Part V. A LEXICOGRAMMAR of PROCESSES in CLAUSES
V.A GRAMMAR, LEXICON, LEXICOGRAMMAR
V.1 Many studies of language have made a division, in both theory and practice, between the domains of “grammar” (or “syntax”) and “lexicon” (or “vocabulary”). Since classical antiquity, “grammar” has been the more privileged domain of study — earlier for acquiring Latin or Greek as the foundation of a “liberal” or “humanistic” education, and later for cultivating “good usage” in English (cf. II.E). In contrast, “vocabulary” has been regarded more as a subsidiary miscellany, useful for everyday life, but meriting little serious inquiry. Similarly, the study of foreign languages has stressed learning “grammar” from formal rules over learning “vocabulary” from informal lists.
V.2 “Functional” models of language, however, describe lexicon and grammar within the interactive domain of LEXICOGRAMMAR (cf. II.F).[Note 1] Just as every fluent speaker of a language “knows” one version of the GRAMMAR and the LEXICON (cf. II.19), so too the LEXICOGRAMMAR, which as a unified whole provides the central linguistic, cognitive, and social resources for discourse (II.135-43). The GRAMMAR specifies the types and patterns of combinations that guide or prefer appropriate selections from the LEXICON while discourse is being practised; but these tasks are richly co-operative and interdependent.
V.3 Moreover, the practices are affected by richer constraints than are generally recognised. Thus, we can explore the typical GRAMMATICAL combinations known as COLLIGATIONS. For example, I expected that the COLLIGATION combining AUXILIARY “could” + NEGATIVE (“not” or “‑n’t)” + “help” + ought to COLLIGATE with PARTICIPLES, but the data provided more delicate constraints: the latter strongly expressed PROCESSES that are not well under the CONTROL of the AGENT, but ought to be among “well-mannered” folks; and just four PROCESS VERBS, “feel”, “think”, “notice”, and “wonder”, proved by far the most common in several corpora. More precisely, I found “couldn’t help feeling” occurring with “bitterness”, “distrust”, “jealousy”, “envious”, “angry”, “hurt”, etc; and, with still more intensity, “utter hopelessness”, “delirious happiness”, “infinite pity”.
V.4 We can also explore typical LEXICAL combinations known as COLLOCATIONS, which, as we just saw for “couldn’t help”, interact with COLLIGATIONS. In the BNC, I found the COLLIGATION “set in” preferring PEJORATIVE COLLOCATES as SUBJECTS: “decline”, “decay”, “boredom”, “apathy”, “disorientation”, “amnesia”, “anxiety”, “panic”, “bloating”, “colic”, “dyspepsia”. Yet if the SUBJECT was a person or group with the COLLIGATION “set out to”, ATTITUDES were both PEJORATIVE, such as “mislead”, “harm”, “attack”, “violate”, “trap”, “betray”, “sabotage”, “ruin”, “starve”, “destroy”, “uncover sexual shenanigans”, “rid himself of his wife”, and “make crime a career”; and also AMELIORATIVE, such as “tell the story of my life”, “rappel down the cliff”, “win a trophy”, “evangelize the world”. Or again, what people “try your hand at” were mostly EMPOWERING leisure activities: “boating”, “sailing”, “painting a scene” “decorating china”, “rock climbing”, “clay pigeon shooting”, and “rowing on dry land” (huh?).
V.5 The resources of the LEXICOGRAMMAR can be envisioned along a scale of DELICACY that is higher toward its more lexical end and lower toward its more grammatical end (Fig. V.1).
