Systemic Functional Grammar
as a formal model of language:
a micro-grammar
for some central elements of the English clause
Robin P. Fawcett
Cardiff University
fawcett@cardiff.ac.uk
Part 1
A general overview of the grammar
1.1 Purposes and principles
Many linguists with interests in formal linguistic theory have a general awareness that
Halliday proposed a number of insightful ideas about the nature of language in the 1960s and
1970s from a functional perspective.1 Indeed, one still finds occasional ritual references to
his work in contemporary papers by scholars who are working in a completely unrelated
framework, e.g. where concepts such as (i) ‘theme’ and ‘rheme’, and (ii) ‘given’ and ‘new’
are concerned. But most formally-inclined linguists are almost completely unaware of the
extent to which these ideas have been developed and formalized since those early days - to
some extent by Halliday but mostly by others. This paper provides an introduction to some
of this work.
Linguists with interests in grammar formalisms may also be aware that the theory of
language to which the work of Halliday and others has led is known as Systemic Functional
Linguistics (SFL), and that it has been found useful for an impressively wide range of tasks in
applied linguistics, e.g. in the fields of language teaching, literary stylistics, critical discourse
studies, forensic linguistics, speech pathology, computational linguistics, etc.
I suspect, however, that most formal linguists work on the general assumption that they
do not need to consider SFL seriously as a formal theory of language, believing (i) that its
1 The work described here is a product of the COMMUNAL Project (which is described briefly in a later
footnote). COMMUNAL has been supported by grants from the Speech Research Unit at D(E)RA Malvern for
over ten years; in Phase 1 it also received support from the University Research Council of International
Computers Ltd (before its merger with Fujitsu) and from Longman, and throughout from Cardiff University. It
could not have achieved the success it has without the input of many other scholars, including Fiona Barker,
Victor Castel, Bethan Davies, Michael Day, Hiroshi Funamoto, Francis Lin, Huang Guowen, Amy Neale,
Masa-aki Tatsuki, Paul Tench, Ruvan Weerasinghe, Joan Wright, David Young, Zhou Xiaoukang and others and especially my friend and colleague Gordon Tucker, whose influence on the development of COMMUNAL
has at every point been very great. The influence of Michael Halliday, the founding father of Systemic
Functional Linguistics will also be evident throughout, even though the model presented here has some
significant differences from his. (For an account of the similarities and differences in these two SFL models,
see Fawcett 1999, 2000a, 2000b, 2000c, 2008 a and b and forthcoming 2010.) With respect to the present paper
in particular, I am also indebted to Victor Castel for our many fruitful conversations concerning the formalism
of systemic functional grammars, as he worked on a new computer implementation of the Cardiff Grammar and so also on the 'micro-grammar' described here.
basic concepts and its major claims have never been specified sufficiently explicitly by its
leading theorist (i.e. Halliday) and (ii) that it is consequently hopelessly under-formalized.2
Those who are familiar with Halliday’s writings over the last fifty years will recognize
that there is a good deal of truth in the first criticism.3 But I want to suggest that the second
criticism is unfair - and to demonstrate that SFL, ONCE ITS FORMALISMS ARE UNDERSTOOD,
offers a fully explicit model of language that is importantly and interestingly different from
other current formally explicit models of language. It is especially different from those that
have developed in the broadly Chomskyan paradigm.4
The two purposes of this paper are therefore:
1 to demonstrate that grammars developed in the framework of SFL can be (and indeed
have been) formalized in a fully adequate manner (this formalization being expressed in
terms of a different set of concepts from those used to characterize grammars
developed in the Chomskyan paradigm of ‘formal linguistics’) - and
2 to illustrate this claim by presenting a small but non-trivial generative grammar that is
explicitly derived from the principles of SFL.
Some scholars whose starting point was outside SFL - especially scholars working in
Computational Linguistics - have discussed certain key aspects of the formal properties of
generative SFGs, e.g. Patten and Ritchie 1987, Mellish 1988, and Brew 1992. However, they
have restricted themselves predominantly (in the case of Patten and Ritchie) or wholly (in the
case of Mellish and Brew) to the formal properties of system networks. 5 This is perhaps
understandable, given the strong emphasis in Halliday’s writings on system networks as the
core of the model.6 However, system networks are, as we shall see, only one half of the SFL
picture of the nature of language and, as all SFL theorists would agree, they require as a
2 Yet, despite this reputation, a good number of the seminal contributions to the development of
computational linguistics have used SFL in their work, e.g. Winograd 1972 in the field of Natural Language
Understanding, and Davey 1978, Mann and Matthiessen 1983/85 and Matthiessen and Bateman 1991 in Natural
Language Generation. It has also informed the work of myself and others in the COMMUNAL Project
(Fawcett, Tucker and Lin1993).
3 Indeed, it was this that led my colleagues and myself to develop the alternative approach to SFL described
below, and specifically to the writing of my A theory of syntax for Systemic Functional Linguistics (Fawcett
2000a). On the other hand, it is important to the development of linguistics that innovative thinkers such as
Halliday, Chomsky, Lamb and others should feel free to express their ideas in whatever disciplinary framework
seems right to them - however much their approach may not be to one’s personal taste.
4 By this I mean the research paradigm that has dominated theoretical linguistics (as opposed to applied
linguistics) since what Smith and Wilson (1979) called ‘the Chomsky’s revolution’. It was a ‘revolution’ that
led to a new hegemony, and descriptive and functionally-oriented linguists - as well as applied linguists - have
had to struggle hard to maintain some freedom for themselves and their approach to understanding language and
its uses.
5 The formalisms described in Patten and Ritchie are in fact the particular set of concepts that underlie the
generation procedure found in Patten 1988. This is based in turn on Halliday 1978, though with some
interesting but non-canonical additions of Patten’s own. As in most of Halliday’s presentations of small
systemic grammars, the syntactic structures in Patten and Ritchie are specified by simple realization rules
attached directly to specific features in the network, and there is no recognition of the central importance of the
concept of ‘conditional features’ (as described here in Sections 1.5 and 2.3). Yet this concept must inevitably
play a central role in any generative systemic functional grammar that has a wide coverage, and so has to be
extended to include exceptions to the broad generalizations. Many examples of reasons why this is so are given
in Section 2.3.
6 Earlier discussions of the formalisms of SFG by systemic functional linguists (also from the viewpoint of
Computational Linguistics) can be found in Matthiessen and Bateman 1991, and in Fawcett, Tucker and Lin
1993.
2
necessary complement an associated set of realization rules (Halliday 1993). Indeed, a SFG
that has no realization rules simply cannot function as a generative grammar, and so as a
formal model of language.7
This paper begins by describing the formal properties of a generative SFG. It then
illustrates these by presenting a small generative grammar for some central elements of the
English. But despite its small size it introduces a surprisingly large number of the central
systems of English, it includes a number of interesting points about the nature of English, and
it shows you how to operate the grammar.
How small is ‘small’? One practical way to describe the size of the grammar is by saying
that it is small enough to be graspable in a working session of around an hour. Another is to
point out that the graph representation of its system network (a concept that we shall come to
shortly) can be displayed on a single page (as the Appendix shows). Another metric that is
sometimes used is to count the number of systems. By this metric the grammar to be
described here is very small indeed; it has just 24 systems. In contrast, the full grammar from
which this one is extracted has around 7-800 ‘grammatically realized’ systems (i.e. features
realized in syntax, grammatical items, intonation and punctuation), and around 5,000 systems
with features that are realized in lexical items.8
Part 1 describes the general principles of a generative SFG and the background to the
particular ‘micro-grammar’ presented here. Part 2 consists of the grammar itself, together
with a set of comments on its various sections, and Part 3 provides a brief a summary of the
conclusions to be drawn from this study.9
It would have been an interesting exercise to have additionally compared the approach to
modelling language presented here with other types of generative grammar. However, the
present task is sufficient for one paper, and if I had attempted that task too this paper would
have become overlong. Such a comparative study must therefore await another occasion.
Nonetheless I shall add occasional comments on the differences between the key concepts of
a SFG and those that underlie a grammar that is the product of what we may call, using the
term in a broad sense, ‘Chomskyan linguistics’.10
This micro-grammar covers a number of central aspects of English syntax such that (i)
they are required in the generation of most clauses; (ii) many of them involve the realization
of a single meaning in two non-adjacent elements; (iii) there are interdependencies between
the grammar’s rules that are sufficiently complex to test aspects of the descriptive adequacy
of this or any other formal grammar; and (iv) it includes linguistic phenomena that test the
ability of any grammar to handle the lack of a one-to-one fit between semantics and syntax this being, of course, one of the characteristics of language that gives it its enduring
fascination. I suggest that, if a grammar can handle all of the grammatical phenomena that I
7 Nor can a system network that lacks realization rules be used in any systematic way in the description of
texts. Indeed, Halliday’s best-known work - his Introduction to Functional Grammar (1985/94) - is a
description of the structures that are the PRODUCTS of the use of a systemic functional grammar, and the features
in the system networks and their associated realization rules are merely referred to informally or left to be
inferred. In the 2004 edition, however, which is a revision by Matthiessen, there are a few system networks.
These are a welcome addition, but they are fairly complex in places, and there is no explanation as to how to use
them in the task of describing texts (the use to which Halliday intends the book to be put) and most readers will
struggle to relate them to the main text. Ideally, Matthiessen would have demonstrated how to analyze a text in
these terms too.
8
The numbers are approximate, partly because the lexicogrammar is currently under development, and some
of the extensions have still not been transferred to the definitive model in the computer.
9 For a discussion of the relationship between the terms ‘generation’ and ‘generative’, as used in the two
fields of Linguistics and Natural Language Generation, see Fawcett (1994b).
10 For a detailed comparison of this and other functional approaches to modelling language, see Butler 2003.
3
shall specify in the next section in a reasonably economical and transparent manner, it is de
facto one that at least deserves a second look. And if is also has a proven ability to be
expandable so that it can handle a high proportion of the full range of syntactic and semantic
phenomena that are currently recognized in the field - including applications to other
languages than English - it is one that should claim further serious study. The grammar to be
presented here is such a grammar, in that it is derived from a very large computerimplemented generative grammar, of English, and it has been applied successfully to
modelling small grammars of both Chinese and Japanese (each being considerably larger
than this).
Specifically, the micro-grammar to be presented here is an extract from a very full
grammar for English developed between 1987 and the present for GENESYS, the ‘sentencegenerating’ component of COMMUNAL.11 COMMUNAL is a large-scale project whose
goal is to explore the nature and functions of language as a component of a communicating
mind, through the medium of modelling it in a computer.12 GENESYS has been described
by Halliday (1994:xii) as ‘among the largest grammars existing anywhere in computational
form’, and by Butler (1993:4503) as ‘the largest computer-based systemic grammar in the
world’. Indeed, the defining characteristic of a micro-grammar is (or should be) that, even
though it is small, it has been extracted from a grammar with a broad coverage of syntactic,
lexical, and preferably intonational and punctuational phenomena. The concept of a ‘microgrammar’ therefore stands in clear contrast to a ‘pilot grammar’ or a ‘toy grammar’, for
which there exists no large equivalent grammar.
Interestingly, many of the areas of language included in this micro-grammar involve
structural phenomena for which the concept of the syntactic transformation might at first
seem a neat solution. Certainly, this was Chomsky’s view in Syntactic Structures (1957) and to this day it remains the view of a large proportion of the linguistics community. One of
my purposes here is to illustrate the fact that that a Systemic Functional Grammar is able to
handle many of the problems in syntax for which Chomsky first proposed as a solution the
concept of the syntactic transformation - and to do so WITHOUT USING ‘MOVEMENT’ AND
‘DELETION’ RULES. In other words, the present grammar never builds a structure which it
later needs to change. In this respect it shares at least one goal with some ‘grammars hat
were born out of the Chomskyan tradition, e.g. Gazdar’s Generalized Phrase Structure
Grammar (Gazdar et al 1985).
13
1.2 The coverage of the micro-grammar
11 While this micro-grammar is essentially a sub-set of its parent grammar, it necessarily includes a number of
simplifications. But these do not materially misrepresent the natute of the grammar.
12 The sentence generator GENESYS constitutes the heart, as it were, of the COMMUNAL model. Its name
signifies that it GENErates text-sentences SYStemically, i.e. using a Systemic Functional Grammar. Overviews
of COMMUNAL and the role in it of GENESYS are described in Fawcett and Tucker (1990), Fawcett, Tucker
and Lin (1993), Fawcett (1990, 1993a, 1993b, 1994a, 1994b, 1996, 2000a, b and c), Fawcett and Davies (1992),
Tucker (1992, 1996a, 1996b and 1998). For an annotated bibliography of the 120 or so published works that
relate to the Cardiff Grammar and COMMUNAL, see Fawcett (1998). One of the purposes of our work is to
demonstrate that the problems with Halliday’s framework for describing English (and other languages) can be
overcome within the framework of SFL - and so to strengthen its claim to be a modern, comprehensive theory of
language. Thus it must be sufficiently complete in its coverage to be able to be used for the analysis of texts at
the levels of both form and meaning, and sufficiently explicit to be able to be used in computer models of
human communication. The current version of Halliday’s version of SFG is found in Halliday 1994 and
Matthiessen 1995, and the Penman Project itself is described in Mann and Matthiessen 1983/85, Matthiessen
and Bateman 1991, etc.
13 However, it is arguable that such grammars let transformational rules in by the back door, as it were.
4
Using traditional terminology as far as possible, I shall now describe the microgrammar’s coverage. It provides for the following phenomena: (i) simple types of ‘mood’
(‘declaratives’, ‘Yes-No questions’, ‘imperatives’ and ‘conducive questions’); (ii) a small
sub-set of the type of ‘modal verbs’ that express the performer’s assessment of the validity of
what is being expressed; (iii) many ‘tense’ forms (including the two main types of ‘aspect’);
(iv) the ‘passive’ construction; (v) the idiosyncratic syntactic and morphemic behaviour of
the verb be; (vi) ‘emphatic’ forms of do; and (vii) simple ‘negation’.14
As most readers will know, many of these phenomena are handled in transformational
grammars by syntactic transformations. A transformational generative grammar uses a series
of transformational rules to generate, from the ‘deep structure’ of what would, if no such
rules were applied, emerge as a ‘simple active affirmative declarative’ sentence, a range of
different constructions. There are equivalent to each other in their ‘experiential’ meaning,
but they are also one or more of the following: ‘passive’, ‘negative’, ‘emphatic’ or
‘interrogative’ - and they use the ‘affix-hopping’ transformation in order to get the right
endings on the auxiliary verbs and the main verb. Here, however, there are no ‘re-write’
rules to generate the initial structure, and no transformational rules that alter any existing
structures. Instead, the grammar simply stores up the choices of semantic features that are
made for each semantic unit, and then generates the appropriate syntactic unit. In other
words, it gets the syntax right first time - an achievement that should give those habituated to
think in terms of syntactic transformations pause for thought. The grammar to be presented
here requires just two and a half pages to state the relevant rules (see the appendix), and these
are sufficient to represent a grammar that handles some of the more difficult areas of syntax
and morphology in some central portions of the grammar of English. And, once this part of
the grammar is in place, it can quite easily be extended to handle most of the other major
grammatical phenomena of English - as it has been, in Fawcett, Tucker and Lin 1993 and
1996, and Fawcett, Tucker and Castel 2004 and 2006.
