual studies (cf. Matthiessen 2004; Matthiessen et al. 2008) — translation studies, comparison and typology; for typological considerations of ‘lexicalization’ patterns and ‘verb semantics’, see e.g. Talmy (1985, 2007); van Valin (2006). As we progress, we will be able to produce a much more elaborated and robust description of the system of process type for various languages. At the same time, we will increase its usefulness significantly. For example, we can use our elaborated description to make much more delicate differentiations between texts or registers (text types). Thus at low delicacy, topographic procedures (walking and driving tours in guide books) and narratives of journeys can both be characterized as favouring ‘material’ clauses of ‘motion’; but if we increase the delicacy of the description to the point where we make contact with Levinian classes, we are likely to find that while both types of text frequently select for ‘inherently directed motion’ (see Figure 5), narratives also make frequent use of ‘manner of motion: running’ — Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings being an example of a narrative that makes this class do quite hard work in his evocation of a very perilous and difficult journey. The more delicate description of the system of process type will thus be very helpful in profiling and comparing texts and text types — both manually and computationally. Received 19 February 2012. Revised version received 10 March 2013. Accepted 17 March 2013.



Notes * The research reported on here was carried out with the help of SysVerb, a database Wu Canzhong and I have developed; I am very grateful to him for his expert help with this longterm project. I am also grateful to Joe Cheng for comments on an earlier version of this paper and to two anonymous reviewers for their comments on the version submitted. 2. From a systemic functional point of view, the ten parameters of transitivity proposed in Hopper & Thompson’s (1980) influential study of degrees of transitivity in different languages represent a paradigmatic view of transitivity: their ten parameters can be interpreted systemically, each parameter being a range of values that may be systemicized in some particular way in a given language. 3. For the relationship between systemic accounts and ‘ontology’, see e.g. Bateman’s ‘ontology portal’: http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/anglistik/langpro/webspace/jb/info-pages/ontology/ ontology-root.htm. For a particular project linking the two, see Chow & Webster (2008). 4. For important complementary work based on Francis et al. (1996), see Neale (2002, 2006). 5. In Systemic Functional Linguistics, the grammar is seen as engendering more delicate lexical patterns. This contrasts with the view (developed within generative approaches and other approaches influenced by them) that lexical patterns are ‘projected’ onto syntax. 6. Or perhaps better: ‘meso-grammars’, reserving the term ‘micro-grammars’ for more delicate patterns. 7. One or other of the minor types has sometimes been classified under a major type. Thus, in a number of accounts (including the ‘Nigel grammar’ and Matthiessen 1995), ‘behavioural’ is classified under ‘material’ and ‘existential’ under ‘relational’. 8. For a general overview of the use of ontologies in accounts of lexis in computational linguistic work, see Huang et al. (2010). 9. WordNet is clearly an invaluable resource, but while it includes a number of sense relations, it does not give priority to hyponymy — unlike Roget’s Thesaurus and Levin’s (1993) account. 10. The first 8 classes in Levin’s presentation are ‘alternation classes’ such as ‘causative/ inchoative alternation’ rather than verb classes per se. 11. See http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~bonnie/LCS_Database_Documentation.html 12. See http://verbs.colorado.edu/~mpalmer/projects/verbnet.html 13. The counts here include verb classes and verbs that I have added (drawing on Matthiessen 1995), where I found gaps in Levin (1993): see further below. 14. Levin (1993: 18) comments: “This book restricts itself to verbs taking noun phrase and prepositional phrase complements. Verbs taking sentential complements are for the most part ignored, except when they show interesting behavior with noun phrase or prepositional phrase complements.”


Extending the description of process type within the system of transitivity 15. In this sense, such a systemic description may seem like componential analysis used in lexical semantics. However, while componential analysis is syntagmatic in orientation, working with sense ‘components’, systemic analysis is paradigmatic in orientation, working with values along paradigmatic dimensions; and this difference is quite crucial (cf. Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 198–202). 16. A split can be identified when a majority of the verbs listed under Levin’s (1993) class can serve with a different sense in either one or another of the six clause types based on the system of process type. 17. Some verbs in this class also appear in other classes, e.g. surround in 9.8 ‘fill verbs’, fence in 9.9 ‘butter verbs’, and cross in 51.1 ‘verbs with inherently directed motion’, but others do not.

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Author’s address Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen Department of English The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Chung Sze Yuen Building Hunghom, Kowloon Hong Kong [email protected]


Extending the description of process type within the

Extending the description of process type within the

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