V.6 DELICACY can slide up and down the scale to suit the context, allowing GRAMMAR and LEXICON, as well as COLLIGATION and COLLOCATION, to “slide into” each other. The higher the DELICACY, the more specific and detailed are the constraints upon selection and combination. For example, the English VERB “bereave” occurs in the British National Corpus (BNC) at high DELICACY: almost exclusively in the PAST PARTICIPLE and in the meaning of “having suffered the death of someone close” [1], and COLLOCATING with a delicate range of NOUNS, the most frequent being “people”, “person”, “family”, “relatives”, as in [2]. The form “bereft”, though technically an alternate PAST PARTICIPLE of the same VERB and defined by some dictionaries in the same meaning, is rarely used this way, but rather COLLIGATES with “of” to mean “lacking” and COLLOCATES with a range of less lugubrious missing items: beside the stark necessities in [3], I surfed out from the BNC “speech”, “fun”, “ideas”, “talent”, “hope”, “decency”, “carpets”, “roofs”, “trees”, “lambs”, “servants”.
[1] Could death education ever go this far as to teach the bereaved how to dig a grave and incidentally earn a discount? It is happening in New Zealand (Embalmer)
[2] A mother who lost her twin daughters has set up a counselling agency to help bereaved families. (Northern Echo)
[3] Ask the person from whom you are buying your new house to list the smaller fixtures and fittings that are to be left. […] People find their homes bereft of light bulbs and toilet rolls. (Belfast Telegraph)
V.7 Although many routine “grammars” hardly address the fact, the selection of a particular WORD at one point in a sequence undeniably relates to what was or will be chosen to compose combinations at varying distances, such as “bereaved” being cognitively related to “death – grave” [1]. Many such selections also derive substantial DELICACY from social attitudes, e.g., about what things people deserve to have and how you are featured as hapless or careless when you are “bereft” of them.
V.8 Typical usage is thus not well described by a “grammar” at low DELICACY, e.g., just listing all the forms in the “conjugation” of English VERBS. Individual VERB forms may be used in distinctive ways. In BNC data, the VERB “consume” in the PRESENT form has mainly an ACTIVE TRANSITIVITY with a human as SUBJECT and a commodity as OBJECT, like food [4]. The PAST form “consumed” is more likely to be a PARTICIPLE in a PASSIVE TRANSITIVITY function [5]. The PRESENT PARTICIPLE “consuming” is typically a MODIFIER for something that overrides or preoccupies, like “passion” [6].
[4] Japanese consume the nutritious legume as tofu (bean curd). (New Scientist)
[5] Some 16 billion pounds of fat is consumed by Americans in an average year. (Business)
[6] The survival of the Everglades is now Florida’s consuming passion. (Economist)
V.9 Describing the LEXICOGRAMMAR of English evidently requires substantial attention to DELICACY in specifying our general terms, e.g., the MAJOR WORD-CLASSES and the MINOR WORD-CLASSES presented in Part IV. Those terms provide at best a “heuristic front end” for a description relating general classes of forms to specific instantiations of functions.
V.10 So I shall propose a set of “lexicogrammatical terms” within a scheme of PROCESSES, PARTICIPANTS, and CIRCUMSTANCES, having three basic PROCESSES at the top. The STATE is some condition of a PARTICIPANT, as when a person is “fat”, “short”, or “bald” [7]; or else some CIRCUMSTANCE of a situation, as when the TIME is “about midnight” [8]. The EVENT is a change in some PARTICIPANT, such as “apples exploding” [9]; or in some CIRCUMSTANCE, such as “night falling” [10]. Whereas an EVENT is brought about by some CAUSE, e.g., a “tornado throwing two ponies” [11], an ACTION is an EVENT brought about by some AGENT, e.g., “a conman stealing cash” and then “demanding a lift” [12].
[7] But he’s fat! And short! He wears the hat because he’s bald! (Nudists)
[8] About the same time I heard gunfire. It was about midnight. (Guardian)
[9] Apples that got waterlogged between France and a British store “exploded” in the homes of customers at Eaton, Norwich. (Mirror)
[10] There was no electricity, either, but as night fell they lit candles. (Boat House)
[11] A tornado that struck a Hampshire village threw two ponies in to the air (BBC News)
[12] A conman stole cash from a restaurant manager — then demanded a lift into town (Belfast Telegraph)
V.11 As in [7-12], any of the three PROCESSES of STATE, EVENT, or ACTION can be expressed in a CLAUSE; the CLAUSE CORE consists of the SUBJECT (mainly the HEAD NOUN or PRO-NOUN) and PREDICATE, (mainly the AGREEING VERB), the latter favoured by the BALANCE of content as well as of form (cf. IV.271). To adapt some conventional terms, the SUBJECT often presents the TOPIC and sets the BACKGROUND (e.g., what has been already talked about or at least implied); the PREDICATE often presents the COMMENT and sets the FOREGROUND (e.g., what goes beyond what’s already been talked about or implied, and may merit emphasis). CLAUSES in this routine order make good openings for a text when at first nothing has been talked about [12], and then the opening TOPIC can be followed up with a fresh CLAUSE, possibly CONTRASTING as a mode of COMMENT [13].