The main focus of this micro-grammar is on the complex interplayin the grammar of
English between (i) the discontinuous realizations of meanings in the items have ... en/ed etc,
be ... ing, and be ... en/ed, etc; (ii) the variations in sequences between the Subject and the
Operator; (iii) the various possible ‘conflations’ between the Operator and the three most
frequent types of Auxiliary Verb, and (iv) the various drastic ways in which the picture
changes when the Main Verb is a form of be.15
We shall begin our examination of a SFG by asking: What are its main components?
1.3 The components of a Systemic Functional Grammar
In a generative Systemic Functional Grammar, the process of generation is controlled by
the system networks.16 These model the meaning potential of the language (Halliday
14 In this specification of the coverage of the micro-grammar I have used the terminology of traditional
grammar. However, the features in the system network to be presented here are explicitly semantic. These are
preferred to the traditional terms - even when they can be interpreted as denoting meanings - because they are
typically associated with the level of form. But a system network is a network of meanings.
15 Here the Operator is not treated as a sub-type of Auxiliary, as it is in some grammars. Here the Operator is
a separate element, and the Auxiliaries are three other elements, any one of which, as we shall see, may or may
not be ‘conflated’ with it. In SFL there is a primary category distinction between an element of structure, such
as an Operator or an Auxiliary, and the class of item that may expound that element. The crucial concept in a
functional grammar is the element of structure. Thus a ‘modal verb’ or a form of do may expound the Operator,
while each of the Auxiliaries is expounded by a form of be or have. An Auxiliary may be conflated with the
Operator, but it does not thereby cease to be an Auxiliary.
16 Since we are concerned here with a SFG as a generative grammar, we shall leave on one side the question
of the use of such a grammar when, in some specific situation, the producer of a text-sentence decides between
5
1970:142), and they consist of statements about relationships between semantic features. We
shall see in the next section how such a system network operates. The problems of (1)
getting the elements of the structure that the network generates in the correct sequence and
(2) ensuring that they are expounded by the correct items is handled in the realization rules
and the potential structures, and we shall examine these in Section 1.5.
Figure 1 shows (i) the two main components of the grammar (on the left) and (ii) their
outputs (on the right). As the labels above the diagram suggest, it is the grammar that
specifies the two ‘potentials’ of a language: one at each of the two levels of meaning and
form.17 Figure 1 also shows the outputs - i.e. the ‘instances’ - that are generated from the
potentials at each of the two levels.
The grammar that is set out in Part 2 constitutes the two potentials, and, if you operate
that grammar in the way to be described here, in the rest of Part 1, you will automatically
generate the instances that are specified by those potentials.
potential
meaning
form
system network
of semantic features
realization rules &
potential structures
ins tance
selection expression
of semantic features
one layer of a richly
labelled tree structure
Figure 1: The main components of a Systemic Functional Grammar and their outputs
Figure 1 also shows that the output at the level of meaning is the input to the level of
form. Notice that, while most types of realization rule build structures (as shown by the
arrow pointing to the right), one type re-enters the system network (as shown by the arrow to
the left). It is through this second type of realization rule that the different layers of a tree
diagram that represents the structure of a text-sentence are built up - as we shall see in
Section 1.5 and, in full detail, in Part 2. For a much fuller discussion of the implications of
this diagram, see Chapter 3 of Fawcett 2000a.
Thus there is a clear demarcation between the responsibilities of the two major
components at the two levels of meaning and form, and this is a key characteristic of SFL.
Whenever the grammarian encounters a problem in describing a language, the structure of the
grammar itself plays an active role in helping to identify where the problem should be
handled, because it challenges the grammarian to think at all times in terms of this ‘division
of labour’.
the alternative features that the system network offers. For introductory accounts of how this is accomplished in
the COMMUNAL framework, see Fawcett, Tucker and Lin 1993 or, for the fullest published account, Fawcett
2010.
17 In formal terms, it is probably true that if I say that a grammar specifies the potential of a language - i.e.
what one can do ‘grammatically’ when using the language - this is equivalent to saying that the grammar
specifies the constraints on the language - i.e. what one cannot do ‘grammatically’ when using it. The concept
of the ‘potential’ of a language illustrated here - or more accurately the two ‘potentials’ at the levels of meaning
and form lends itself naturally to the concept of a grammar in which probabilities play central role (see Section
1.5) But probabilities could no doubt also be interpreted as constraints if one wished.
6
Let us consider a simple example of the micro-grammar’s ability to accept additions that
would, if the grammar were constructed on different principles, cause problems. As is well
known - but often ignored in introductory descriptions - English frequently permits an
Adjunct to occur between elements of what in many other grammars are treated as elements
of a ‘verbal group’ - e.g. in Halliday 1994 and Quirk et al 1985, where this supposed unit is
termed a ‘verb phrase’.18 So in Ivy may occasionally have kissed George and Ivy may have
occasionally kissed George, the Adjunct occasionally occurs between two different pairs of
elements of the supposed ‘verbal group’ (or ‘phrase’) may have kissed. And, as I have
pointed out elsewhere (Fawcett 2000c:348-58), this ‘interruptability’ is one of a number of
serious problems for grammars that treat may, have and kissed as sister elements of a unit that
itself fills an element of clause structure - if only because occasionally is itself clearly an
element of the clause. (Compare Occasionally Ivy may have kissed George and Ivy may have
kissed George occasionally with the above examples.) See Fawcett 2000b and 2000c for the
reasons why a grammar is better off without the unit of the 'verbal group', and the microgrammar in Part 2 for a practical demonstration of many of the arguments presented in those
papers. In the present grammar, however, the placement of an Adjunct such as occasionally
in Ivy may occasionally have kissed George is simply not a problem, because the elements of
the supposed ‘verbal group’, i.e. may, have and kissed, are treated as direct elements of the
clause.19
I shall indicate some of the many other benefits of the approach to modelling language
through the approach described here in supplementary notes, as they arise.
1.4 How to use the micro-grammar: (1) the system network
By convention, system networks are usually represented diagrammatically in the form of
‘graph’ of the type illustrated in the Appendix. In the terms of graph theory in Mathematics,
a system network is a directed acyclic graph. It relates semantic features to each other, the
primary relationships being disjunction and dependence. Indeed, the term ‘system’, which
is the key concept in identifying SFL as a theory of language, can be defined as a disjunctive
relationship between two or more semantic features, and can be expressed as ‘if x then a or
b’. The concept of dependence enters the picture because either a or b (or both) may itself be
the entry condition to a further system: ‘if a, then p or q’. In such a case the system of ‘p or
q’ is said to be dependent on the system of ‘a or b’. It is the relationship of dependence
between systems that enables the apparently simple concept of a system to become the rather
more complex concept of a system network - with the assistance of a few more concepts, to
which we turn now.
A second relationship that may hold between systems (but not between features) is that
conjunction: ‘if x then both (a or b) and (c or d)’. And the entry conditions to a system - or
to a conjunction of systems - may be simple, disjunctive or conjunctive.
18 This is, of course, a different sense of the term ‘verb phrase’ from that in which it is used in many formal
generative grammars, where it includes (i) the equivalents of the ‘verbal group’ elements in the Halliday-Quirk
sense, and (ii) additional constituents that would be treated in SFG as clause elements (typically as
Complements). Like Quirk et al (1985: 79) SFG finds unnecessary the additional layer of structure that is
introduced by the concept of the ‘verb phrase’ in the now traditional phrase structure grammar approach, and the
few phenomena that can be cited in its support are handled in other terms.
19 It was in part the difficulty of specifying the place in the structure at which an Adjunct such as occasionally
is to be located in such cases that led to my growing appreciation, relatively early in the development of the
present version of SFL, of the problems of having in the grammar the concept of the ‘verbal group’ (or ‘verb
phrase’). There are in fact four sets of reasons, each independent of the others, why a grammar of English that
treats the supposed elements of the ‘verbal group’ (or ‘phrase’) is both less elegant and less insightful than one
that treats them as direct elements of the clause - as I show in Fawcett 2000b and 2000c.
7
This small set of relationships between features and systems is summarized and
illustrated in diagram form in the key in the Appendix, and also in the system network shown
there.) In the version of SFL described here the graph is ‘acyclic’ in that the only way in
which the network can be re-entered is through a realization rule.
This brings us to an interesting theoretical question. When a system network is being
used to generate a unit, such as a clause, it is seen as a procedural device, and we talk and
write of ‘choosing’ between the features in a network. While this is the way in which a
systemic functional grammar is typically thought of, a system network may equally well be
consulted, as it is when a semantic interpreter is working out the meaning of a text, in the
way described in outline in Fawcett 1993a and 10994a, and in detail by O’Donoghue 1994.
So is the grammar inherently a productive (or generative) device, or is it inherently an
interpretive device? Or is it neutral, since it can be used for both? You might think that it
would be logical to treat the grammar as neutral between ‘production’ and ‘understanding’,
but I suggest that it is not. Essentially, the reason is that the meanings that the semantic
interpreter extracts from the syntax (with the help of the system network and realization
rules) are the meanings that the Performer of the text has put into it - in principle! See
Fawcett 1994a for a fuller discussion of this still controversial point.
For every diagram of a system network, there is always an equivalent representation in
the form of a set of statements. Most (but not all) scholars find a visual representation such
as that in the Appendix easier to work with than the ‘statement’ version when generating by
hand - but only so long as the grammar remains relatively simple. In any relatively full
grammar of English (or any other language) the ‘wiring’ between the features that specify a
complex entry condition to a system is in places so complex that it is virtually impossible to
interpret it without re-expressing it in the form of statements. At that point the representation
in graph form ceases to be helpful, and it becomes necessary to use a representation in
statement form. This second way of representing a system network is as illustrated in Section
2.2 of Part 2. It is this type of representation that is required for an implementation as a
computer program.
In what follows, however, I shall assume that you are working from the visual display in
the Appendix, since this provides a clearer visual model of the systemic relationships.
Nonetheless you will find that it contains some fairly complex ‘wiring’ in one area (the part
dependent on the system of choices in the ‘time reference position’).
The first stage in generating a sentence is to traverse the system network from left to
right. You start from the entry condition, i.e. the feature [entity], and you then choose just
one semantic feature from each of the systems that you encounter. In this very small network
you will only be able to select between nine and fifteen features, depending on the pathways
through the network that you choose - and you may like to recall this fact when I comment in
Section 2.2 on the size of the full grammar from which this ‘micro-grammar’ is extracted
(and slightly adapted, to enable it to function without reference to the other parts).
Please look now at the system network in the Appendix. Like all system networks, it is
operated from left to right, so that the entry condition to the first system is [entity] and the
features in the first system are [situation], [thing] and [minor-relationship-with-thing]. (Note
that semantic features are placed in square brackets in running text, as here.) The first system
is therefore a ‘choice’ between these three features.
However, this first system does not in fact offer a genuine choice. This is because the
‘100%’ before [situation] and the 0% before the other features states that there is a 100%
probability that this feature will be chosen - at least, on the present pass through the
8
network.20 This first system is therefore one of the few systems in the full grammar where
the choice is always ‘preselected’.21
When the percentages on the features in a system are any figure other than 100% and 0%,
they are statements of the rough probability that each feature will be chosen. Indeed, it is an
important characteristic of this model of language that the ‘knowledge’ of such probabilities
is considered to be as much a part of a person’s ‘knowledge’ of their language as the
recognition that a particular sentence is ‘grammatical’ or ‘ungrammatical’.
Here the
assumption is that the text-type that is being generated is a type of discourse that is [spoken],
[consultative] and [non-technical].22
Linguists who use probabilities in this way recognize, of course, that they change from
one context of situation to another, and furthermore that they are often overridden by the
requirements of the performer’s current communicative purposes. The full version of the
grammar shows how to provide for these eventualities.
Wherever possible, the probabilities are derived from corpus studies, e.g. those for
[agent-overt] and [agent-covert] are taken from Quirk et al (1995) and those in the systems
dependent on [validity-assessed] are derived from Coates (1983). These probabilities are
particularly useful when the computer version of the grammar is being run randomly (e.g. to
test the grammar). However, the human user of the grammar is at liberty to choose any
feature - unless, of course, it has a 0% probability.
After the obligatory ‘choice’ of [situation], you encounter a right-opening ‘curly’ bracket.
This signifies ‘and’, so that you must now enter in turn each of the four systems to the right
of it. These systems are in principle small sub-networks, each of which covers a specific area
of meaning. Such sub-networks are frequently given names, as is done both in the Appendix
and in Section 2. But I must emphasize that these names are not part of the formal
specification of the grammar, in that they have no role to play when the grammar is used to
generate sentences. Their value - and it is a value that should not be underestimated - is a
mental aid to the human reader of the grammar, i.e. as ‘signposts’ to remind us where we are
in the network.23
When you encounter an ‘and’ bracket such as the initial one in the network in the
Appendix, you should work through it from the top system to the bottom one, completing the
exploration of each branch before returning to the ‘and’ bracket. The reason for this is that a
‘same pass preference re-setting rule’ (for which see below), may need to be applied before
you enter a lower sub-network.
Further to the right in the network, you may select [information] and/or [action], and if
you choose either of these you will encounter further ‘and’ brackets. Whenever this happens
20 However, at a later stage in the process of generation, the system network is almost always re-entered to
generate a unit that will appear lower in the tree structure (e.g. a nominal group) - and when that occurs you will
find that an earlier rule has changed the probabilities in the initial system, so that the feature [thing] now has the
100% probability. In other words, THE GRAMMAR’S ABILITY TO CHANGE THE PROBAILITIES ON THE FEATURES IN
SYSTEMS is a major characteristic of this grammar. We shall note various ways in which this ability is used as
we learn more about how the grammar operates.
