Wednesday 11 April 2018

Qualitative Process With Attribute

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 271n):
The verbs reek, drip and ooze are used in the sense of ‘be [over-]ful’ or ‘have [too] much of’ (shading into the ‘possessive’ area); but they always seem to be configured with a nominal group, introduced by a preposition in the case of drip and reek, and this element can be interpreted as Attribute: it certainly reeks to me of sexual exploitation; … It drips with press agentry; Greenoak’s book drips with bird lore like no other; she oozes self-confidence; … it lacks substance and oozes mediocrity.