[13] Emma Woodhouse seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence. She was now in great danger of suffering from intellectual solitude. (Emma)
But frequently the relation is not so straightforward. I also find the TOPIC and COMMENT remaining the same in the follow-up CLAUSE, though perhaps camouflaged by alternate expressions [14]; or the SUBJECT being preceded by a NON-FINITE CLAUSE that also has it as SUBJECT [15]; or the PREDICATE being split with the OBJECT before and the VERB after [16]; and so on.
[14] The Prime Minister yesterday ordered Jacques Delors to increase his efforts to head off a catastrophic transatlantic trade war. John Major summoned the President of the European Commission to Downing Street (Liverpool Echo)
[16] A spoon to stir your tea you must dispense with. Knives and forks you will discover in plenty. (Second Thoughts)
Nonetheless, for the sake of consistency and clear distinctions, I shall present the PROCESSES and CIRCUMSTANCES in this Part most basically within the PATTERNS of CLAUSES, the more so as NON-FINITE CLAUSES and NON-CLAUSES will not be presented until Part VI.
V.12 The three basic PROCESSES named in V.1 are of course clusters of more DELICATE PROCESSES (cf. V.82) and mainly just indicate the typical organisation of PARTICIPANTS. A STATE may have only one of these as its MEDIUM [17] (cf. V.22); or just a CIRCUMSTANCE [18]. For an EVENT, the key PARTICIPANTS in the ACTIVE are the CAUSE (as SUBJECT) that initiates the change (as VERB PHRASE), and the AFFECTED (as OBJECT) that undergoes the change [19-20]. For an ACTION, the PARTICIPANT of AGENT initiates the change upon the AFFECTED, with or without intention or control [20-21].
[17] The mother of Alexander was still living. (Empire of Russia)
[18] it was the last week in February (conversation)BNC
[19] a hurricane drove floodwaters over Lake Okeechobee’s southern edge (Economist)
[20] an explosive device wrecked the car of the Spanish consul-general (Keesings)
[21] Joe Calzaghe knocked out Dean Francis with a smart left (Daily Telegraph)
[22] The Admiral had unwittingly detonated the explosive (Clubbed)
Real data are naturally often less straightforward than these examples suggest.
V.13 Deciding which PROCESSES to recognise in describing the LEXICOGRAMMAR of English is not always easy, since traditional “grammars” have operated at low DELICACY. Thus, they recognised “transitive” and “intransitive verbs”, whilst failing to grasp TRANSITIVITY as a property of CLAUSES, not just VERBS (V.87). Moreover, they tended to rigidify and oversimplify by postulating “rules” where actual data merely indicate guidelines and strategies (cf. II.19, 137, 143).
V.14 Yet operating at higher DELICACY can lead to bulky and complex descriptions. Ultimately, nearly every VERB COLLOCATES within one or more PROCESSES in its own way, e.g., “see” versus “look” among PERCEPTIVE PROCESSES (V.31f). So, as proposed a moment ago, I shall use the CLAUSE CORE of SUBJECT and PREDICATE to recognise a PROCESS in linguistic, cognitive, and social terms, such as whether or not it readily appears in plausible AFFIRMATIVE or NEGATIVE COMMANDS. Moreover, I shall exploit one or more PROTOTYPES as heuristic examples, though freely conceding that other PATTERNS and VERBS under the same headings may have their own distinctive behaviour.