21 A second use of ‘0%’ is to cut down the options in a limited grammar such as the present one - and in the
present micro-grammar all cases of 0% before a feature, apart from this first system, illustrate its use for this
purpose.
22 In this micro-grammar we have omitted the choices in the various dimensions of ‘register’, but the
probabilities at which the features in the system network are initially set are as they are because they reflect this
set of choices in register. (I say ‘initially’ because, as we have already noted, the changing of probabilities plays
a central role in this grammar and some of them are liable to be changed again.)
23 In the system network in the Appendix, the names of the systems are given in a key on the right, to save
space.
9
you should again pursue all the branches of each before you return to the first ‘and’ bracket,
so systematically following all of the possible pathways that may be chosen on any one
traversal of the network.
As you traverse the network, you should record, in the form of a simple list, all of the
features that you have chosen, together with their associated realization rule numbers. This
list is called a selection expression and, when you have followed all of the possible pathways
to their terminal feature on the right of the network, you will have the first complete selection
expression. In terms of Figure 1, this constitutes the output from the grammar at the level of
meaning for each unit, and in this micro-grammar, it will consist of between nine and fifteen
semantic features for the first pass, i.e. for a pass that generates a clause. (In a fuller
grammar the equivalent selection expression for a clause may contain up to fifty or so
features.) Thus the selection expression is the representation, at the level of meaning, of the
clause that is currently being generated - just as the output that will be represented by its
syntactic structure (when we have applied the realization rules) is its representation at the
level of form. In other words, the selection expression is the first of the two representations
of an ‘instance’, in the terms of Figure 1.
Many of the features are followed by a number in rounded brackets. These are the
numbers of the realization rules that specify the effects of choosing those features. It is
important to record these numbers with the features, so that when you come to the stage of
applying these rules you can locate them easily and apply them in the sequence stated by the
number.
Some features in the system network have attached to them a number that is preceded by
‘sp’ (e.g. the feature [proposal-for-action]). This important innovation to Systemic Functional
Linguistics was introduced in Fawcett and Tucker 1990. Each such same pass preference
re-setting rule (or ‘sp rule’, for short) triggers the immediate re-setting of the probabilities in
one or more systems that will be entered AT A LATER POINT DURING THE SAME PASS THROUGH
THE NETWORK. The effect of resetting the probabilities is that one feature in the system is
‘preferred’, either relatively or absolutely, to the others. This micro-grammar contains
examples of just three such sp rules but, taken together, they illustrate nicely the value of two
of the grammar’s key concepts: (i) the incorporation of statements of the typical relative
probabilities of the features in a system in a grammar, and (ii) the ability to change those
probabilities under specified conditions.
This, then, is how this model of language approaches the question of how best to model
the constraints on what the grammar should and should not generate. It replaces the
simplifying concept that sentences should be deemed to be either ‘grammatical’ or
‘ungrammatical’ by a more flexible approach in which the key concept is probability. In
other words, the knowledge of a user of a language that a given meaning (and so a given
form) is more likely to occur than another - either absolutely or is some specified context - is
just as important as recognizing the absolute improbability of ‘ungrammaticality’. Indeed,
‘ungrammaticality’ can be seen as a case of a fixed probability of 0%. (See the further notes
on ‘sp rules’ early in Section 2 of Part 2.)
How should you apply this concept, when you are generating a text-sentence by hand? I
suggest that, if you decide to select a feature whose probability has been re-set by a sp rule to
1% or below, you should include that probability in the selection expression (e.g. by adding
‘[PROB 0.1%]’) - and that you should also add it after the generated example. In this way
you will have an explanation of most of the types of ‘odd but just possible’ examples that this
micro-grammar generates.24
24 This type of ‘preference re-setting’ rule must be distinguished from the type of realization rule which resets the probabilities for the NEXT pass through the network - such as Realization Rules 11 to 13, each of which
contains the instruction ‘prefer thing’. The effect of this is to re-set the initial system to [100% thing] and 0%
for any other feature.
10
To summarize so far: each traversal (or ‘pass’) through the network generates one
selection expression - and so, after the application of the realization rules, one syntactic
unit. After each such pass through the network, you must immediately implement those
realization rules that have realization rule numbers, in the manner to be described in the next
section. But since these rules frequently refer to other features as conditions, and since these
other features may or may not have been selected on the same pass through the network, you
need to know the complete list of features before you start on the second stage of generation i.e. realization.25
1.5 How to use the micro-grammar: (2) the realization rules
1.5.1 The internal structure of a realization rule
The selection expression of semantic features is the input to the realization rules. I shall
delay my description of their internal structure to Section 2.3.2 of Part 2, to make it easier to
view the rules themselves in order to see examples of the different types (which follow in
Section 2.3.4). Here I shall simply provide an informal description of the way in which they
convert the somewhat abstract phenomenon of a semantic feature into one or other aspect of a
highly specific a syntactic structure.
Each realization rule is composed of one or more realization statements. Where there
are two or more, these are separated from each other by a comma (meaning ‘and’). Their
purpose is to direct that, under the conditions specified in the realization statement - which in
many cases is simply the choice of the feature to which the rule is attached - one or more of
seven types of realization operation will be carried out. Each of these operations
contributes, it its own way, to the construction of the structure that is the output from the
grammar.
It is helpful to note that there are, as Tucker has pointed out (1998:45), two types of
realization operation. ‘Type A’ operations are those that build structure directly, while ‘Type
B operations contribute only indirectly to the developing structure. They do this by
specifying some (or occasionally all) of the features that are to be selected on a subsequent
traversal of the network, the selection of which will in due course result in ‘Type A’
operations. We shall begin with the ‘Type A’ operations.
All these operations take the form of a directive to do something. In the case of a
computer implementation of the grammar, the instruction is to the system itself. But in the
case of a human who is exploring the system - so a reader of this paper who decides to
operate the system network and realization rules, e.g. as given in the Appendix - the
instruction is to the human user of the system.
We shall start with the operation that directs the system (or the human user) to insert a
unit into the representation of the structure that the grammar is building. Normally, the unit
that is inserted will fill a given element or Participant Role (PR). The two most common
types of unit insertion are (i) ‘Insert Cl’, which simply means, ‘Insert a Clause into the
structural representation that is currently being built’, and (ii) ‘Insert ngp’, which means
‘Insert a nominal group’ into the structural representation. Notice that this operation does not
specify explicitly the location in the structure at which the unit is to be inserted. This is
because the element or PR that the new unit is destined to fill varies from one instance to
25 In the fuller version of the lexicogrammar, the conditions sometimes refer to features that have been
selected on either (i) the previous pass (for co-ordination) or (ii) the ‘mother pass’, i.e. to the pass through the
network that generated the ‘mother’ unit to the unit currently being generated. But those refinements are not
needed here.
11
another. The instruction ‘Insert’ therefore means, in effect, ‘Insert this unit to fill WHICHEVER
ELEMENT OR PR IT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE CURRENT TRAVERSAL OF THE NETWORK TO FILL.’26
Secondly, a rule may tell the system (or the human user) to locate an element (such as ‘S’
for ‘Subject’) at a place in the potential structure of that unit. So we now need to ask
‘What is the ‘potential structure’ of a unit?’ In the current version of the grammar we
implement an important proposal by Victor Castel, namely that the potential structure for
each syntactic unit should consist solely of a simple sequenced list of places in the unit at
which elements may occur, identified by a number (‘1’, ‘ 2’, ‘3’ etc).27
Thirdly, a rule may tell the system (or the human user) to conflate an element - or a
Participant Role such as Agent - with an element such as ‘S’ that has already been placed in
the structure. This involves inserting the new element or PR in the unit by placing it beside
an existing element, and this ‘conflation’ relationship is shown by a forward slash, e.g.
‘S/Ag’ and ‘O/RX’.28
26 In this micro-grammar the clause is always the ‘topmost’ unit. The element that the clause fills is the
‘sentence’, and this is represented here by the Greek letter sigma (). However, since this is always the topmost
category in the representation of a single text-sentence, the grammar ensures that it is automatically inserted by
at the start of the generation of each sentence, and there is therefore no special realization rule to generate it.
But when the lexicogrammar is being used to generate a sentence as part of al longer text, the sentence operates
at a place in the ‘higher’ structure of one of various types of discourse structure. So the element ‘’ functions, in
effect, as a placeholder for whatever the relevant lowest element of the discourse grammar is.
27 In the early versions of the Cardiff Grammar (as described in Fawcett 1973/82 and 1980) the concept of
what were then termed a ‘starting structure’ played a central role in the process of realization, alongside the
realization rules themselves. The ‘starting structure’ for the clause consisted of a mixture of (i) a string of
elements in their typical sequentially ordered places in the unit and (ii) numbered places for the positions at
which an element could occur, if a marked option were chosen in the system network (e.g. Fawcett 1980:116).
In other words, the starting structure was a sort of composite realization rule that could be referred to for typical
realizations. The starting structures for the nominal and other groups, in which there is very little scope for an
element to occur at more than one place, were very different, in that they had virtually no empty numbered
places. Later, in Fawcett, Tucker and Lin 1993, we replaced the term ‘starting structure’ by ‘potential
structure’, to indicate its position in the overall model as part of the ‘potential’ of the grammar at the level of
form (together with the realization rules). But a potential structure still performed the same two types of
function.
However the status in the theory of what we continued to call a potential structure underwent a significant
change when Victor Castel joined the team in the early 2000s. In the course of building a completely new
computer implementation of the grammar, he reviewed all the formalisms of the theory. And one result of this
exercise was his suggestion that we should remove all elements from the potential structure, so that it would
consist solely of a string of numbered places in the unit (as in the present description). The result of this was to
make the overall grammar simpler – and so more elegant, and to greatly reduce the complexity of the potential
structures. Now every element in every unit in the grammar is generated in the same way (i.e. by a simple
‘element insertion’ rule). A further advantage of the new approach is that it provides naturally for the few
variations in sequence that do occur in groups.
Interestingly, there is only one element of the clause that is always present and always located at the same
place. This is not the Main Verb, as you might at first suppose, but the Subject. (We should note, however, that
while the Subject is always present as an element it is frequently an element that is not expounded by an item.
One clear example of this is a simple directive such as Read it!, and this is one of the options that is provided for
in the micro-grammar to be presented in Part 2.) Thus there is no element in the English clause that is (i) always
present at the same place in the structure and (ii) always expounded by an item.
Finally, it may be helpful to point out that the very great variability in the sequential relations of clause elements
in English (and many other languages) is the principal reason why it is so difficult to model the clause
economically in the type of ‘phrase structure grammar’ that operates with a set of ‘rewrite rules’.
28 Participant Roles such as an Agent and a Carrier function as elements in the functional syntax of the clause.
Participant Roles function in practice as a sub-class of elements. What distinguishes them elements such as
Subject, Complement and head is that they never occur on their own, i.e. they are always conflated with another
element (in this micro-grammar the may be conflated with either a Subject, a Complement or a completive in a
prepositional group).
12
Fourthly, a rule may tell the system (or the human user) to expound an element by an
item, e.g. ‘O < “must”’. In an important variant of this, a rule may tell you to add a suffix to
the element, e.g. ‘M <+ “s”’.
The fifth type of operation covers cases where the item is a name; it fetches from the
relevant part of the belief system the part of the name of the referent that realizes the
meaning, such as “Ivy” or “Dr Idle”.
The sixth and seventh types of realization operation are ‘Type B’ operations. In the sixth
type the rule tells the system (or the human user) to re-set the preferences in the network
(e.g. in order to give [thing] a 100% probability when filling any PR in this micro-grammar).
And the seventh type simply tells the system (or the human user) to re-enter the network.29
Each realization statement that contains Type B operations therefore follows the pattern of
‘for Ag prefer thing, re-enter at entity.’ It is the words ‘prefer thing’ that give this feature its
100% probability - and in so doing they ensure that a nominal group will be generated.
1.5.2 Applying the realization rules
Using the realization rules in Section 2.3.4 of Part 2 is straightforward - so long as you
adhere strictly to the following procedure. In a computer implementation they are applied
automatically and the time taken is negligible. But for a human user of the grammar
considerable patience and care is required. In this section we shall assume that you have
decided to test the grammar by generating a sentence.
To do this, you simply work your way through the rules, IN THE ORDER SPECIFIED BY
THEIR NUMBERS. This is necessary, because it is only possible to execute some of the rules
when a previous rule has already been implemented. Naturally, you only apply the rules for
the features that were selected on your pass through the system network and that therefore
make up the selection expression.
While many of the rules are quite simple, there are a few that have considerable internal
complexity. The result is that you have to work your way carefully through each that you
encounter, paying attention to their internal logic. Be sure to pay due attention to the
commas and the brackets. As stated earlier, the meaning of a comma is ‘and’, and its role is
to separate the different realization statements and operations in a multiple rule. The brackets
show what goes with what, and you will find that in some cases a bracket contains two or
more realization statements. Indeed, two of the most used rules are in fact ‘sub-rules’, i.e.
rules which are ‘called’ by two or more of the main rules - so that they are in effect
components of the main rules. The result of this small but significant level of complexity is
that a human who is using this micro-grammar to generate a short sentence for the first time
may well find that it takes between ten and twenty minutes to complete the task - and that she
or he may occasionally make a mistake and fail to apply one of the realization operations.
However, while it is a relatively demanding and time-consuming job for a human to apply
these rules consciously, a computer implementation of this grammar will generate a full
clause in the blink of an eye.30
29 Notice that the re-setting of the probabilities must be done BEFORE YOU RE-ENTER THE NETWORK, or the
existing probabilities would be used. And, as will be clear, after the traversal of the network any probabilities
that have been changed revert to their original settings.
30 Indeed, it is probably time for linguists to reconsider our traditional assumptions about what makes a model
‘elegant’. Should we continue to give the high priority that we have in the past to concepts such as ‘elegance’
and ‘economy’ that are to a large extent - though not entirely - governed by the limitations of human short term
memory, i.e. by a mind that struggles to remember more than ‘seven plus or minus two’ entities in a string
(Brown 1956)? In other words, it may be that we should not condemn as ‘inelegant’ or ‘uneconomical’ rules
that the conscious human mind finds somewhat difficult to implement, but which can be performed by a
computer in a moment - and also, some might wish to add, whose analogues in human brain can similarly be
performed in a trice and, moreover, without requiring conscious attention.
