CLAUSE AS EXCHANGE
4.2 The Mood element
4.2.2 Meaning of Subject and Finite
(2) Within the indicative, what is significant is the orderof Subject and Finite:
(a) the order Subject before Finite realizes ‘declarative’;*
(b) the order Finite before Subject realizes ‘yes/no interrogative’;
(c) in a ‘WH- interrogative’ the order is: (i) Subject before Finite if the WH- element is the Subject; (ii) Finite before Subject otherwise.
The structure is as shown in Figure 4-5.
(a) declarative
(b) yes/no interrogative
Fig. 4-5 Structure of declarative and yes/no interrogative
For the analysis of WH- interrogatives, which involve a consideration of the Residue,see Section 4.4, Figure 4-15, p. 135, Figure 4-17, p. 136 and Figure 4-18, p. 136.
(i) Primary tense means past, present or future at the moment of speaking; it is time relative to ‘now’. A proposition may become arguable through being located in time by reference to the speech event. (There is no primary tense in proposals.) (ii) Modality means likely or unlikely (if a proposition), desirable or undesirable (if a proposal). A proposition or proposal may become arguable through being assessed in terms of the degree of probability or obligation that is associated with it.
What these have in common is interpersonal deixis: that is, they locate the exchange within the semantic space that is opened up between speaker and listener. With primary tense, the dimension is that of time: primary tense construes time interpersonally, as defined by what is ‘present’ to you and me at the time of saying. With modality the dimension is that of assessment: modality construes a region of uncertainty where I can express, or ask you to express, an assessment of the validity of what is being said.
Finiteness is thus expressed by means of a verbal operator which is either temporal or modal. But there is one further feature which is an essential concomitant of finiteness, and that is polarity. This is the choice between positive and negative. In order for something to be arguable, it has to be specified for polarity: either ‘is’ or ‘isn’t’ (proposition), either ‘do!’
or ‘don’t!’ (proposal). Thus the Finite element, as well as expressing primary tense or modality, also realizes either positive or negative polarity. Each of the operators appears in both positive and negative form:did/didn’t,can/can’tand so on.
Table 4(4) lists the Finite verbal operators, positive and negative. Note that some of the negative forms, such as mayn’t, are rather infrequent; if they occur in a negative clause, the negative is usually separated (may not,used not to). In such cases, the notcan be analysed as part of the Residue; but it is important to note that this is an oversimplification — sometimes it belongs functionally with the Finite, for example:
you may not leave before the end (‘are not allowed to’): notis part of Finite you may not stay right to the end (‘are allowed not to’): notis part of Residue
Table 4(4)Finite verbal operators Temporal operators:
past present future
positive did, was, had, used to does, is, have will, shall, would, should negative didn’t, wasn’t, hadn’t, didn’t + doesn’t, isn’t, hasn’t won’t, shan’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t
used to Modal operators:
low median high
positive can, may, could, might, (dare) will, would, should, is/was to must, ought to, need, has/had to negative needn’t, doesn’t/didn’t + need won’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t, mustn’t, oughtn’t to, can’t,
to, have to (isn’t/wasn’t to) couldn’t, (mayn’t, mightn’t, hasn’t/
hadn’t to)
For further discussion of polarity and modality, and of the relation between the two, see Section 4.5, p. 143.
Finiteness combines the specification of polarity with the specification of either temporal or modal reference to the speech event. It constitutes the verbal component in the Mood. But there has to be also a nominal component; and this is the function of the Subject.
4.2.2.2 The Subject
The Subject supplies the rest of what it takes to form a proposition: namely, something by reference to which the proposition can be affirmed or denied. For example, in the duke has given away that teapot, hasn’t he?, the Finite hasspecific reference to positive polarity and present time, while the Subject the dukespecifies the entity in respect of which the assertion is claimed to have validity.
It is the duke, in other words, in whom is vested the success or failure of the proposition.
He is the one that is, so to speak, being held responsible— responsible for the functioning of the clause as an interactive event. The speaker rests his case on theduke + has, and this is what the listener is called on to acknowledge.
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 realizing (i.e. in this case, for carrying out) the offer or command. For example, in I’ll open the gate, shall I?
(offer) the opening depends on me; in Stop shouting, you over there!(command) it is for you to desist or otherwise. Hence the typical Subject of an offer is the speaker, and that of a command is the person being addressed. (Note that this is not the same thing as the Actor.
The Subject in such clauses usually is the one that is also the Actor; but not necessarily so
— both offers and commands can be passive, as in:
I’ll be guided by your wishes, shall I?
Get (yourself) invited to their meeting, will you?
Here the Subject is dissociated from the Actor; but the Subject still specifies the one who is responsible for the success of the proposal.) This role is clearly recognizable in the case of offers and commands; but it is the same principle that is at work in statements and questions. Here too the Subject specifies the ‘responsible’ element; but in a proposition this means the one on which the validityof the information is made to rest. (It is important to express it in these terms rather than in terms of true or false. The relevant concept is that of exchangeability, setting something up so that it can be caught, returned, smashed, lobbed back, etc. Semantics has nothing to do with truth; it is concerned with consensus about validity, and consensus is negotiated in dialogue.)
Note the different Subjects in the examples in Figure 4-6.
The responses would be, respectively:
(a) . . . hasn’t he? Yes, he has. No, he hasn’t.
(b) . . . hasn’t she? Yes, she has. No, she hasn’t.
(c) . . . hasn’t it? Yes, it has. No, it hasn’t.
