Simple Things REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

will be will be Simple Thing Simple Quality

a. Simple Things

Some ‘simple things’ are metaphorical; the remainders are referred to as ‘ordinary’, and these are either conscious or non-conscious this is the distinction that is actually made in the semantic system, not animateinanimate or humannon-human see: Diagram 2.7. animal conscious object material material substance Simple Thing abstractionmaterial Non-conscious institution semiotic object abstraction Diagram 2.7: Simple Things Halliday M.A.K. Matthiessen, 1999: 61 showers heavy Most of the South - west clear to partly cloudy and dry Table 2.8: Examples of participants general meteorological culinary Conscious Person, man, woman, boy, girl, baby Cook [‘you’] Material: animal: higher Horse, stallion, mare, foal; dog, bitch, puppy [only as ingredients] Material: animal: lower Ant, butterfly, slug Material: object House, rock, car, hammer Scattered clouds [ingredients:] Potato, onion, stem, root, [implements:] knife, pan Material: substance Water, air, tea, sand Air, cloud, sunshine [ingredients:] fat, sugar, puree Material: abstraction History, mathematic A slow-moving weather system Heat, taste, colour Semiotic: institution Government, school Weather bureau Semiotic: object Book, document, report, film, picture, painting, symbol Forecast Recipe Semiotic: abstraction Notion, idea, fact, principle Chance Halliday M.A.K. Matthiessen, 1999: 61 Non-conscious ordinary things are distinguished along more than one dimension, but the categorization given here can be taken as primary, in the sense that it is the one that seems to have the clearest reactances in the grammar. Most of the participants in the meteorological texts are in fact metaphorical; but there are a few which illustrate these categories: a slow-moving weather system abstraction, ice substance, scattered clouds object, weather bureau institution. In contrast, most of the participants in the culinary texts are non- metaphorical we refer to this congruent. They are concrete objects and substances that can be chopped, added, sprinkled, and pored: vegetable, fat, sugar, puree, spinach, stems; or used as implements: knife, saucepean. These and other examples are tabulated in Table 2.8.

b. Simple Qualities