13
After you have applied the realization rules that are triggered by the features chosen on
the first pass through the network, the output is likely to be something like the structure
shown in Figure 2.
Cl
2
4
5
S/A g O/RX P dX
7
M
8
C/Af
has been kis sing
Figure 2: A typical structure after one pass through the network
As we have noted, the Type B realization operations require a re-entry to the system
network. So, as you work your way through the selection expression generated by your first
traversal of the network, you need to make a note of (i) the elements or Participant Roles
for which you have to re-enter the network, and (ii) the feature(s) that you must choose on
re-entry - which will in turn, through the application of Type A operations, generate the unit
that will fill the PR or element, and also its elements and the items that expound them.
1.6 Re-entry to the network
Since this micro-grammar concentrates on certain aspects of the ‘simple’ clause, its main
purpose in re-entering the network to generate minimal nominal groups to expound the
Participant Roles. This little grammar therefore gives no indication of the great complexity
of choices in meanings in the sub-network for ‘thing’, and so no indication of the
considerable potential complexity the structure of the resulting nominal group. It generates
only a simple nominal group that has at its head a simple forename such as “David”,
“Victoria”, “Ike” or “Ivy”.
Thus, if you generated the structure in Figure 2 on your first pass through the network, it
is probable that after your second and third passes through the network you will additionally
have generated two nominal groups such as those in Figure 3. This involves re-entering the
network twice: first to select the features that trigger the insertion of a nominal group to fill
the PR of Agent (Ag), and then to select the features that will generate a second nominal
group to fill the Affected (Af).
Cl
2
4
5
S/Ag O /RX P dX
ngp
h
7
M
8
C/Af
ngp
h
Ivy has been kissing Ike.
Figure 3: A typical structure after completing all passes through the network
14
The structure in Figure 3 is relatively simple. However, if you were to choose [affectedS-theme] instead of [agent-S-theme], the structure would be a little more complex. As Figure
4 shows, the effect of this choice is that the entity that is the Affected is also the Subject, and
the Agent - assuming that you choose [agent-overt] - will be conflated with the completive
(cv) in a prepositional group that itself fills the Complement. The result will be an example
such as in Ike has been being kissed by Ivy, and other such ‘passive’ constructions.
Notice, however, that in this case there is an additional layer of structure. As we shall see
in Part 2, this is because the choice of [agent_overt] triggers Rule 13, and this rule specifies
that you must re-enter the network to choose further features. One of these has Rule 26
attached to it, and its effects are (i) to fill the Complement with a prepositional group (pgp),
(ii) to insert “by” to expound the preposition, and then (iii) to specify a further re-entry to
the network in order to generate a nominal group to fill the Agent that has by now been
conflated with the completive in the prepositional group. Finally Rule 24 (which has already
generated one nominal group to fill the Affected) generates a second nominal group to fill the
Agent. The resulting structure is as shown in Figure 4.31
Cl
2
4
5
6
S/A f O /RX P dX P aX
ngp
h
7
M
8
C
pgp
p cv/A g
ngp
h
Ike has been being kissed by Ivy.
Figure 4: A typical ‘passive’ structure after completing all passes through the network
The formalism used to ensure that the grammar makes the appropriate choices on re-entry
is the combination of the ‘preference re-setting’ realization operation and the ‘re-entry’
operation, and we shall see examples of these at work in Part 2.
Note that, after each pass has been completed, the probabilities automatically revert to
their original numbers.
While this micro-grammar is limited to generating very simple nominal groups (and in
one case a prepositional group) on re-entry, it should be clear that the same formalism can be
used in the fuller grammar to provide for re-entry to the network to generate further clauses,
either co-ordinated or embedded - and indeed any other type of unit that may be required,
including an embedded clause. All these enrichments of the grammar are included in the full
grammar from which this micro-grammar is taken.
31 Notice that there is no choice within the prepositional group; in this case the preposition can only be
expounded by the word “by”, and the network must be re-entered for the ‘completive/Agent’. Note too that we
cannot simply treat a string of words such as by Ivy or by that man as a nominal group that has a preposition
stuck on at the beginning, because there are cases where the completive is separated from the rest if the
prepositional group, e.g. as in Who was Ivy being kissed by? All such cases are covered in the fuller version of
the grammar.
15
Here, finally, is a tip that may be useful when you are generating ‘by hand’. 32 When you
choose a feature with a very low probability (whether initially or after the application of a ‘sp
rule’), it is helpful to record this fact after the string of words that you generate, e.g. by
writing ‘[PROB 0.1%]’. This ensures that when your final output is odd you have an
explanation of the reason to hand. Thus, while this micro-grammar does not generate
sentences that are ungrammatical it does generate some that are distinctly odd - exactly as a
good grammar should.
1.7 Summary of Part 1
My intention in Part 1 has been to introduce and discuss the main concepts involved in
understanding how a systemic functional grammar works - and so to enable you to operate
and so to test the micro-grammar in Part 2 for yourself. The intention is that, as you do this,
you will come to understand not only the concepts that constitute the formalism but also how
they combine to enable this type of grammar (which to some readers may be an entirely new
type of generative grammar) to function. In other words, in Part 2 you will be following the
useful principle of ‘learning through doing’, as you discover why the grammar’s formal
properties are as they are.
Part 2
A generative systemic functional micro-grammar
2.1 Introduction
2.1.1 The form in which the micro-grammar is written
The following micro-grammar is written in a logical form that is easy to implement in
Prolog and other programming languages. It runs under DEFREL, the grammar-writing and
grammar-testing environment written in Poplog Prolog by Joan Wright and Yuen Lin as part
of the COMMUNAL Project (with minor changes such as the replacement of‘%’ by ‘#’ and
the addition of single quotation marks round the names of systems, clause elements and
Participant Roles.) With the addition of a few functions (e.g. ‘goes to the system(s) of’
(represented below by ‘->’), it should be implementable in most programming languages; e.g.
it has recently been implemented in Visual Basic by Victor Castel.
2.1.2 The purposes of this micro-grammar
Two purposes for which this micro-grammar can be used are:
(i) to explore a Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) as a fully formalized generative
device, and
(ii) to provide a small SFG for the use of those who wish to explore the challenge of
implementing a SFG as a computer program.
As with all SFGs, the goal is to use the system network to model contrasts between
MEANINGS, and to use the realization rules to handle all other contrasts at the level of FORM.
For example, there is no difference in meaning between a verb whose ‘third person singular’
form ends in “s” and one which ends in “es”. This difference is handled by the realization
rules (specifically, in the ‘regular_vb_subrule’). Less trivially, this micro-grammar also
32 It is odd that we find ourselves using the expression ‘by hand’ to refer to this process, since the most
important aspect of it is that we have to use our minds for such tasks.
16
handles the difference between the two structurally different ways of realizing the meaning of
‘past’, depending on whether a ‘validity’ meaning is being expressed in the Operator (see
Note 23 in Section 2.3.4).33
The contrasting situation occurs when two meanings are realized in a single form. This
is the phenomenon of ‘neutralization’, and there are two places in the micro-grammar which
show how to handle it. In such cases, the contrast is captured in the system network and the
realization rules shown †hat they are realized by the same form. The simplest case is that of
the modal verb “will” (see Note 4 in Section 2.2), but a more complex case arises in area
where the systematic ambiguity of Ivy may have kissed Ike - i.e. is it the meaning that would
allow it to be followed by yesterday, or the meaning that goes with already~? (See Note 23,
following the ‘regular_vb_subrule’.)
2.1.3 How to use the micro-grammar
The next two sections are taken directly from the computer-implemented version of the
micro-grammar, so are ‘formalized’ in the fullest possible sense. I shall add brief notes of
explanation throughout the grammar, but from the program’s viewpoint they don’t exist,
since they are ‘commented out’ by the Prolog convention of ‘slash + star ... star + slash’ - as
is the case with any part of the document other than the program itself (such as the titles of
sections, the key, etc.
I shall assume that you wish to familiarize yourself with the grammar by working though
it by hand. Even if your aim is to prepare yourself for the task of writing your own computer
version of this micro-grammar, this would still be a good way to start.
Sections 1.4 and 1.5 of Part 1 describe the system network and how to use it in order to
generate a sentence by hand. The system network itself is specified in rule form in Section
2.2 below and, in diagram form, in the Appendix. The realization rules are set out in Section
2.3.4, with many notes that provide a commentary on them, and they are repeated, without
the notes, in the Appendix.
I suggest that you begin by looking again at Sections 1.4 and 1.5, if you need to, and then
get to work on Section 2.2. Many (but not all) readers will find it easier to use the system
network in the Appendix as your main guide, referring to Section 2.2 for the explanatory
comments. But it may be wise to use the realization rules in Section 2.3.4 for your first act of
generation with this SFG, in order to take advantage of the comments. Later, you could
generate more sentences, using the realization rules in the Appendix.
Finally, a word of warning. Sometimes, when you are half way through the process of
generating a sentence by hand, you may find yourself wondering if the grammar really is
going to generate all of the suffixes that are required. The answer is that it does. If at the end
of the process of generation the output is not an acceptable sentence, the reasons will be
either (i) human error (your own, I’m afraid!) or (ii) the choice of a feature with a very low
percentage - probably one that has been re-set by one of the same pass preference re-setting
rules, and that you should therefore have marked with ‘[PROB 0.1%]’. (And Note 1 below
gives a third reason.)
Now it is time to meet the grammar itself – starting with the system network in Section
2.2, and then going on to the realization component in Section 2.3.
33 A similar but simpler example is included in the toy grammar given Appendix A of Fawcett 2000a (pp.
298-301) In generating the deictic determiners this, that, these and those, the semantic feature ‘near’ is realized
by these if ‘plural’ is chosen, but by this if either ‘singular’ or ‘mass’ is chosen.
17
2.2 The system network
/* THE MICRO-GRAMMAR OF GENESYS VERSION 5 */
/* SOME BASIC MEANINGS REALIZED IN THE CLAUSE:
ASPECTS OF TRANSITIVITY, MOOD, TIME, VALIDITY, POLARITY,
SUBJECT THEME AND INFORMATION FOCUS */*/
initial_entry_condition (entity).
entity ->
100% situation (1) /
0%
thing (24) /
0%
minor_relationship_with_thing (26).
situation ->
MOOD_1 &
TRANSITIVITY &
PERIOD_MARKING &
INFORMATION_FOCUS.
MOOD_1 ->
1%
proposal_for_action (sp1) /
99% information (2).
/* Note 1 */
sp1 : proposal_for_action or attributive:
for_same_pass prefer
[99.9% simple_pd / 0.1% period_marked].
/* Note 1. The rule immediately above is our first example of a same pass (sp) preference
re-setting rule. The purpose of this type of rule is to change the probabilities in a system
that will be entered subsequently, AS PART OF THE SAME PASS THROUGH THE SYSTEM
NETWORK. Thus ‘prefer’ in a sp rule means ‘re-set the preferences in the following system(s)
so that the probabilities are....’ (The system(s) that are affected may be either (i) dependent
on the current feature or (ii) ‘lower’ in the network, i.e. a system that is reached via an ‘and’
that enters two or more systems.)
An sp rule must be applied immediately it is encountered. (This is in contrast with the
superficially similar type of ‘preference re-setting rule’ that is found in the realization rules;
the latter is applied, like all realization rules, only when the current pass through - i.e.
traversal of - the network has been completed, and a selection expression of features has been
generated.)
The purpose of this sp rule is to give expression in the grammar to two important facts,
one related to the choice of [proposal_for_action] and the other to the choice of an attributive
process of [being]. The rule applies if either or both are chosen. In a ‘proposal for action’,
examples that are ‘simple’ such as “Kiss Ike!” are vastly more frequent than examples that
are ‘period-marked’, such as “Be kissing Ivy!”. And, as it happens, the same probabilities on
the same system apply when the Process is one of ‘being’ (and a number of similar
‘attributive’ Processes), since “Ivy is the boss” is far more likely than “Ivy is being the boss’
and of “Ivy is a genius” over ‘”Ivy is being a genius” - while still allowing for “Ivy is being a
18
nuisance” - and so on.
So this sp rule is triggered by the choice of either
[proposal_for_action] or [attributive]. (Note, however, that since this micro-grammar
focusses on the clause rather than the nominal group it only generates names - so it doesn’t
generate “Tony is the boss” - only “Tony is George”. So in this micro-grammar this sp rule
merely prefers “Tony is George” to “Tony is being George” - where neither is likely, though
both are possible.
These two preference re-setting rules shown here are both examples of the general
principle that probability is as important an aspect of our knowledge of a language as
ungrammaticality - which can be regarded as a case of 0% probability. */
proposal_for_action ->
100% directive (20) /
0%
others.
information ->
MOOD_2 &
TIME_REFERENCE_POSITION.
MOOD_2 ->
95% giver /
4%
seeker /
1%
confirmation_seeker (21).
seeker ->
0%
new_content_seeker /
100% polarity_seeker /
0%
others.
proposal_for_action / giver / new_content_seeker ->
POLARITY.
POLARITY ->
95% positive /
5%
negative (21).
TIME_REFERENCE_POSITION ->
50% present_trp /
40% past_trp (18) /
10% future_trp (5).
/* Note 2 */
/* Note 2. The suffix “trp” is used whenever ‘past, ‘present’ or ‘future’ are used, to remind
the reader that these terms do not refer to the time of the event, but to the time reference
position from which the event is being presented. */
present_trp / past_trp ->
VALIDITY_ASSESSMENT.
VALIDITY_ASSESSMENT ->
5%
validity_assessed /
95% validity_unassessed.
19
validity_assessed ->
40% conclusion (3) /
40% possibility (4) /
20% prediction (5).
/* Note 3 */
/* Note 3. Notice that the two semantic features of [future_trp] and [prediction] have the
same realization rule number. The clear implication of this is that they also share the same
realization rule. In this case the two meanings are both realized by having the Operator
expounded by the item “will” - and also by the “wo” part of “won’t”. Some linguists have
suggested that the two meanings should be treated as one. However, when they are used in
conjunction with a form of “have”, as in (2) below, it becomes clear that there can be no
simple statement that a clause containing “will” always refers to future time. Thus, while in
Example (1) the clause refers to a simple future event, in (2) the time of the event is in the
past, as the Adjunct “yesterday” shows.
(1) Ivy will kiss Ike tomorrow.
(2) Ivy will have kissed Ike yesterday.