T h e M o o d e l e m e n t
So if we want to know why the speaker chooses this or that particular item as Subject of a proposition, there are two factors to be borne in mind. One is that, other things being equal, the same item will function both as Subject and as Theme. We saw in Chapter 3 that the unmarked Theme of a declarative clause is the Subject; so if the speaker wants to make the teapot his Theme, and to do so without the added implication of contrast that would be present if he made it a marked Theme (i.e. a Theme which is not also Subject, as in that teapot the duke gave to my aunt), he will choose an option with that teapotas Subject, namely that teapot was given by the duke to my aunt. Here there is an integrated choice of an item realizing two functions simultaneously: Subject in the proposition, and Theme in the message.
At the same time, however, the selection of this item as Subject has a meaning in its own right: the speaker is assigning to the teapot not only the function of starting point of the message but also that of ‘resting point’ of the argument. And this is brought out if we dissociate one from the other, selecting different items as Subject and as Theme. For example:
That teapot the duke gave to your aunt, didn’t he? — No he didn’t. He put it up for auction.
Here the teapot is Theme (‘now about that teapot:’), but the duke is Subject; it is the duke who is made to sustain the validity of the statement. Hence only he, not sheorit, can figure in the tag and the response. In the next the teapot is still the Theme, but the Subject has now switched to the aunt:
That teapot your aunt was given by the duke, wasn’t she? — No she wasn’t. She bought it at an auction.
Finally, let us reverse these two roles, having the aunt as Theme and the teapot as Subject:
To your aunt that teapot came as a gift from the duke, didn’t it? — No it didn’t. It was the first prize in a Christmas raffle.
4.2.2.3 A further note on the Subject
The functional category of Subject in English has always been rather problematic. As we noted above, the definition of Subject inherited from classical times was a morphological
the duke has given my aunt that teapot hasn’t he (a)
my aunt has been given that teapot by the duke hasn’t she (b)
that teapot has been given my aunt by the duke hasn’t it (c)
Subject Finite Finite Subject
Mood Residue Mood tag
Fig. 4-6 Variation of Subject in declarative clauses
one: it was that nominal element — ‘noun or pronoun’ — that is in the nominative case, and that displays person and number concord with the (finite) verb. But few traces remain either of case in the noun or of person and number in the verb.* What made the situation more problematic was that, in the structuralist tradition, the Subject was said to be a purely grammatical element, operating at the syntactic level but without semantic significance.
That something should be a grammatical function whose only function is to be a grammatical function is already somewhat anomalous; it becomes even more anomalous if it has no clear syntactic definition.
In fact the Subject in English has got a distinct identity, as we have pointed out; its identity can be established if we adopt a trinocular perspective, as suggested by the stratificational model of language (see Chapter 1, Section 1.3.3, p. 24). (i) From below, it is that nominal element (nominal group or nominalized phrase or clause) that is picked up by the pronoun in the mood tag.** (ii) From round about, it is that which combines with the Finite (operator) to form the Mood element in the clause; it is also that which constitutes the unmarked Theme if the mood is declarative, and which switches place with the Finite if the mood is yes/no interrogative. (iii) From above, it is that which carries the modal responsibility; that is, responsibility for the validity of what is being predicated (stated, questioned, commanded or offered) in the clause. This last point is the basic insight that informed the original, pre-structuralist interpretation of the Subject function, that in terms of a configuration of Subject + Predicate. The problem only arises when predication is interpreted in terms of truth value, since proposals — commands and offers — have no truth value. This mistake arose because predication was assumed to be an experiential relation; but it is not — it is an interpersonal relation, enacting the form of exchange between speaker and listener. The notion of validity relates to the arguing of the case, if it is a proposition, or to the putting into effect if it is a proposal. The Subject is that element in which the particular kind of validity (according to the mood) is being invested. Examples below.
So the Subject is a thick, well-rounded category along with all the other elements in the structure of the clause. The fact that it proves difficult to define does not distinguish it from Theme or Actor or Medium or many other equally pregnant categories. All are subject to the general principle of ineffability — they mean themselves (see Halliday, 1984b). The guiding axiom is the metafunctional one: just as the Theme is best understood by starting from the concept of the clause as a message, so the Subject is best understood by starting from the concept of the clause as an exchange, a move in dialogic interaction.
Each of the two can be thought of as an anchor; and we shall see in Chapter 5 that the
T h e M o o d e l e m e n t
* And in those pronouns which retain a distinct form of nominative case, this is no longer restricted to functioning as Subject, since in current usage the nominative also occurs in expressions such as you and I following a preposition (cf. ‘I think it’s best for he and I to have our discussion first, and I look forward to it,’
Bush said. [AP news report]). This is of course ‘bad grammar’ — the result of hypercorrection; but it has become the norm, and so further muddies the small remaining pool of morphologically recognizable Subjecthood.
** We have noted that existential there(as in there is,there isn’t), is not, in fact, an exception; this thereis a pronoun. The proportionality is:
the:that:it::a(n):one:there
This is explained more fully in Chapter 6, Section 6.2.1.1, p. 312.
Medium plays an analogous role in the clause as representation. (Medium rather than Actor, for reasons that will appear.) The notion of the Subject as a ‘purely syntactic’
element arose because it proved difficult to understand Subject + Predicate in an account of the grammar that recognized only the ideational kind of meaning; once we open up the other metafunctional spaces, just as Theme comes powerfully into the picture, so Subject becomes (equally powerful but) less mysterious. But to see the interpersonal significance of Subject, we have to take natural dialogic interaction seriously as a source of insight into the grammar; if we only focus on monologic discourse such as narrative, Subject will appear to be the same as Theme since Subject = Theme is the unmarked mapping (cf.
Chapter 2, Section 2.6).