This document provides an overview of transitivity and its key constituents in systemic functional linguistics. It discusses the six main process types: material, behavioral, mental, verbal, relational, and existential. For each process type, it defines the key participants and provides examples. It compares material and mental processes, highlighting differences in tense usage, number of participants, nature of active participants, and ability to project. It also examines the seven circumstantial elements - extent, location, manner, cause, accompaniment, matter, and role. The summary concisely covers the main topics and process types discussed in the document.

1. systemic Functional
Linguistics
PRESENTATION TOPIC: TRANSITIVITY

2. Transitivity
The particular grammatical
facility used for capturing
experience in language is the
system of transitivity.
Transitivity is relevant to ideational
meaning and field of context.

3. Constituents
Transitivity has three constituents
I. Process
II. Participant
III. Circumstance

4. Process Type
 Material Process
 Behavioral Process
 Mental Process
 Verbal Process
 Relational Process
 Existential Process

5. Material Process
Definition
“ the basic meaning of material
process is that some entity has done
something, undertakes some action”.
Example
I. I am playing hockey.
II. She is beating him.

6. Participants
I. Actor
II. Goal
III. Beneficiary
IV.Range
V. Initiator

7. Actor
 Obligatory participant
 Active and doer of the action
 In active voice, actor is subject.
Example
Khizar kicked the ball.

8. Goal
 The participant to whom the process is
directed.
 In passive voice, goal becomes subject.
Example
I. Khizar kicked the ball.
II. The ball was kicked by khizar.

9. Beneficiary
 Participants which benefit from the
process are called beneficiary.
 Two kinds
 Recipient : the one to whom something is
given.
khizar gave a gift to Zareena.
 Client: the one for whom something is
done.
He is building a house for his mother.

10. Range
I. Either it is restatement or
continuation of the process itself
II. It expresses the extent or ‘range’ of
the process
Example
I. They sang a song.
II. They were playing a game.
III. She made a mistake.

11. Initiator
 The participant who just starts the
action but not actor
 Rare participant
 Also called agent.
 Initiator is used in causative
constructions.

12. Example
He made his girlfriend carry the bomb.
Initiator causative Actor Material Goal
process process

13. Identification
What did x do?
What did x do to y?

14. Example
 Material process
khizar has donated blood.
khizar went to United States.
 Not material process
There was an incentive to donate the
blood.
khizar is a blood donor.

15. Cont…
 Process of doing and happening
 Happening represented by an
intransitive Material Clause,
 Only one participant is involved.
 Also called middle process.

16. e.g.
Khizar went to United States.
 Doing represented by transitive Material
Clause
 two or more than two participants are
involved.
 Also called effective process.
e.g.
Khizar is reading the book.
 Usually concrete and tangible actions.

17. Behavioral process
 Behavioral process is a process of physiological
and psychological behavior, like treating,
dreaming, and smiling.
 The participant who is behaving, called behaver, is
typically conscious being like sensor, but the
process functions more like the one of doing.
 The boundaries of behavioral process are
intermediate between mental and material process.

18. 2 Types: verbal behavior and mental
behavior
Verbal behavior: talk, chat, converse, speak,
call, discuss, abuse, etc. the participants:
behaver, receiver, verbiage.
Mental behavior: look at watch, listen to,
experience, survey, smile laugh, cry,
memorize etc. the participant include
behaver, and phenomena.

19. For example
Behaver Behavior
al
process
circumst
ance
behavior
I breath deeply
Betty cried Bitter
tears
She smiles For you

20. Mental Process:
Mental Process:
It is the process of sensing such as
feeling, thinking, perceiving etc.
Participants: Senser
Phenomenon

21. Types
There are four types of Mental
process.
I. Perception
II. Affection
III. Cognition
IV. Volition

22. Difference
Halliday (1985) states that all
mental process potentially involve in
both senser and phenomenon.
While on other hand, senser is
present and phenomenon is not
exist.
Example: John cannot see.
john knows

23. Example:
John: I hate cockroaches more than rats.
Jane: I don’t like cockroaches.
John: I remember we were sitting for our
analytical Chemistry exam, and it was the
final exam and they have sort of like bench
desks where there is three bench . The middle
seat empty and two seat either side and I
was sitting there, and thought greez I can feel
something on my foot and thought no, no
don’t worry about it.