[future_trp]
[past_trp, prediction]
In other words, (2) refers to an event which took place in the past - and the meaning of
‘prediction’ that is realized in will can be expanded informally to ‘the Performer predicts that
in due course we will find evidence that this is so’. In the large version of the grammar, then,
there is a rule that specifies what types of Time Position Adjuncts can occur when
[future_trp] is chosen, but these generalizations cannot be extended to occasions when
[prediction] is chosen. */
present_trp / (past_trp & validity_unassessed) / future_trp ->
RETROSPECTIVITY.
/* Note 4 */
/* Note 4. This is the most complex entry condition in this micro-grammar. (In the full
grammar from which this micro-grammar is extracted there are some that are even more
complex, but they are all composed of simple ‘and’ and ‘or’ relationships.) Many readers
find the present notation easier to read than the equivalent rather complex ‘wiring’ shown as
the entry conditions to RETROSPECTIVITY in the Appendix, but others do not. You can
compare the above statement with its equivalent in the Appendix to see which group you
belong in. For many, ‘wiring’ diagrams are easier to read - but only up to a certain degree of
complexity. After that (and in all cases when the purpose of writing a grammar is to
implement it in a computer), a notation such as that used here is clearer.*/
RETROSPECTIVITY ->
90% simple_r /
10% retrospective (19).
TRANSITIVITY ->
80% action (sp2, 6) /
20% relational (14) /
0%
others.
sp2 : action :
if present_trp and simple_r
then for_same_pass prefer
[1% simple_pd / 99% period_marked],
/* Note 5 */
20
if proposal_for_action then for_same_pass prefer
[99.9% agent_S_theme / 0.1% affected_S_theme].
/* Note 5. This sp rule is like the one we considered in Note 1, except that it has conditions
- and in each of its two parts. Let us consider the first part. This ensures that, whenever the
time reference position for an ‘action’ Process is ‘present’, and when in addition the feature
‘retrospective’ is not chosen, the grammar is much more likely to generate examples like (1a)
than (1b), and (2a) than (2b).
(1a)
(1b)
(2a)
(2b)
Ivy is kissing Ike.
Ivy kisses Ike.
Ivy may be kissing Ike.
Ivy may kiss Ike.
[present_trp, period_marked]
[present_trp, simple_pd]
[present_trp, period_marked, possibility]
[present_trp, simple_pd, possibility]
The grammar recognizes, of course, that the meanings of [present_trp] and [simple_pd] found
in (1b) do occur from time to time, This occurs when the event is either (1) ‘stative’, as in
“She lives in Cardiff” or (2),‘dynamic’, when it is a ‘repeated’ event, as in “Ivy kisses Ike
every morning”. In the fuller grammar these factors too are provided for by the addition of
more conditions. But the probabilities given above are not seriously misleading, in that
examples of clauses referring to ‘repeated’ events are indeed much less frequent than events
that are ‘dynamic’ and ‘non-repeated’. (Note finally that in (2b) the meaning of “may” is
‘possibility’ and not ‘permission’.)
The second part of the rule reflects the fact that a ‘proposal for action’ is vastly more
likely to be ‘active’ than it is to be ‘passive’, i.e. we shall find plenty of examples like “Touch
it!” and ‘Don’t touch it!”, but very few indeed like “Be touched by it!” and “Don’t be
touched by it!” */
action ->
PROCESS_TYPE &
SUBJECT_THEME.
PROCESS_TYPE ->
25% kicking (7) /
25% kissing (8) /
25% touching (9) /
25% washing (10) /
0%
many_others.
SUBJECT_THEME ->
95% agent_S_theme (11) /
5%
affected_S_theme (12).
affected_S_theme ->
80% agent_overt (13) /
20% agent_covert.
relational ->
100% attributive (sp1, 15) /
0%
others.
21
attributive ->
100% being (16) /
0%
others.
PERIOD_MARKING ->
90% simple_pd /
10% period_marked (17).
/* Note 6 */
/* Note 6. The probabilities in the above system will be drastically altered if either of the
first two sp rules have been activated. */
INFORMATION_FOCUS ->
1%
contrastive_newness /
99% no_contrastive_newness.
contrastive_newness ->
95% contrast_on_polarity (22) /
5%
contrast_on_process (23) /
0%
others.
thing -> INTERACTION_ROLE.
INTERACTION_ROLE ->
0%
interactant /
100% outsider.
outsider -> SPECIFICATION_OF_THING.
/* Note 7 */
/* Note 7. The grammar for ‘thing’ is as simple as it is possible for it to be, while still being
able to generate suitable expressions to fill the Participant Roles. Thus it only generates ‘first
names’ - this being the realization of the semantic feature of ‘ingroupness’. */
SPECIFICATION_OF_THING ->
100% named_thing /
0%
others.
named_thing ->
100% ingroupness (25) /
0%
others.
minor_relationship_with_thing ->
100% passive_marker (27) /
0%
others.
/* 2.3 The realization component */
/* 2.3.1 The internal structure of realization rules
Each realization rule is identified by its number. The name of the feature (or features)
that follows it can also be regarded as part of the name of the rule, but the feature is at the
same time part of the rule itself. In other words, the ‘outer structure’ of a realization rule is
22
‘if Feature X has been selected, do Y’. What follows the second colon corresponds to ‘do Y’.
Thus the first part of Rule 1 is to be read as: ‘If the feature ‘situation’ has been chosen, ...’.
Occasionally the same realization rule applies to two or more features, and when this
occurs the two features are given the same rule number (as in Rule 5). By this means the
grammar represents neatly the most frequent type of ambiguity that occurs in language, i.e.
the type where, in the case of both meanings, the same item expounds the same element (e.g.
“will” in Rule 5).
A realization rule consists of one or more realization statements. If there are two or
more realization statements, as in Rule 1, they are separated from each other by commas. In
Rule 1 the first such statement, which is simply ‘Cl’, states that the unit ‘Clause’ must be
inserted into the structure, and the second, which is ‘S @ 2’, states that the element ‘Subject’
is to be located at Place 2 in the clause. Thus, although the ‘realization statements’ are
called ‘statements’ in SFL, they operate effectively as instructions.
You can interpret such instructions in either of two ways. Firstly, you can interpret them,
informally, as instructions to you, in your role as someone who is working through the
grammar in a ‘pencil and paper’ implementation (i.e. as ‘You must now do Y’). Secondly and more accurately - you can interpret the realization statements as a part of the formal
specification of the grammar. From this viewpoint we can think of the rules as instructions
that are given by the grammar to itself, as it were, when it is implemented in a computer
model (‘I must now do Y’).
Many realization statements simply state that if a given feature has been chosen - i.e. the
feature named on the left of the rule - then one or more operations are performed that add a
unit, an element or an item to the structure - as in Rule 1, which adds the unit ‘Clause’ and
the element ‘Subject’. (Note, incidentally, that inserting the element ‘S’ into the structure
does not always lead to its being filled by a unit, and so ultimately to its being expounded by
an item or items, as you will find if you choose the feature [directive].)
However, many realization statements involve a more complex structure, such that the
implementation of the operations that it specifies is conditional on the presence in the current
selection expression of one or more features other than the one named at the head of the rule.
While such conditions can sometimes be quite complex, this complexity is all expressed in
terms of a small set of ‘logical relations’, such as ‘if x then y’, ‘if not x then y’, ‘x and y’, ‘x
and not y’, and ‘x or y’. These are complemented by bracketing, whose function is to specify
which logical relation has precedence at any given point. Notice that these logical relations
are similar to the entry conditions to system networks, except that they additionally use ‘not’.
For a fairly simple example of a rule with conditions, see Rule 3.34
In some rules the ‘then’ in a rule with the form of ‘if ... then’ is followed by a further
realization statement (e.g. the ‘if giver...’ condition in the fifth line of Rule 2). Such
embedded realization statements are always enclosed in brackets, and they occasionally
contain within them further layers of embedded realization statements. But, however many
embedded statements there are, the final outcome is always an instruction to perform one or
more operations that add to the structure (e.g. lines 6 and 8 of Rule 2). Four of the later rules
that show considerable complexity are Rules 12, 17, 18 and 19 - as also do the two sub-rules.
Rule 2 also illustrates the use such a subrule. A sub-rule is simply an economical way of
handling an area of complexity that is common to two or more rules. So a subrule is in effect
34 In the original implementation of the micro-grammar the ‘ands’ and ‘ors’ in realization rules are written out
in full as “and” and “or”, in contrast with the ‘ands’ and ‘ors’ in the system network, which are written as ‘&’
and ‘/’, to reflect that fact that they occur in different components and relate different entities. However, the
logical relations are the same in both cases, as Victor Castel has pointed out, so that this is not a requirement of
the formalism itself, and a more recent implementation by Victor Castel reflects this fact.
23
a complex set of conditions and realization operations that are common to two or more rules.
It is therefore logically not a separate rule, but a component of the rule that calls it.
To summarize so far, we can say that we need to distinguish between:
(i) a realization rule, identified by a number and the name of one or more features,
(ii) a realization statement, one or more of which make up a realization rule (with each
being separated from any other at the same depth of embedding by a comma) and
(iii)a realization operation, one or more of which is the end point of a realization statement,
since it is this that adds to the structure (again, with each being separated from any other
at the same depth of embedding by a comma).
if
[condition(s)] then [perform operation(s) OR embedded realization statement].
The two types of realization statement used in this micro-grammar are:
if not [condition(s)] then [perform operation(s) OR embedded realization statement].
These basic structures are supplemented by a generous use of brackets, in order to
minimize the dependence of the grammar on assumptions about the precedence relations
among the various types of logical relation. However, we assume here that ‘if ... then’ takes
precedence over all others - except the full stops that separate realization rules and the
commas that separate realization statements.
In the fuller grammar we also use following extensions of the above two structures:
if [condition(s)]
then [perform operation(s) OR embedded realization statement]
else [perform operation(s) OR embedded realization statement].
if not [condition(s)]
then [perform operation(s) OR embedded realization statement]
else [perform operation(s)
OR embedded realization statement].
So far, all of the conditions in realization statements have been features (or configurations
of features) that have been SELECTED ON THE SAME PASS THROUGH THE NETWORK. But in the
full grammar a number of other patterns of realization statement are used, including:
if on mother pass [condition(s)]
then [perform operation(s) OR embedded realization statement(s)].
if on previous pass [condition(s)]
then [perform operation(s) OR embedded realization statement(s)].
The second of the above two types of rule is used to generate co-ordinated units.
For the complete set of types of realization statement and realization operation that are
used in the fuller grammar, see Joan Wright’s technical reports for COMMUNAL (1988a and
b) and Yuen Lin’s subsequent additions in GENEWARE (e.g. as in Fawcett, Tucker and Lin
1996).
2.3.2 The seven types of realization operation
In Section 1.5.1, I described informally the types of realization operation used in this
micro-grammar. Interestingly, no further types are required in the full grammar. What
follows below is a more complete specification of these realization operations.
1 unit insertion: this operation is: ‘Insert a unit to fill an element or Participant Role (PR),’
e.g. ‘insert ngp’. Note that there is no need to specify which element or PR the unit is to
fill, because this has already been specified in the re-entry rule (see 6 below) that led to the
further traversal of the network and so the generation of a new selection expression of
24
features, one of which will have triggered the present operation of unit insertion. The one
exception to this general statement is the insertion of the initial clause to fill the element
‘sentence’ (Z), when the symbol for ‘sentence is automatically inserted above the initial
clause. The meaning of ‘insert unit x’ is therefore ‘insert unit x to fill whichever element
or PR this traversal of the network is dedicated to filling’.
2 componence: this operation is ‘Insert an element at a place in the unit whose elements are
currently being generated,’ e.g. ‘S @ 2’ in the clause.
3 conflation: this means ‘Insert an element or PR immediately after and as part of an
existing element, so that it is conflated with it,’ e.g. ‘Ag by S’, ‘RX by O’.
4 exponence: there are two types, the most frequent being (4a):
(4a) ‘Expound an element by an item,’ e.g. ‘O < “must”.’
(4b) ‘Add a suffix to an already expounded item,’ e.g. ‘O <+ “n’t”.’
5 preference re-setting: this means ‘When the system network is re-entered to generate the
unit that will fill the stated element or PR, re-set the probabilities on the features as
specified in this rule,’ e.g. ‘for Ag prefer thing’. Such rules ensure that certain features
will be pre-selected on re-entry to the network, so ensuring (i) that a given unit will be
generated to fill the element or PR, and (ii) that its internal structure and items will be such
as to express the required meanings. Thus ‘prefer’ means ‘re-set the preferences in the
following system(s) such that the probabilities are....’. If only one feature is mentioned (as
in the simple preference re-setting rules in this micro-grammar) that feature is preferred
absolutely (i.e. it is given a 100% probability). In the fuller grammar many preferences
are probabilistic, e.g. the probability of feature x being selected is 99% and that of feature
y is 1%.35
6 re-entry: this means ‘For a given element or PR, re-enter the system network at a given
feature, in order to traverse the system network again,’ e.g. ‘Re-enter at entity.’ (In this
micro-grammar re-entry is always to the feature [entity], in order to keep things simple,
but other features may be specified as the point of re-entry point.)
7 fetch name: this means ‘Fetch the appropriate name to express this meaning from the
relevant part of the belief system.’ (But see the note by Rule 25.)
Finally, note that sometimes the operation to be performed is simply to go to a sub-rule i.e. a rule that is common to more than one realization rule, such as the ‘do_support_subrule’.
But these subrules always lead ultimately to one or more of the operations described above.
2.3.3 Key to the symbols used in the realization rules
General symbols:
lower_case_word(s)
UPPER_CASE_WORD(S)
/
&
->
x%
(y)
(spz )
= feature
= name of a system or system network
= ‘or’
= ‘and’
= ‘goes to the system of’
= percentage of probability that this feature will be chosen
= Realization Rule number y
= Same Pass Preference Re-setting Rule number z
35 Contrast this type of preference re-setting rule - which is as we have seen a type of realization rule - with
the ‘same pass preference re-setting rules’ introduced in the system network, as described in the note following
the system for MOOD_1.
25
The elements of structure of the clause (Cl):
O
S
RX
PdX
PaX
M
C
Ag
Af
Ca
At
= Operator
= Subject
= Retrospective Auxiliary Verb
= Period-marking Auxiliary Verb
= Passive Auxiliary Verb
= Main Verb
= Complement
= Agent
= Affected
= Carrier
= Attribute
The last four are Participant Roles (PRs). These are ‘experiential’ roles that are inherently
associated with the types of Process generated by the TRANSITIVITY network. Note that a
PR (and so the element with which it is conflated) is not necessarily realized overtly, i.e. by
an item that expounds the PR.