V.15 Next, we can distinguish between OUTER PROCESSES that typically impinge upon the environment and could be observed or detected from outside, such as “bringing” or “jumping”, versus INNER PROCESSES that typically could not, such as “knowing” or “hoping”. In general, OUTER ones commonly form COMMANDS, as in [23-24], whilst INNER ones rarely do, as in [25-26].
[23] Waiter! Bring back the pudding! (Alice)
[24] Jump, George! Jump! Oh, jump! (Lord Jim)
[25] Know me to be what I am — a cold, hard man. (Eyre)
[26] Do not hope to get at any good author’s meaning without those tools. (Sesame)
V.16 Two essential factors for relating PARTICIPANTS to PROCESSES can emerge from practical tests I call COLLIGATIONS of DENIAL. In DENIAL of INTENTION, you’d say you “didn’t mean to” do or be something; in DENIAL of CONTROL, you’d say you “couldn’t help” doing or being it (cf. V.3). These COLLIGATIONS can sort out PROCESSES and VERB PHRASES at some DELICACY, witness [27-30] rather than, say [27a-30a].
[27] It’s alright, Josie, I didn’t mean to break your arm (conversation)BNC
[27a] ??It’s alright, Josie, I couldn’t help breaking your arm
[28] I didn’t mean to bite your head off. (Garden of Desire)
[28a] ??I couldn’t help but bite your head off.
[29] Charlie couldn’t help noticing that the man didn’t have a thumb. (Crow Flies)
[29a] ??Charlie didn’t mean to notice that the man didn’t have a thumb.
[30] Tolkien could not help seeing a part of himself in Saruman (Road to Middle-Earth)
[30a] ??Tolkien didn’t mean to see a part of himself in Saruman.
The social function of pleading to be excused leads to DENIALS of INTENTION for ACTIONS you could hardly have “meant” to do anyway, like “spilling the soup” [31], “causing a kerfuffle” [32] or “being an idiot” [33].
[31] She found Will mopping up the remains of his soup from the stone-flagged kitchen floor. “Sorry, misses, I didn’t mean to spill it” (Shoemaker’s Daughter)
[32] I thought we were on for charades. I didn’t mean to cause a kerfuffle. (Dynmouth)
[33] I didn’t mean to be an idiot! (conversation)BNC
An alternate plea to be excused for not doing something can use the AFFIRMATIVE “meant to” (having the INTENTION but not acting on it), often followed by “but” to introduce an expedient impediment to CONTROL.
[34] I meant to be at the station, but these people came to look over the house and I couldn’t get away. (Distance Enchanted)
[35] I meant to phone up this morning for an appointment for Doctor, but I forgot all about it. (medical consultation)BNC
My data show no uses of an AFFIRMATIVE like “I could help it, but did it anyhow”.
V.17 DISPOSITIVE PROCESSES have the PROTOTYPE “doing to”, and apply not just in the narrow everyday sense of “get rid of” (like “disposing of waste”) [36], but also in the broader sense of “have at your disposition and deal with” (like “disposing of funds”) [37]. The PROTOTYPE CLAUSE CORE is ACTIVE, having DISPOSER as SUBJECT, DISPOSITION as VERB PHRASE, and DISPOSED as the AFFECTED DIRECT OBJECT. The AFFECTED may undergo substantial change, e.g. getting “broken” [38]; or may even cease to be itself, e.g., getting “scoffed” (piggishly devoured) [39].
[36] The Soviet Union disposed of nuclear waste from COMECON countries. (Economist)
[37] The Shah no longer disposed of the sort of funds as he had done (Shah’s Last Ride)
[38] Cheeky thieves broke the window of Anthony Gordon outfitters (Northern Echo)
[39] she’s scoffed a Picnic bar, now she’s scoffing a bloody Crunchie! (conversation)BNC
In their TRANSITIVITY, most DISPOSITIVES thus offer a clear choice between the ACTIVE with DISPOSER as SUBJECT and DISPOSED as OBJECT, versus the PASSIVE with DISPOSED as SUBJECT and DISPOSER as an ADVERBIAL of AGENT [40-43]. In the ERGATIVE of “making do”, which in some sense carries a doubly DISPOSITIVE flavour, an ERGATIVE AGENT “makes” a DISPOSING AGENT “do” a DISPOSITIVE [44]; or “has” them do it [45]; or “has” it done without mentioning the other DISPOSING AGENT [46].