24. Example:
Subject: it is a nominal group denoting a
conscious being.
the speaker addressing himself.
The speaker’s own processes of
consciousness.
Negative evaluation of cockroaches.it is a
kind of cognition not emotion. Idea created
by cognition.
Content of thinking:

25. Nature of Senser
Senser: one participant who is human that
senses such as feel, think, wants and
perceive etc.
Them: who we are? What we are doing?
How we are feeling?.
Pets, domestic animal and other animal
treated as conscious.

26. Example:
She(cat) does not like milk.
Mental process clauses have this
property that something that is being
credited with consciousness can
function in them as one who feel, think
and want etc.

27. Nature of Senser
The function of ‘’It’’:
Example: the empty house was longing for
children to return.
There is ambiguity between it and the
meaning of verb. The anomalous
character of clause such as ‘’it really likes
me’’, it knows what it thinks etc. the
ambiguity is one is knowing, thinking +
Conscious and and referred to as ‘’it’’.

28. Phenomenon
Phenomenon: which is felt, thought, wanted and
perceived.
Role: it is not restricted on semantic or grammatical
category. It is different form material participants that is
only thing.
It is not only include in things but acts and facts.it is a
phenomenon of our inner experience and
imagination. All entity such as persons, creatures,
institutions and object etc. all these the part of
circumstances in a mental process.

29. Types
Macro phenomenal: The phenomenon is an
‘’act’’. For Example: He saw the sand
dredger heading for the cruiser.
Meta phenomenal: the phenomenon is a
fact. For example:
I can see this town is going to hell fast .

30. Comparison between Material and
Mental process
 Comparison between material and mental
process can be done on the basis of:
I. Choice of present tense
II. Number of participants
III. Nature of active participant
IV. Reversibility
V. Projection

31. Cont…
 Choice of present tense
o According to Halliday, in mental process, present
tense is simple present
o but in material process, present tense is present
continuous tense.
 Number of participants
o Material process has intransitive or transitive clauses for
which they use one or two participants,
o but there is no intransitive mental process.
o Mental process must always have two participants.

32. Cont…
 Nature of active participant
o In mental process there is a compulsory
conscious participant i.e. sensor .
o In material process, any nominal can be
actor but in mental process only conscious
human can be a sensor.
 Reversibility
o Mental process shows the phenomenon of
reversibility while material process does
not perform reversibility.

33. e.g.
A B
I don’t understand her letter. Her letter puzzles me.
She carried the bags. *the bags ….. her???

34. Cont…
 Projection
o The major difference
o Mental process can project.
o They project quoted or reported ideas.
o Material process cant project.
Examples
I thought I would give blood.

35. Mental Process Vs Material Process
There is grammatical distinction of mental process
from material process base on some properties.
Material Mental
Participant: Actor Senser
Participant: Goal phenomenon
Ability to
project:
No Ideas
Process: doing sensing

36. Verbal Process
 Process of verbal actions like saying, telling,
asking, etc.
Example
she is telling a story.
 Participants
I. Sayer
II. Verbiage
III. Target
IV. Receiver

37. Sayer and Receiver
 Sayer
 The participant responsible for the verbal
process.
 Does not have to be a conscious participant , it
makes verbal process resemble material process
as the actor of material process must not be a
conscious being
 Receiver
 The participant to whom the verbal process is
directed.

38. Target
 It is the person or thing directly targeted
by the process.
 Fairly peripheral participant
 Does not occur with direct or indirect
speech.
 Lexical verbs which accept a target
include: praise, criticize, describe, explain,
flutter, blame, condemn, castigate.

39. Verbiage
 Verbiage represents what the sayer said
 Does not represent quoted or reported speech.
 Can be seen in such expressions as ask a
question, state your case, tell the facts etc.
Two kinds
1. Which refers to the content, such as describe
the apartment,
2. Which specifies the nature of verbal process,
such as ask a question, speaking the truth,

40. Examples
1. She is telling a story.
Sayer verbal process verbiage
2. She is telling a story to khizar.
sayer verbal process verbiage receiver
3. She is saying that I am working.
sayer verbal process actor material process
4. Khizar criticized her harshly.
sayer verbal process target circumstance.