Here we include only the four PRs that are used in this micro-grammar; in the large
grammar there are seventeen (plus seven composite participant roles, such as Agent-Carrier).
The only two classes of group used in this micro-grammar are the nominal group and
the prepositional group. Since the focus of this micro-grammar is on the meanings and
structures of the clause, it provides only a minimal coverage of these two classes of group, as
follows:
ngp = nominal group
h
= head
pgp = prepositional group
p
= preposition
cv = completive
The notation for realization operations:
insert unit = ‘insert the specified unit in the structure to fill the relevant element or PR’
X at 1, 2, 3 etc = ‘put element X at Place 1, 2, 3 etc. in the current unit’
X < “zzzz”
= ‘element X is expounded by the item “zzzz” ’
X <+ “zz”
= ‘element X is expounded by having as a suffix the item “zz” ’
Y by X
= ‘insert element Y into the structure by conflating it with element X’
(shown as ‘X/Y’ in the tree diagram)
*/
/* 2.3.3 Potential structures */
/* The realization rules presuppose the existence of very simple potential structures for the
various units. To handle the full richness of the English clause, the full version of the present
grammar has 250 places. But note that it is unusual for more than seven (plus or minus two)
to be used in any instance of a clause. If 250 places seems a lot, consider the many places at
which most Adjuncts may occur, and number of distinct types of Adjunct that may occur.
And there are many other elements for which we need to provide in a full grammar, such as
the many Auxiliary Extensions (Fawcett 2007). The nominal group of the full grammar
requires 150 places, and the prepositional group ten. (After generation, any unused places are
stripped away, leaving a neat structure that contains only those places at which elements have
been located, as illustrated for the clause in Figures 2, 3 and 4.)
26
The following three simplified potential structures are therefore an essential part of this
micro-grammar, and they need to be incorporated in any computer program that models it.
Note that, in the computer generation of each unit, the program tidies up the output before
presenting it, by stripping away any places in a potential structure that have not been used. */
unit (Cl) : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
unit (ngp) : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
unit (pgp) : 1, 2.
/* 2.3.4 The realization rules for the clause */
/* Introductory note
In many cases it is necessary for the realization rules to be applied in the sequence given
below, e.g. Rule 2, which inserts the Operator into the structure, must be applied before Rules
3, 4 and 5, which supply some of the items that expound it.
Since this grammar is in principle a grammar that generates sentences (simple though
they are in this micro-grammar), the topmost ‘element’ in the structure is the element
‘sentence’ - this being represented by the Greek letter sigma (∑).36 So in Rule 1 the element
that the unit ‘Clause’ fills is, in this micro-grammar, a sentence (∑). This will be omitted
here, as it was in Figures 2 and 3 in Part 1.
I shall add explanatory notes at various points throughout the realization rules. However,
in order to avoid interrupting the flow of a rule, I have not placed the notes that refer to
sections within a rule immediately after the section, but at the end of the rule. However, the
number of any note that is relevant to a given section is placed to the right of the section to
which it refers. */
1 : situation: insert Cl, S @ 2.37
2 : information :
if
( seeker or confirmation_seeker or
negative or contrast_on_polarity or
validity_assessed or future_trp or
being or affected_S_theme or
retrospective or period_marked )
then ( if giver
then O @ 3,
if (seeker or confirmation_seeker)
then O @ 1 ),
if
( seeker or confirmation_seeker or
negative or contrast_on_polarity )
/* Note 1 */
/* Note 2 */
36 The concept of a ‘sentence’ is in effect a placeholder for whichever of the lowest elements of the discourse
structure the sentence is intended to given expression to. However, I do not mean to imply by this that the
structure of discourse ‘above the sentence’ is simply a continuation of a structure of units of the same order as
syntactic units; the structure of discourse is of a different order and its minimal units may, for example, be
mediated by other codes than language. (See Chapter 2 of Fawcett forthcoming a.)
37 If you wish, you could make this little grammar one step more complete by adding the following realization
statements to Rule 1: E @ 9, if giver then E < “.”, if seeker then E < “?”, if directive then E < “!”. This would
then insert the appropriate punctuation as the Ender (E) of the clause. Needless to say, the equivalent rule in
the full grammar, which provides for both intonation and punctuation, is far more complex.
27
then
do_support_subrule.
/* Note 3 */
/* Note 1. The ‘if ...’ section of the rule identifies the conditions under which the clause
requires an Operator, and the following ‘then ...’ section locates the Operator at one of the
two places in the clause at which it may appear - depending on a final specified condition.
Notice that often more than one of these conditions will be selected on the same pass
through the network (e.g. [seeker] and [period_marked], so that here ‘or’ is to be
interpreted as ‘or or and’. */
/* Note 2. This final section of the rule first states the four conditions under which the
presence of an Operator is required in the clause - i.e. ‘seeker’ or ‘confirmation_seeker’ or
‘negative’ or ‘contrast_on_polarity’ (where again ‘or’ means ‘or or and’). It then provides
the default item for expounding ihe Operator, i.e. it calls on the ‘do_support_subrule’,
whose function is to supply, where necessary, a form of “do”. */
/* Note 3. The ‘do_support_subrule’ is one of the two sub-rules included in this microgrammar. Note that it must be applied immediately, as it is technically a component of
Rule 2 (as well as of Rule 20). It specifies (i) the further conditions under which a form of
“do” is required, and (ii) which form it is to take under the various specified conditions.
(See the note at the start of the sub-rules for the reason for specifying these ‘further
conditions’ there rather than as part of the present rule and one other rule, which is the
alternative possibility.) The sub-rules are given at the end of the realization rules for the
clause, because they are called by two or more rules. See the further notes about them at
that point. */
3 : conclusion :
if not negative then O < “must”,
if
negative then O < “ca”.
/* Note 4 */
/* Note 4. Notice that in this rule and in the similarly structured Rule 5 the condition ‘if
not negative ...’ cannot be replaced, as one might at first think, by ‘if positive...’ This is
because the feature [conclusion] - and also [prediction] and [future_trp] - can be coselected with features that do not enter the POLARITY system (i.e. [polarity_seeker] and
[confirmation_ seeker]). And this rule needs to be able to provide for these cases too. The
use of the condition ‘if not negative ...’ does precisely this. */
4:
possibility : O < “may”.
5: prediction or future_trp :
if not negative then O < “will”,
if
negative then O < “wo”.
6 : action : M @ 7.
7 : kicking :
M < “kick”, regular_vb_subrule.
8 : kissing :
M < “kiss”, regular_vb_subrule.
9 : touching : M < “touch”, regular_vb_subrule.
10 : washing : M < “wash”, regular_vb_subrule.
/* Note 5 */
28
/* Note 5. The ‘regular_vb_subrule’ is located at the end of the realization rules for the
clause. And, as with all sub-rules, it must be applied immediately because it is technically
a part of each of the above four rules. */
11: agent_S_theme :
Ag by S,
if information
then (for Ag prefer [thing], for Ag re_enter_at entity),
C @ 8,
Af by C,
for Af prefer [thing], for Af re_enter_at entity.
/* Note 6 */
/* Note 7 */
/* Note 6. It follows from the condition ‘if information ...’ that, if [proposal_for_action]
(and so [directive]) is chosen rather than [information], there is no re-entry to fill the
Agent, i.e. the Agent is present as a PR but is not expounded in a clause such as “Kick
Ike.” */
/* Note 7. When there is a re-entry to the system network to generate another unit to fill a
specified element or P R - e.g. to fill the Affected (Af) and the Agent (Ag) in the above
rule - there are two steps: (i) the ‘prefer’ part of the rule states the probabilities with which
the features are to be re-set (i.e. to a 100% probability that [thing] will be selected in the
two cases in Rule 11), and (ii), the ‘re-enter’ part of the rule ensures that, when all of the
realization rules associated with the features selected on the CURRENT pass though the
network have been applied, the network will indeed be re-entered to generate the new unit.
Each new unit is shown in the structure as FILLING the stated element or PR - the
relationship of ‘filling’ being represented by a horizontal line in a diagram representation
of the structure, as in Figure 3 in Part 1. If there are two or more elements that require a
re-entry to the network, the left-most is dealt with first. */
12 : affected_S_theme :
Af by S,
if
information
then (for Af prefer thing, for Af re_enter_at entity),
/* Note 8 */
C @ 8, if agent_covert then Ag by C,
/* Note 9 */
if
/* Note 10 */
/* Note 11 */
then
information and not
( validity_assessed or future_trp or
retrospective or period_marked )
( PaX by O,
if present_trp then PaX < “is”,
if past_trp
then PaX < “was” ),
if
(
then
(
validity_assessed or future_trp or
retrospective or period_marked or
proposal_for_action )
PaX @ 6, PaX < “be”).
/* Note 12 */
29
/* Note 8. As in Rule 11, it follows from the condition ‘if information ...’ that, if
[proposal_for_action] (and so [directive]) is chosen, there is no re-entry to fill the PR of
Affected.
Note 9. This line of the rule ensures that, even when a Participant Role such as an Agent
(as here) is NOT expounded in a ‘passive’ construction, as in “Ike was kicked”, its
presence as a covert PR is recorded in the structure. This is desirable in a structure that
claims to be a functional structure. In socio-cognitive terms, the Performer of the clause
knows that this unexpounded PR is associated with the Process, and the Addressee is
similarly expected to interpret the clause with the understanding that this PR is associated
with the Process. (See Rules 13 and 26 for the way in which ‘Ag’ is inserted in the
structure when the Agent is overt.) */
/* Note 10. This section and the next, which insert and expound the Passive Auxiliary
(PaX), exemplify much of the pattern that is also found in Rules 16, 17, 18 and 19. I shall
therefore comment in detail on each of its sections. Notice that, despite the repetition of
some of the features in some parts of each rule, they cannot be amalgamated into a single
rule - even when the same items are being generated, as happens with “is” and “was” in
Rules 12, 16 and 17 - because in each case the item expounds a different clause element.
*/
/* Note 11. The features listed here all supply an item that expounds the Operator, so that
if they are NOT selected and there is a Passive Auxiliary the latter MUST be conflated
with it (which is what ‘PaX by O’ means). */
/* Note 12. In other words, when any of the features listed here are chosen, the Passive
Auxiliary CANNOT be conflated with the Operator, so it must occur in its ‘home’ place in
the structure. Note that this section of the rule is also the place where the combination of
[proposal_for_action] and [affected_S_theme] is provided for, as in unusual cases such as
“Be beaten in the third round.” */
/* Note 13. The second half of the realization of [affected_S_theme] is the addition of the
suffix “ed” to the Main Verb. This is not generated here, but in the ‘regular_vb_subrule’,
along with the other suffixes on ‘regular’ verbs.
The other rules that have a structure similar to this one (i.e. Rules 17, 18 and 19) all have
an additional section. This is because they have to specify the addition of the suffix “en”
to the following Auxiliary, if there is one. (This could be the Period-marking Auxiliary, if
there is one, or the Auxiliary being generated here, i.e. the Passive Auxiliary.) */
13 : agent_overt :
for C prefer [minor_relationship_with_thing, passive_marker],
for C re_enter_at entity.
/* Note 14 */
/* Note 14. See the comments on ‘re-entry’ under Rule 11 above. */
14 : relational :
Ca by S, C @ 8,
if
information
then (for Ca prefer thing, for Ca re_enter_at entity).
15 : attributive :
30
At by C,
for At prefer thing,
for At re_enter_at entity.
16: being :
if
information and not
( validity_assessed or future_trp or
retrospective or period_marked )
then ( M by O,
if present_trp then M < “is”,
if past_trp
then M < “was” ),
if
(
then
(
validity_assessed or future_trp or
retrospective or period_marked or
proposal_for_action )
M @ 7, M < “be”,
if
then
period_marked
M <+ “ing”,
if
(
/* Note 15 */
retrospective or
(past_trp and validity_assessed)
) and not period_marked
then M <+ “en”
).
/* Note 15. The final two sub-sections of the second half of the rule provides for the
addition of the suffixes “ing” and “en” to “be” as a Main Verb - just as the
‘regular_vb_subrule does for the regular verbs. */
17 : period_marked :
if
information and not
(validity_assessed or future_trp or retrospective)
then ( PdX by O,
if present_trp then PdX < “is”,
if past_trp
then PdX < “was” ),
if
then
( validity_assessed or future_trp or
retrospective or proposal_for_action )
(PdX @ 5, PdX < “be”),
if
then
affected_S_theme
PaX <+ “ing”.
/* Note 16 */
/* Note 16. The final section of the above rule provides for the appropriate suffix to be
added to the one Auxiliary that may follow the Period-marking Auxiliary (PdX), i.e. the
Passive Auxiliary (PaX). The final sections of Rules 18 and 19 are longer, however,
because there are TWO possible Auxiliaries that may follow the Auxiliary that is
generated in those rules. (The possibility of having the suffix on the Main Verb is handled
in the ‘regular_vb_subrule’, as we saw in Note 15.) */
31
18 : past_trp :
/* Note 17 */
if
validity_assessed
then ( RX @ 4, RX < “have”,
/* Note 18 */
if
period_marked
then PdX <+ “en”,
if
(affected_S_theme and not period_marked)
then PaX <+ “en )”.
/* Note 17. This rule and the following one do not need to begin with ‘if information’ unlike Rules 12, 16 and 19 - because the two features to which these two rules are attached
cannot be chosen unless [information] is also chosen. */
/* Note 18. This line and the following ones specify the form that the realization of
[past_trp] takes when there is a modal verb, i.e.an exponent of [validity_assessed]. (The
reasons for taking this position on the meaning of a sentence such as “Ivy may have kissed
Ike yesterday” are stated in Note 23.) When [validity_assessed] has NOT been coselected, [past_trp] is realized through one of (i) Rule 16 (when M is a form of “be”), (ii)
one of Rules 12, 17 or 19 (which generate the three Auxiliaries found in this microgrammar), or (iii) the regular_vb_subrule. */
19 : retrospective :
if not (validity_assessed or future_trp)
then ( RX by O,
if present_trp then RX < “has”,
if past_trp
then RX < “had” ),
if
then
validity_assessed or future_trp
( RX @ 4, RX < “have”),
if
then
period_marked
PdX <+ “en”,
if
then
(affected_S_theme and not period_marked)
PaX <+ “en”.