[40] 150 youths threw stones at New Barnsley RUC [police] station (Belfast Telegraph)
[41] Several smoke bombs were thrown by Catholic youngsters (Politics in the Streets)
[42] I just devoured a whole packet of Mr Kipling’s Cakes (True Confessions)
[43] 200 hot dogs were devoured by the hungry hikers (TrailFlash)www
[44] She took off her things, and made him do the same. (Chatterly)
[45] I will have the servants throw you in the street (Dark Star Passing)
[46] Don’t be nervous, or I’ll have you executed on the spot. (Alice)
The DISPOSITIVE is a vibrantly expansive PROCESS whose PATTERN of SUBJECT – VERB – OBJECT encroaches on other PROCESSES hardly suggesting ACTIONS of “doing to” (cf. V.29, 44, 54).
V.18 Many DISPOSITIVES form COMMANDS, whether AFFIRMATIVE [47-48] or NEGATIVE [49-50].
[47] On the first unsatisfactory answer, “Break his jaw” is the order of the judge. (Decline)
[48] Throw that gun away, and the torch, too (Intrusions of Jimmy)
[49] Do not break any blisters on the burn (Scotsman)
[50] Do not throw rubbish onto an open fire in the living room. (One’s Company)
When DISPOSITIVES have PEJORATIVE effects, INTENTION can be explicitly denied [51-52]. DENIAL of CONTROL is less plausible, as in [51a-52a].
[51] I didn’t mean to offend the memory of your mother. (Ulysses)
[51a] ??I couldn’t help offending the memory of your mother.
[52] I’m sure the sentry didn’t mean to prick your niece in the — quite so — with his sword. (Phoney War)
[52a] ??the sentry couldn’t help pricking your niece in the — quite so.
V.19 PRODUCTIVE PROCESSES have the PROTOTYPE “making” in the basic sense of “producing a thing”. The PROTOTYPE CLAUSE CORE in the ACTIVE has PRODUCER as SUBJECT, PRODUCTION as VERB PHRASE, and PRODUCT as the DIRECT OBJECT [53-54]; in the PASSIVE, the PRODUCT is SUBJECT and the PRODUCER, if mentioned, appears in an ADVERBIAL OF AGENT after the VERB PHRASE [55-56].
[53] The Torquay shop makes a new flavour of ice-cream every day of the year. (Punch)
[54] Oliver Stone is making a movie about the life of Jim Morrison. (The Face)
[55] Today the Queen’s official cars are made by Rolls-Royce. (Doll’s House)
[56] One in five pairs of socks sold in Britain is made by Sherwood (Daily Telegraph)
V.20 At higher DELICACY, in the “creating” PROTOTYPE, a CREATOR works in individual or idiosyncratic ways toward a CREATION to be contemplated, e.g., a work of art [57-58]. In the ‘manufacturing” PROTOTYPE, a MANUFACTURER works in cooperative, businesslike ways toward a MANUFACTURED PRODUCT to be used or sold [59-60]. Again, both ACTIVE and PASSIVE are freely available.
[57] Seurat was a pointillist who filled his canvas with dots. When he stood back, he could see that he had created a superb landscape with figures. (Hansard)
[58] The Way to St. Bernard was created by the outstanding puppeteer, Christopher Leith, in response to a commission from the Abbey of Cîteaux in France. (Alton Herald)
[59] Associated Windows manufactures double glazing and mirrors. (TV news)BNC
[60] These lamps were manufactured by the Komárov Ironworks in 1867. (Prague)
V.21 “Manufacturing” predominates for the PROTOTYPE “making” [61-62], which would hardly COLLOCATE with PRODUCTS being works of art like “poems”, “paintings”, “sculptures”, “symphonies”, and so on. The only examples I find in the BNC are for trendy “artists” using techniques that resemble manufacturing [63-64].