41. Relational process
Definition:
Relational process involves state of
being and having.
They can be classified whether they
are being identify something or assign
a quality to something.

42. Types of relational clause
Relational clause have three types
Intensive relational process
Possessive relational process
Circumstantial relational process
These three types comes in the two
distinct modes of being, ‘attributive
and identifying’.

43. intensive relational process
Intensive attributive
Carrier, attribute
Intensive identifies
Token, value

44. Mood of relational process
1. Relational attributes:
A process which assign a quality is
called attributing processes.
e.g.
John is clever.
The fair will be on Monday, January 27.

45. 2. Relational identifying:
Process which establishes an identity is
called identifying process.
e.g.today is January, 27 2020.

46. Cont.…
Sr# Attributive
‘a is an attribute of x’
Identifying
‘a is the identify of x’
Intensive
‘x is a’
Sarah is wise Sarah is the leader
Possessive
‘x has a’
Peter has a piano The piano is peter’s
Circumstantial
‘x is at a’
The fair is on Tuesday Her clothes are in
racks

47. Existential process
 The process is projects that something exist.
Existential process have only one participant ‘existent’.
The process has two main forms of grammatical relation,
with a copular verb and an empty there as subject and
with a copular verb, the Existent as subject and usually a
circumstantial adjunct.
e.g.
I. There was a man waiting for you.
II. Ten of us were in the party. ( circumstantial adjunct)

48. Circumstantial Element
 Circumstantial element provide answer to
the question that people looking at
different problems.
 It is classify them into seven types such as
Extent, Location, Manner, Cause,
Accompaniment, Matter and Role (Gerot
and Wigned).
 These are based on their purpose in a
clause.

49. 1-Extent:
 Extent construes the extent of the
unfolding of the process in space time. The
duration in time during which the process
unfold.
 For example: How long? How far? How
many?
 The typical structure is a nominal group
with a qualifier.
 For example: a long way and many miles.

50. 2-Location
 The place where the process is unfolds. For
example: when and where .
 It is also a path, source and destination of
movement. The typical structure is an
adverbial group or prepositional phrase.
 For example : on Wednesday evening, by
the door and down etc.

51. 3- Manner
 Construes the way in which the process is
actualized. Manner comprises four categorize
such as Means, Quality, Comparison and
degree.
 Means in which a process take place. It is
expressed by prepositional phrase such as by or
with e.g. how and what with?
 Quality is expressed by adverbial group with –ly
and adverb as a Head. For example: less
commonly etc.

52. Comparison and Degree
 Comparison: it is expressed by
prepositional phrase with like or unlike or
adverbial group of similarities or
difference.
 Degree: it is typically expressed by
adverbial group with degree such as
deeply, completely and strongly.

53. 4- Cause
It tell us what the reason to
cause process such as what for
and for whom etc.
for example:
The sheep died of thirst.
He went to the shop for
cigarettes.

54. 5-Acompanimrent
 It is expressed by prepositional phrase such
as with, without and beside etc. there are
two types.
 Comitative: It represent the process as a
single. For example: l left work without my
briefcase.
 Additive: it represent the process as two.
For example: instead of dingy velveteen
he had brown fur, soft and shiny.

55. 6- Matter
 Matter tells about ‘what’ or ‘with reference to
what’ and ‘what about’. It is relate with
mental process especially with cognitive
subtype and verbal process since it is the
circumstantial equivalent of the verbiage.
For example:
this book is talking about functional grammar.
We must warn of the consequence of this truth.

56. 7-Role
Role tells about be and become. There is
two categories .
Guise is tell about ‘’what as’’.
For example: he lived a quiet life as a
beekeeper.
product: it is refer to ‘’become’’. For
example: they bend that rod is a straight
line.

57. 8-Angle
 Angle is relate with the viewpoint because
it is used to represent the information
given by the somebody viewpoint.
 It is also include the sayer of a verbal
clause, sense of mental clause.
 It is expressed by complex position such
as ‘’according to’’ and ‘’in the words of’’.

58. 9- Contingency
This process is depends on
‘’what’’. There are three type.
Condition
Concession
Default

59. Thank You