20 : directive : do_support_subrule.
21 : negative or confirmation_seeker :
O <+ “n’t”.
/* Note 19 */
/* Note 19. The Operator has already been inserted into the structure in Rule 2. But it
may also have had an Auxiliary or a Main Verb (if a form of “be”) conflated with it, so
that the computer program to implement this grammar must be able to add the suffix “nt”
to ANY of O, O/M, O/RX, O/PdX, or O/PaX, i.e. whether or not another element has been
conflated with O. */
22 : contrast_on_polarity :
O<“
“.
/* Note 20 */
/* Note 20. The presence of an item that expounds the Operator is already provided for by
the fact that both [information] and [directive] have as a part of their realization rule entry
32
to the ‘do_support_subrule’ - the rule whose purpose is to supply a form of “do” if no
other rule provides an exponent of the Operator.38*/
23 : contrast_on_process :
M<“
“..
/* REALIZATION SUB-RULES FOR THE CLAUSE */
/* Note 21 */
/* Note 21. There are two reasons for introducing sub-rules, and each of those used in this
micro-grammar illustrates one of these reasons. The first is to avoid the repetition of
conditions in two or more rules, as illustrated here by the ‘regular_vb_subrule’. This
avoids repeating these conditions for every feature that is expounded by a regular verb,
and it is therefore introduced to meet the criterion of economy. The second is the
desirability of breaking up a long rule that contains complex conditions and multiple
alternative operations to be performed under alternative specified conditions into two
parts, in order to make it easier for the human writer of such a rule to check it for errors
and for the human reader to use it when generating. This type of subrule is a response to
the criterion of transparency, and it is illustrated here in the ‘do_support_subrule’. (In
other words, the first part of the rule below, which begins ‘if information ...’, could be
moved from this sub-rule to the end of the rule for [information], and the second part,
which begins ‘if directive ...’ could be moved to the rule for [directive].) In the larger
grammar of which this micro-grammar is a simplified excerpt, which also covers very
many other aspects of semantics and syntax and so introduces more conditions on
realizations, the ‘modularization’ of the rules in this way becomes even more desirable
than it is here. Moreover, the two criteria for introducing a sub-rule are often both
relevant. */
do_support_subrule :
if
information and not
( validity_assessed or future_trp or
retrospective or period_marked or
affected_S_theme or being )
then ( if present_trp
then O < “does”,
if past_trp
then O < “did” ),
if
then
directive and
(negative or contrast_on_polarity)
O @ 1, O < “do”.
/* Note 22 */
/* Note 22. The last part of this rule, which concerns ‘directives’, operates in a way that is
interestingly different from the first part, which concerns ‘information givers’,
38 The above rule may be difficult to implement in a computer, since a computer program typically needs to
know whether or not the characters are underlined (or in capitals) AT THE TIME WHEN IT PRINTS THEM.
If the program that is being used to implement this micro-grammar is operating under this constraint, this
realization rule would have to replace a lower case item by an uppercase item. An alternative way to handle the
facts covered by Rule 22 would be to have two sections in every rule whose output is an item that expounds the
Operator. The first would state that if [contrast_on_polarity] is selected then the item will be printed with
underlining (or in capital letters), and the second would ensure that if [contrast_on_polarity] is not chosen the
item will be printed in lower case letters. However, while this could be done with the relatively few rules that
result in an item at O, it would be a clumsy way to handle the thousands of items that may expound M (as in
Rule 23).
33
‘information seekers’ and ‘confirmation seekers’. In the latter, the first of any Auxiliaries
that is present in the clause also functions as the Operator (when one is needed, e.g. to
receive the suffix “n’t” (to express the meaning ‘negative’) or underlining (to express
‘contrast on polarity’). But in the case of a ‘directive’ this is not the case. Compare (1a)
and (1b), and (2a) and (2b) below (where the examples could have “when Ivy come in”
placed after them, to make them sound more natural).
(1a)
(1b)
(2a)
(2b)
Be reading a book.
[directive, period_marked]
Do be reading a book. [directive, period_marked, contrast_on_polarity]
Don’t be reading a book.[directive, negative]
Don’t be reading a book.[directive, negative, contrast_on_polarity]
In other words, in such cases the first auxiliary does NOT take on the role of the Operator,
and instead the ‘do_support_subrule’ supplies a form of “do” - as in (1b), (2a) and (2b). */
regular_vb_subrule :
if
giver and not
( validity_assessed or future_trp or
negative or contrast_on_polarity or
retrospective or period_marked or
affected_S_theme )
then
( if
present_trp and kicking
then M <+ “s” ),
( if
then
if
then
present_trp and (kissing or touching or washing)
M <+ “es” ),
past_trp and validity_unassessed
M <+ “ed” ),
if
then
affected_S_theme
M <+ “ed”,
if
then
(period_marked and not affected_S_theme)
M <+ “ing”,
if
(
then
/* Notes 23 and 24 */
/* Note 25 */
retrospective or (past_trp and validity_assessed) ) and not
(period_marked or affected_S_theme)
M <+ “ed”.
/* Note 23. These two lines generate the ‘past tense’ form of the Main Verb, as in Example
(1a) below. But now consider Example (2a). What meanings does this clause realize? You
might be tempted to think that in (2a) the feature ‘retrospective’ had been selected (so
generating what is termed in traditional grammar a ‘present perfect(ive)’ form). But this is
not so. The proof is the presence of the Adjunct “yesterday” in both (1a) and (2a). This
demonstrates clearly that in both cases the location of the event in time is anchored to a ‘past’
time reference position. This is indicated in the features listed after each example, which
show that (2a) is ‘simple’ rather than ‘retrospective’.
(1a) Ivy kissed Ike yesterday.
[past_trp, simple_r, validity_unassessed]
34
(2a) Ivy may have kissed Ike yesterday. [past_trp, simple_r, validity_assessed]
In contrast, in (1b) and (2b) the feature [retrospective] has been chosen. This indicates
that the event has happened somewhere in a time span reaching back from the current time
reference position (which in this case is the present) - as the Adjunct “already” demonstrates.
(1b) Ivy has kissed Ike already.
(2b) Ivy may have kissed Ike already.
[present_trp, retropective, validity_unassessed]
present_trp, retropective, validity_assessed]
So, while “kissed” in (2a) has the same FORM as the meaning of ‘retrospective’ in (2b),
and while it uses the Retrospective Auxiliary for its realization, (2a) is just as much a
realization of the meaning of ‘past_trp’ as is the ‘past tense’ form of the Main Verb in (1a).
The only difference in meaning between the two is that in (2a) the feature [validity_assessed]
has been chosen, so generating “may” in this case, while in (1a) [validity_unassessed] has
been selected, so NOT generating a modal verb.
In this way the micro-grammar - small though it is - handles neatly one of the more
difficult anomalies of the semantics and form of ‘time’ and ‘tense’ in English. */
/* Note 24. One of the major areas of complexity in English that this micro-grammar does
NOT handle - though the fuller version of the grammar does - is that of irregular verbs. The
result is that in this micro-grammar the ‘past tense’ and the ‘past participle’ forms of the
Main Verb both consist of the ‘base’ of the verb plus the suffix “ed” - e.g. “kissed” in both
(1a) and (2a). The forms of realization are different with ‘irregular’ verbs; compare “Ivy may
have EATEN it yesterday” with “Ivy ATE it yesterday”.
In order to show that the micro-grammar can be extended to handle this variation in the
forms of realization, the grammar includes, in these two lines and in the last three of the rule,
provision for generating the two forms in which the meaning of [past_trp] may be realized.
*/
/* Note 25. The last three short sections of the rule generate the suffixes on the Main Verb
that are assigned as the result of selecting a meaning whose principal realization is in the base
of a preceding Auxiliary Verb.
Notice that these sections do not begin with the condition ‘if giver ...’, as the earlier part
of the rule does. They therefore cover examples that realize ALL types of MOOD meaning,
so providing for ‘seeker’, ‘confirmation-seeker’ and ‘proposal for action’ as well as for
‘giver’. */
/* 2.3.5 The realization rules for the nominal group */
/* The grammar for ‘thing’ is the simplest possible that is consistent with generating suitable
expressions to fill the Participant Roles. It only generates ‘first names’, this being the typical
realization of the meaning of the semantic feature ‘ingroupness’ in English.
The meaning of ‘ingroupness’ is expressed by the use of a ‘forename’ (such as “Ike”)
rather than a ‘title plus surname’ (such as “Mr Jones”). The meaning of the choosing this
form of reference typically marks the Performer and the Addressee as members of an ‘in
group’ whose members are entitled to refer to the referent by the use of this form.39 Indeed,
39 This meaning can, of course, be exploited by a skilful user of the language to imply that he or she is a
member of an ‘in group’ when he or she is not, or to put down the Addresse when the latter is not permitted to
refer to the referent in this manner - or perhaps to invite the Addressee to consider himself or herself as a
member of the ‘in group’. Note that the meanings and forms of this usage are part of the grammar of ‘referring’
to something (‘forms of reference’, and that this part of the grammar is somewhat different from the meanings
and forms that the language makes available to its users for ‘forms of address’.
35
it requires a little ingenuity to devise appropriate contexts for some of the clauses that the
micro-grammar generates, such as Ike is Ivy. But this does not, of course, mean that the
grammar should not generate them.
However, this severe restriction on the semantics of ‘things’ in turn requires the use of a
type of realization rule that is only used for names. In principle, the realization operation in
Rule 25 below fetches from the generation system’s belief system the ‘forename’ (or ‘first’,
‘personal’, ‘given’ or ‘Christian’ name, depending on one’s culture) of the referent of the
nominal group. This ‘fetch’ rule is like an ‘exponence’ rule in some ways, but with this
important difference: there is no single item that directly realizes this semantic feature, since
THE FORM TO BE USED DEPENDS ON WHAT THE FORENAME OF THE REFERENT ACTUALLY IS.
An alternative solution to the problem of how to generate names in a generative grammar
is simply to select at random one name from a list. A rule that implements this concept is set
out below as tan alternative version of Rule 25. This rule, which is simpler to implement, is
in fact fully adequate for testing the grammar itself - i.e. when it is operating simply as a
generative grammar, as in the present case. But it is necessary to use the first version of Rule
25, which presupposes at least a ‘toy’ belief system, when the grammar is operating as part of
a full Natural Language Generation system.
It is important to the successful modelling of language, therefore, to recognize the crucial
difference between items such as “kiss” or “table”, which directly realize meanings in the
language, and items such as “Ike” and “London” hat are names, and do not. */
24: thing: insert ngp, h @ 5.
25 : ingroupness :
fetch first_name.
/* THE ALTERNATIVE VERSION OF THIS RULE */
h < (“Ike” or “Ivy” or “Tony” or “George” or “David” or “Victoria”).
/* 2.3.6 The realization rules for the prepositional group */
/* These rules are as severely abbreviated as those of the nominal group, and for the same
reasons. */
26: minor_relationship_with_thing :
insert pgp,
p @ 1, cv @ 2,
Ag by cv,
for Ag prefer thing, for Ag re_enter_at entity.
27 : passive_marker : p < “by”.
/* This is the end of the formal specification of the grammar. */
Part 3
Closing discussion
3.1 The relative complexity of system networks and realization rules
36
We have been examining the formal properties of a systemic functional micro-grammar
for English. The question is: How far does this approach provide an elegant and insightful
model of the set of phenomena that it covers?
We have seen that the diagram representing the system network of semantic features is so
economical that it can be presented on one page - as it is in the Appendix. Yet we have also
seen that this network - small though it is - covers a fairly wide range of the central syntactic
and semantic phenomena in the English clause. Interestingly, when it is set out in statement
form (as in Section 2.2) it requires more space - just over two pages, if we ignore the notes.40
However, the realization rules require over twice as many pages - almost four and a half
in that size of typeface (again, ignoring the space occupied by the notes).41 This disparity
between the space required by the system network rules and the realization rule prompts the
question: Why does this second type of rule take so much more space? There are two parts to
the answer.
The first is that it is wrong to assume that the realization rules should be regarded as little
more than footnotes to the features in the system networks. Unfortunately, this approach to
presenting realization rules is found in many introductory SFL texts, and even in some
specialist publications. But it is seriously misleading. The reason is that, in any systemic
grammar that is fuller than the ‘toy’ grammars that may be presented in introductory texts,
there are many realization rules that can only be applied ON CONDITION THAT OTHER
FEATURES HAVE ALSO BEEN CHOSEN - OR NOT CHOSEN (as we have seen in the present
grammar). In such cases it is the COMBINATION of features that results in a given realization –
and not just the feature to which the realization rule is attached. So realization rules are like
system networks in that a realization operation (such as ‘Insert X at Place Y’) may have a
complex ‘entry condition’ – rather as a system may.42
In other words, a Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) which does not pay as much
attention to its realization rules as it does to its system networks is an inadequately formalized
SFG - and so an inadequate SFG. Indeed, as I have stated elsewhere, the systemic functional
grammarian’s guiding principle should be:
NO SYSTEM NETWORKS WITHOUT REALIZATION RULES’
(Fawcett 1988:9).
Our experience in the COMMUNAL Project (where we have built a series of three very large
SFGs for English) suggests that, when one attempts to build a grammar that is both (i)
reasonably comprehensive and (ii) as elegant in capturing generalizations as the many
exceptions inherent in any natural language allow it to be, there will be some areas of the
grammar in which the system networks are far more complex than the realization rules, and
other areas in which the reverse is true. And the same conclusion is suggested by our work in
building small but substantial SFGs for Chinese and Japanese. 43
40 A major part of the reason is that, while the graph representation of the network in the Appendix presents
the network as an unbroken ‘flow’ of features, the representation in Section 2.2 presents it as a series of ‘if x
then y’ statements, such that each statement (other than the first) requires the repetition of a feature or a system
name from a previous statement. From this viewpoint the graph representation is closer to the original concept
of a system network.
41 In the smaller typeface used in the Appendix, however, it is just one and a half pages.
42 But this does not mean that they are the same phenomenon, of course. A system network offers choices
between features WITHIN the single level of semantics, while a realization rule operates BETWEEN levels –
turning semantic features into forms.
43 We have built computer-implemented ‘mini-grammars’ for some central aspects of Chinese (reflected in
Huang and Fawcett 1996) and for Japanese (described in Tatsuki and Fawcett forthcoming and reflected in
Tatsuki 1996).