[61] Garteth makes furniture (Longshot)
[62] I make movies, sweetheart. That’s my job. (Masai Dreaming)
[63] Richter makes paintings of photographs (Belfast Festival)
[64] we’ve had people making sculptures out of scrap from the motorway. (Fox News)
For the manufacturing type, PASSIVES can deploy ADVERBIALS to express not merely the PRODUCER [65], but also the MEANS [66], or another PROCESS [67].
[65] The bride’s off-the-shoulder dress was made by her mother. (Wedding)
[66] Most washbasins are made from vitreous china (Do It)
[67] Cork tiles are made by compressing the bark of the cork tree into a block (Do It)
ERGATIVE PRODUCTIVES of “making produce” like [68-69] are uncommon.
[68] As the free tenant pays a stated rent to the master, whatever he makes the farm produce above that rent is intirely his own property (Adam Smith)
[69] The industry of the inhabitants has made these countries produce a greater quantity of human subsistence. (Population)
V.22 The AFFIRMATIVE and NEGATIVE COMMANDS in my data are few and are all of the ordinary “making” or “manufacturing” type [70-71], and not the “creating” type illustrated by invented data in [72-73].
[70] Make a soap solution adding a small quantity of ammonia (Centuries of Ink)
[71] Do not make coffee with boiling water. (Delicatessen)
[72] *Poet Laureate, make a festive poem for Queen’s Birthday.
[73] *Hey come on, Bono, make another hit album for your fans!
DENIALS of INTENTION or CONTROL like [74-75] are not plausible for genuine PRODUCTIVES, and do not appear in my data.
[74] ?Her mother didn’t mean to make an off-the-shoulder dress but she ran out of cloth.
[75] ??Seurat’s brushes were so tiny, snitched from bottles of ladies’ fingernail polish, that he couldn’t help making pointillist paintings.
V.23 ENACTIVE PROCESSES have the PROTOTYPE of “moving”, usually INTENTIONAL [76-78] but maybe not [79-81]. Here, the PROTOTYPE CLAUSE CORE has ENACTER as SUBJECT, ENACTMENT as VERB PHRASE, and CIRCUMSTANCE like PLACE as ADVERBIAL.
[76] They all moved off together down the tawny dust of the road (Cameron)
[77] Steelers RB Willie Parker rushed 10 times for 22 yards with two catches for 15 yards at Baltimore (CBS Sports)
[78] Two men who fled after bungling a raid on a shop jumped into a getaway car only to find a policeman at the wheel. (Independent)
[79] Thales became so absorbed in his study of the night sky that he fell into a ditch. (Does God Play Dice?)
[80 He stumbled over graves and bumped into headstones (short story)BNC
[81] JimBob skidded on a banana skin some thoughtful fan had thrown on the stage and fell straight on his ass. (NME)
Rather than ACTIVE or PASSIVE, the TRANSITIVITY is MEDIAL, with the AGENT as the MEDIUM. A few PROCESS VERBS offer a choice between DISPOSITIVE [82-83] or ENACTIVE [84-85], the latter omitting the humans who guided the PROCESS.
[82] Then the Doctor sailed the ship right round the rock. (Dolittle)
[83] The terrorists then loaded a mortar launcher into the skip and drove the lorry into the council yard, just one hundred metres from the Police Station. (British Army)
[84] The ship sailed out into the blue sea, under the blue sky (Kwaidan)
[85] Sixty vehicles, including six lorries, drove into each other in the dense fog. (Today)
V.24 The function of the MEDIUM as SUBJECT is clearest for the PROTOTYPE of the bodily “behaving” [86-92], which normally lacks INTENTION or CONTROL.
[86] Again she laughed and cried, and I laughed with her. (Frankenstein Unbound)
[87] He smiled and frowned in the way she loved. (Armada)
[88] Mr Cottle blushed and then snorted into a handkerchief. (Forest Night)