CONCEPTUALISING

EXPERIENCES EXPRESSED

AS SITUATION TYPES

PROCESSES, PARTICIPANTS, CIRCUMSTANCES

We will look at the clause as a grammatical means of encoding patterns of experience. A fundamental property of language is that it enables us to conceptualize and describe our experience, whether of the actions and events, people and things of the external world, or of the internal world of our thoughts, feelings and perceptions. This is done through transitivity, contemplated in a broad sense, which encompasses not only the verb but the semantic configuration of situation types.

The clause is, here too then, the most significant grammatical unit. It is the unit that enables us to organize the wealth of our experience, both semantically and syn tactically, into a manageable number of representational patterns or schemas. Our personal ‘construals’ of each individual situation are then selected from these patterns. In describing an event, for instance, we might say that it just happened, or that it was caused by someone’s deliberate intervention, or that it is unusual, or that we feel sad about it, among other possible construals. We will be talking about patterns of ‘doing’, ‘happening’, ‘experiencing’ and ‘being’ as the main types, together with a small number of subsidiary types.

As language-users, we are interested in events and especially in the human participants involved and the qualities we ascribe to them, what they do, say and feel, their possessions and the circumstances in which the event takes place. The semantic schema for a situation, therefore, consists potentially of the following components:

• the process (a technical term for the action (e.g. hit, run), state (e.g. have) or change of state (e.g. melt, freeze) involved.

• the participant(s) involved in the process (basically, who or what is doing what to whom);

• the attributes ascribed to participants; and

• the circumstances attendant on the process, in terms of time, place, manner, and so on.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

ملتقى الكوثر الثالث يشهد عرض مشهد حواري بعنوان شريك العمر أم شريك الفكر؟

إقامة مسابقة (مرفأ النور) العلمية للمشاركات في فعاليات ملتقى الكوثر بنسخته الثالثة

ضمن ملتقى الكوثر الثالث.. ورشة تسلط الضوء على بناء الوعي القرآني لدى النساء

شعبة فاطمة بنت أسد (عليها السلام): ملتقى الكوثر منصةً لتحقيق وعي أسري مستند للقرآن الكريم

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

نظام غذائي شائع قد يؤدي إلى ارتفاع الكوليسترول الضار

تحذيرات هامة من عواقب تناول "أيبوبروفين" مع أدوية شائعة

علامات مبكرة للإيبولا يمكن الخلط بينها وبين الإنفلونزا

خبراء: الفيروسات مثل هانتا وإيبولا أصبحت أكثر شيوعا وفتكاً

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

الليلة.. هلال القمر يلتقي كوكبي الزهرة والمشتري

إيلون ماسك يخسر دعواه القضائية أمام أوبن إيه.آي

مهمة فضائية "أوروبية صينية" لكشف أسرار الرياح الشمسية

انتهاء رحلة "السفينة الموبوءة".. وهذا مصير من بقي على متنها

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Clause combinations

CLAUSE TYPES AND SPEECH ACT FORCE: SUMMARY TABLE

QUESTIONS, CLAUSE TYPES AND DISCOURSE FUNCTIONS SUMMARY

QUESTIONS, CLAUSE TYPES AND DISCOURSE FUNCTIONS RHETORICAL QUESTIONS

INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS, CLAUSE TYPES AND DISCOURSE FUNCTIONS SUMMARY

INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS, CLAUSE TYPES AND DISCOURSE FUNCTIONS PERFORMATIVES AND THE DECLARATIVE

THE EXCLAMATIVE AND IMPERATIVE CLAUSE TYPES SUMMARY

THE SUBJUNCTIVE IN ENGLISH

VERBLESS AND FREESTANDING SUBORDINATE CLAUSES

THE EXCLAMATIVE AND IMPERATIVE CLAUSE TYPES THE EXCLAMATIVE

THE DECLARATIVE AND INTERROGATIVE CLAUSE TYPES SUMMARY

QUESTION TAGS