Monday 3 July 2017

Modal Responsibility: Proposals

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 146):
It is perhaps easier to see this principle of responsibility in a proposal (a ‘goods-&-services’ clause), where the Subject specifies the one that is actually responsible for realising (i.e., in this case, for carrying out) the offer or command. … Hence the typical Subject of an offer is the speaker, and that of a command is the person being addressed.