43
c. Participants can serve as subject, but circumstances cannot. For instance: She drove there by car, He was driven there by car; but not car was driven there by, there was driven by
car. Departures from this principle include the attribute of a relational clause cannot serve as subject it is not a prototypical participant in any case, certain circumstances can serve as
subject in middle clauses in particular; for instance: this hall has always been danced in on Saturday.
d. Participants are interrogated by means of who, what, which; circumstances by means of when, where, why, how plus prepositional phrases such as with whom who ...
with, since when since ... when, and for whom who ... for.
2.4.3. Circumstance
Circumstances of location may be realized by nominal groups when they are related to the time of speaking as last, next, or this. For example: They went to the desert
[Location: time:] last Friday; Lets go to the desert [Location: time:] this Friday. But: They went to the desert [Location: time:] the following Friday. Similarly with Extent: they worked
[for] five hours – including frequency: the shot at him five times. Each type of circumstance
is realized by a particular set of prepositional phrases and or adverbial groups; prepositions include:
a. Location: at, by, on, in, to, towards, from, onto, into, out of, through; above, below, in front of, behind, over, under; after, before, since, and ago [post-position: ten years ago]
b. Manner: by, with; like, unlike, as; in [a ... waymannerfashion] Note that certain prepositional phrases which appear to be locative serve as Manner: how did he walk?
–He walked on all fours. How did he leave?
–He left in a huff.
c. Extent: for, along, across, and throughout
Universitas Sumatera Utara
44
d. Cause: for, for the sake of, on behalf of; through, of, because of, as a result of, thanks to, and for want of
e. Matter: about, on, of, regarding, and concerning f. Accompaniment: with, without; as well as, besides, instead of, and except [for]
g. Role: as, by way of, and in the role shape guise form of Many prepositions have two or more uses
– for instance with Accompaniment, Manner-means, on Location, Matter, by Locative, Manner-means, for Extent, Cause-
purpose behalf, and as Role, Manner-comparison. These can be probed by paraphrasing by means of another preposition in the case of accompaniment, coordination.
While, Gerot and Wignell 1994:52 states that transitivity system belongs to the experiential metafunction. Experiential metafunction focuses on the grammar of the clause as
repsentation, because experiential metafunction has function to represent pattern of experience through the clause. Through the transitivity, we can explore some aspects such as
who=does=what=to=whom=, whowhat=is=whatwho, when, where, why, or how function Further, they state that there are, in fact, three semantic categories which explain in a
general way how phenomena of the real world are represented as linguistic structures. They are circumstances, process and participants. Circumstances answer such questions as when,
where, why, how, how many and as what. They realize meanings about time temporal, place spatial, manner, cause, accompaniment, matter, and role.
Time temporal tells when and is probed by when, how often, and how long. Place spatial tells where and is probed by where and how far. Manner tells how. It is divided into
three elements, they are Means, it tells by what means and probed by what with. Quality, it tells how and is probed by how and comparisons, tells like what and is probed by what like.
Universitas Sumatera Utara
45
Cause, it tells why. It is divided into three elements, namely reason, tells what causes the Process and is probed by why or how. Purpose, tells the purpose and is probed by what for
and behalf, tells for whose sake and is probed by for whom. Further, Accompaniment tells with out who or what and is probed by who or what else. Matter tells about what or with
reference to what and is probed by what about and the last is Role. It tells what as and is probed by as what.
These are illustrated in the following made-up text: Last Saturday night circ: time the local council held a fancy dress ball for charity
circ: cause in the Town Hall circ: place. The Lord Mayor, who came with his current lady circ: accompaniment, was dressed as Old King Cole circ: manner, and then made a
politically correct speech about the homeless circ: matter Next, Processes are central to transitivity. The process suggest many different kind of
what is going on which necessarily involved the different type of participants and circumstances are incumbent upon the doing, happening, feeling, and being. Processes are
realized by verbs. Traditionally verbs have been defined as ‗doing words‘ but, some verbs are not doing words at all, but rather than express states of being or having.
2.5 Relevant Studies