37
We have established the importance of realization rules and the fact that, in a SFG where
the system networks are explicitly semantic, we should expect the realization rules to be as
complex as the system network whose features they realize. But this doesn’t explain why the
present micro-grammar requires four and a half pages to express its realization rules rather
than the two pages that would be roughly equivalent to the system network. The answer is
that the portions of English grammar covered here happen to have a particularly challenging
and complex set of interdependencies with each other. Indeed, the reason why I selected this
area of the overall grammar for presentation in this micro-grammar was to demonstrate that a
SFG can handle this particularly complex area in a reasonably elegant manner. So, while the
realization rules in this particular grammar display a degree of complexity that is well above
the norm, it is a complexity that arises from the nature of the phenomena that are being
handled rather than from an inherent complexity in the formalism. The realization rules
associated with many other major areas of the grammar (e.g. the full MOOD network) are
considerably simpler - and especially those parts that represent meanings that are realized in
lexical items. And these relatively simpler areas balance out the considerable – but perfectly
manageable – complexity in the realization rules for this network.44
For each problem area in the grammar, then, the fundamental question for the
grammarian is ‘In which component(s) and with what type of descriptive apparatus should
this complexity be handled?’ In a SFG the answer is that the way to approach such questions
is to ask, for any contrast at the level of form: ‘Is this contrast also a contrast at the level of
meaning?’ If it is, it will be expressed in a choice between semantic features in the system
network. But if it is not it must be handled by the realization rules - by employing the
concept of conditions on the realization of those semantic features. Thus, in a SFG in
which the features in the system networks are explicitly semantic, a higher proportion of
realization rules include conditions (as described in Section 2.3.2 of Part 2) that in SFGs in
which the system networks are less clearly semantic – or are even described as being at the
level of form.
To take this second position, as Halliday does in his more recent writings (e.g. Halliday
and Matthiessen 1999 and Halliday and Matthiessen 2004), seems to those of us who work in
the framework of the Cardiff Grammar (and to many outside it) to go against the main thrust
of Halliday’s major insight of the 1970s, namely that the system networks of TRANSITIVITY, MOOD, THEME and the like are networks that offer choices between meanings, i.e.
they constitute the meaning potential of a language (Halliday 1970: 142). Yet in my view it
is precisely the drawing of a clear distinction between meaning and form and the recognition
of the nature of the realization relationship between them that gives a SFG its insightfulness
as a model of language.45
To summarize: in a SFG in which the system networks are explicitly networks of choices
between meanings, we should expect the realization rules, overall, to have at least as much
complexity as the system networks. But in limited areas of the lexicogrammar we should
44 Indeed the inherent complexity of these phenomena is such that I do not think that any theory of language
could provide a simple account of them. The challenge to the grammarian is to develop a model of language in
which the maximum quantity of language is modelled with the maximum clarity, using a relatively small but
powerful set of concepts. And, since I start from the assumption that form and meaning are mutually defining,
there is the further constraint on a model that it must provide an account of how forms relate to meanings.
45 It is on this essential principle that many of the other concepts that distinguish SFL depend - including the
concept that each clause realizes several different functional components, or strands, of meaning. In this microgrammar, then, the choices in TRANSITIVITY are part of the ‘experiential’ strand of meaning; the choices in
MOOD are part of the ‘interpersonal’ strand; the choices in SUBJECT THEME are part of the ‘thematic’ strand
and INFORMATION FOCUS are part of the ‘informational’ strand of meaning. See Fawcett 2000a: 50-1 for
the place of the concept of ‘strands of meaning’ and the closely related concept of ‘metafunctions’ in the theory.
38
expect to find grater complexity in some areas, (as here), and less in others (such as large
areas of lexically realized meaning).
3.2 A systemic functional grammar as a formal model
The micro-grammar presented here raises many further questions, such as (i) the nature of
semantic features in a SFG, and (ii) the reasons for drawing the system network presented
here in the way in is, rather than in some slightly different way. As an example of the care
with which the current system network is constructed, consider the fact that in the present
grammar the POLARITY system is not entered for every clause, while Halliday’s diagrams
of SFGs all assume that it should be entered for every clause.
Regrettably, this is not the place to discuss this and many other such questions further. It
must suffice to say that that particular decision - like all the others - was taken after careful
consideration of the alternatives, and that here are sound reasons for each one. Nor is this the
place for setting out the reasons for preferring the version of systemic functional syntax
assumed here (for which see Fawcett 2000a, 2000b and 2000c and Fawcett 2008) over other
versions of SFG. My intention in this paper has simply been to demonstrate the formalism of
a systemic functional grammar; to provide enough guidance to enable you to operate the
grammar for yourself; and so, I hope, to answer the more basic questions that may arise in
your mind as you do so.
Nonetheless, the notes in Part 2 have provided a commentary on the workings of this
particular grammar - and in particular on the operation of the realization rules. And some of
the comments in Part 2 have discussed certain aspects of the relationship between the forms
and the meanings of the phenomena covered here - aspects that we need to attend to, if we are
to construct grammars that provide for these phenomena at the appropriate level and in an
economical manner. The notes are intended to help to demonstrate (i) that it is the formal
concepts of the theory that makes an adequate description possible, and (ii) that it is the data
of the description of natural languages such as English that motivate the theory. Theory and
description, in this approach, are mutually dependent. 46
This paper has demonstrated that a Systemic Functional Grammar can be formalized just
as explicitly as any other type of grammar. The fact that the concepts used in this
formalization are significantly different from those found in, say, a phrase structure grammar
does not mean that this grammar is not a formal grammar. But it does mean that any scholar
who assumes that a ‘grammar’ necessarily includes as a central component a set of syntactic
rewrite rules needs to rethink her or his definition of what constitutes a formal grammar.
We have also seen that even a SFG that is so small that its system network can be
represented on a single page is capable of handling quite a wide range of phenomena including (i) cases where there is not a one-to-one relationship between meaning and form
and (ii) cases bordering on ungrammaticality - or, as it would be expressed in terms of SFL
concepts, examples of relatively improbable instances. Above all, we have seen that there is
a formal model of language that transcends the mono-stratal nature of a phrase structure
grammar, by treating syntax and its semantic correlates as complementary, i.e. as mutually
defining. The result is a model of language in which (i) the level of semantics consists of a
rich variety of types of ‘meaning’, all of which can be expressed systematically at the level of
form, and (ii) a level of ‘form’ that states the ‘form potential’ in its realization rules and that
46 For a picture of the generation of a sentence in a very much fuller (but earlier) version of the grammar from
which this micro-grammar has been extracted, see Fawcett, Tucker and Lin 1993.
39
generates structural outputs that are always functional. In this way it offers a bi-stratal model
of language that is inherently both formal (in both senses of the word) and functional.47
47 For a fuller picture of the major current alternative models within SFL and their relationship to each other
and to earlier SFL models, see Fawcett 2000a. For an excellent overview of the Cardiff Model - focussing in
particular on the adjective, its associated structures and the meanings that they realize, see Tucker 1998.
40
Appendix
The system network and realization rules
for the micro-grammar
41
SYSTEM NETWORK
OF SEMANTIC
FEATURES
1% proposalfor-action
(sp1)
(A)
KEY
100% directive (20)
0% others
95% giver
(E)
4% seeker
a
x
if x,
= choose
b
a or b
(I)
0% new-content-seeker
100% polarity-seeker
0% others
1% confirmation-seeker (21)
99% information (2)
a
b
x
x
y
if x,
choose
= a or b,
c
and
d
c or d
50% present-trp
(F)
40% past-trp
(18)
10% future-trp (5)
if x or y
= choose
b
a or b
(J)
5% validityassessed
95% validityunassessed
a
x
a
y
b
(G)
if x and y
= choose
a or b
80% action (sp2, 6)
(H)
100% situation
(1)
25% kicking (7)
25% kissing (8)
25% touching (9)
25% washing (10)
0% many others
95% agent-S-theme (11)
5% affected-S-theme (12)
95% positive
5% negative (21)
SYSTEM NAMES
(A) =
(B) =
(C) =
(D) =
MOOD (1)
TRANSITIVITY
PERIOD-MARKING
INFORMATION
FOCUS
(E) = MOOD (2)
40% conclusion (3) (F) = TIME REFERENCE
40% possibility (4)
POSITION
20% prediction (5) (G) = PROCESS TYPE
(H) = SUBJECT THEME
(K) 90% simple-r
(I) = POLARITY
10% retrospective
(J) = VALIDITY
(19)
ASSESSMENT
(K) = RETROSPECTIVITY
(L) = INTERACTION
ROLE
(M) = SPECIFICATION
OF THING
80% agent-overt (13)
20% agent-covert
(B)
SAME PASS PREFERENCE
RE-SETTING RULE S
100% being (16)
100% attributive (sp1, 15)
20% relational (14)
0% many others
0% others
0% others
(C)
90% simple-pd
10% period-marked (17)
(D)
1% contrastive-newness
99% no-contrastive-newness
(L)
0% interactant
entity
0% thing (24)
95% contrast-on-polarity (22)
5% contrast-on-process (23)
0% others
(M)
100% named-thing
100% outsider
sp1: proposal-for-action or attributive:
for same pass prefer
[99.9% simple-pd / 0.1% period-marked].
sp2: action :
if present-trp and simple-r
then for same pass prefer
[1% simple-pd / 99% period-marked],
if proposal-for-action
then for same pass prefer
[99.9% agent-S-theme /
0.1% affected-S-theme].
100% ingroupness
(25)
0% others
0% others
100% passive-marker (27)
0% minor-relationship-with-thing
(26)
0% others
© Robin Fawcett 2003
42
THE REALIZATION RULES
A: Realization rules for the clause
1:
situation: insert Cl, S @ 2.
2:
information :
if ( seeker or confirmation-seeker or
negative or contrast-on-polarity or
validity-assessed or future-trp or
being or affected-S-theme or
retrospective or period-marked )
then ( if giver
then O @ 3,
if (seeker or confirmation-seeker)
then O @ 1 ),
if ( seeker or confirmation-seeker or
negative or contrast-on-polarity )
then do-support-subrule.
3:
conclusion :
if not negative then O < “must”,
if
negative then O < “ca”.
4:
possibility : O < “may”.
5: prediction or future-trp :
if not negative then O < “will”,
if
negative then O < “wo”.
6:
action : M @ 7.
7:
kicking : M < “kick”, regular-vb-subrule.
8: kissing : M < “kiss”, regular-vb-subrule.
9:
touching: M < “touch”, regular-vb-subrule.
10: washing : M < “wash”, regular-vb-subrule.
11: agent-S-theme :
Ag by S,
if information
then (for Ag prefer [thing], for Ag re-enter-at entity),
C @ 8,
Af by C,
for Af prefer [thing], for Af re-enter-at entity
12: affected-S-theme :
Af by S,
if information
then (for Af prefer thing, for Af re-enter-at entity),
C @ 8, if agent-covert then Ag by C,
if information and not
( validity-assessed or future-trp or
retrospective or period-marked)
then ( PaX by O,
if present-trp then PaX < “is”,
if past-trp
then PaX < “was” ),
if ( validity-assessed or future-trp or
retrospective or period-marked or
proposal-for-action )
then (PaX @ 6, PaX < “be”).
13: agent-overt :
for C prefer
[minor-relationship-with-thing, passive-marker],
for C re-enter-at entity.
14: relational :
Ca by S, C @ 8,
if information
then (for Ca prefer thing, for Ca re-enter-at entity).
15: attributive :
At by C,
for At prefer thing,
for At re-enter-at entity.
16: being :
if information and not
( validity-assessed or future-trp or
retrospective or period-marked )
then ( M by O,
if present-trp then M < “is”,
if past-trp
then M < “was” ),
if ( validity-assessed or future-trp or
retrospective or period-marked or
proposal-for-action
then ( M @ 7, M < “be”,
if period-marked then M <+ “ing”,
if ( retrospective or
(past-trp and validity-assessed)
) and not period-marked
then M <+ “en” ).
17: period-marked :
if information and not
(validity-assessed or future-trp or retrospective)
then ( PdX by O,
if present-trp then PdX < “is”,
if past-trp
then PdX < “was” ),
if ( validity-assessed or future-trp or
retrospective or proposal-for-action )
then (PdX @ 5, PdX < “be”),
if
affected-S-theme then PaX <+ “ing”.
18: past-trp :
if validity-assessed
then ( RX @ 4, RX < “have”,
if period-marked then PdX <+ “en”,
if ( affected-S-theme and not period-marked)
then PaX <+ “en” ).
19: retrospective :
if not ( validity-assessed or future-trp)
then ( RX by O,
if present-trp then RX < “has”,
if past-trp
then RX < “had” ),
if
validity-assessed or future-trp
then ( RX @ 4, RX < “have”),
if
period-marked then PdX <+ “en”,
if
(affected-S-theme and not period-marked)
then PaX <+ “en”.
20: directive : do-support-subrule.
21: negative or confirmation-seeker :
O <+ “n’t”.
22: contrast-on-polarity : O < “
23: contrast-on-process : M < “
”.
”.
43
B: Realization sub-rules for the clause
do-support-subrule :
if information and not
( validity-assessed or future-trp or
retrospective or period-marked or
affected-S-theme or being )
then ( if present-trp then O < “does”,
if past-trp
then O < “did” ),
if directive and
(negative or contrast-on-polarity)
then O @ 1, O < “do”.
27: passive-marker : p < “by”.
regular-vb-subrule :
if giver and not
( validity-assessed or future-trp or
negative or contrast-on-polarity or
retrospective or period-marked or
affected-S-theme)
then ( if present-trp and kicking
then M <+ “s” ),
( if present-trp and
(kissing or touching or washing)
then M <+ “es” ),
( if past-trp and validity-unassessed
then M <+ “ed” ),
if affected-S-theme
then M <+ “ed”,
if (period-marked and not affected-S-theme)
then M <+ “ing”,
if ( retrospective or
(past-trp and validity-assessed)
) and not
(period-marked or affected-S-theme)
then M <+ “ed”.
C: Realization rules for the nominal group (minimal)
24: thing: insert ngp, h @ 5.
25: ingroupness :
fetch first-name.
Alternative version of Rule 25
(for use when there is no Belief System to supply the name)
25: ingroupness :
h < (“Ike” or “Ivy” or “Brad” or “Angelina” or “David”
or “Victoria”).
D: Realization rules for the prepositional group
(minimal)
26: minor-relationship-with-thing :
insert pgp,
p @ 1, cv @ 2,
Ag by cv,
for Ag prefer thing, for Ag re-enter-at entity.
44
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