Thursday 2 January 2014

Grammatical Metaphor As Syndrome

Halliday (2008: 95):
Almost every instance of grammatical metaphor involves a syndrome of related features.  There are many different patterns of co-occurrence, but most involve one or more of the following three. 
  1. Processes and qualities, congruently realised as verb and adjective, get nominalised (transformed into nouns): move becomes motion, (be) hot becomes heat
  2. Logical-semantic relations, like cause and time, congruently realised as conjunctions, get verbalised (transformed into verbs): so becomes causes, then becomes follows
  3. Various clausal configurations are transformed into nominal groups, typically with structure Classifier + Thing: resists (the effects of) heat becomes heat resistance, replacing assets becomes asset replacement.