The Traditional Definition

The traditional definition of transitivity has been discussed in previous lectures (for example: [1], [2], [3], [4]). You may also want to take a look at the entry Transitive versus Intransitive Verbs in Jack Lynch's electronic book Grammar and Style Notes or What Is Transitivity from the Summer Institute of Linguistics' Glossary of Linguistic Terms.

Transitivity is normally understood as the grammatical feature which indicates if a verb takes a direct object. By now, you should know very well that if the verb

• takes a direct object, then it is described as transitive, and
• it is called intransitive if it does not;
• an extension of this concept is the ditransitive verb, which takes both a direct and an indirect object.

Halliday's Approach

The concept of transitivity which is found in Halliday's Introduction however, represents a further development of the concept. In Halliday's conception in his Introduction to Functional Grammar, whether a verb takes or does not take a direct object is not a prime consideration. Halliday's conception is also useful for stylistic analysis, and will be explained further in this and the next lectures. However, the traditional conception of transitivity does continue to be useful in stylistic analysis, and it may thus be worthwhile to indicate the connection between the two approaches to transitivity, which I have done in today's lecture.

In the concept of transitivity found in Halliday's Introduction, there are three components of what Halliday calls a transitivity process:

(i) the process itself
(ii) participants in the process
(iii) circumstances associated with the process

• The process is realized by a verbal group,
• the participant(s) by (a) nominal group(s) (although, as noted later, there may be exceptions here), and
• the circumstance(s) by (an) adverbial group(s) or prepositional phrase(s),
  as illustrated in Halliday's Table 5(1) in the earlier editions and Table 5(2) in the third, which is given below:

In relation to the above, it may also be useful to view the elements of the clause not only in terms of groups and phrases, but also in terms of the S-P-C-A structure, as illustrated below:
 

Table 8.2

the student	reads	the book	carefully	in the library
participant	process	participant	circumstance	circumstance	(transitivity)
nominal group	verbal group	nominal group	adverbial group	prepositional phrase	(class)
Subject	Predicator	Complement	Adjunct	Adjunct	(clause structure)

As you may know from my previous lectures, the subject and predicator are the most likely elements to appear in a clause. We may also note that the existence of the complement depends on the usage of either a transitive verb or an intensive verb which requires a nominal group or adjective / adjective phrase following it.

The presence or absence of the complement may in turn determine whether there are one or two participants in the clause, in the sense that (in most cases)

• if there is no complement, there is one participant, and
• if there is one complement, there are two participants.

The possibilities in the conventional distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs, in relation to Halliday's analysis of transitivity are illustrated in the examples below. (N.B.: '(i)' indicates an intransitive verb, whereas '(t)' indicates a transitive verb. If a number is added to a participant, '[1]' refers to the first participant, whereas '[2]' refers to the second participant).

(a)

Table 8.3

the boy	runs(i)
Participant	Process
Subject	Predicator

(b)

Table 8.4

the boy	kicks(t)	the ball
Participant [1]	Process	Participant [2]
Subject	Predicator	Complement

(c)

Table 8.5

the boy	runs(i)	on the road
Participant	Process	Circumstance
Subject	Predicator	Adjunct

(d)

Table 8.6

the boy	kicks(t)	the ball	on the field
Participant [1]	Process	Participant [2]	Circumstance
Subject	Predicator	Complement	Adjunct

The six processes involved in Halliday's approach to transitivity are best illustrated in Table 5(27) from the third edition, which is reproduced with a slight modification below: the round brackets indicate that the second participant which they enclose is optional.¹
 

Note on learning the above table → For the sake of simplicity, you may want to concentrate on the first column initially, followed by the second (which in a way explains the first), then the third. You should go to the fourth column only when you are clear about the two earlier columns.

Some Notes and Further Observations on the Above Table

One of the things one can notice when one looks at the above table, is the number of (direct) participants involved for each of the processes:

• Behavioural and existential processes have only one participant each.
• The other processes may have two.
• We can also note that the second participants of material and relational processes may or may not be present.²

• Firstly, the participants are usually represented by nominal groups, and
• Secondly, processes with single participants make use of intransitive verbs, whilst those with two participants make use of transitive verbs (except for relational processes which make use of intensive verbs).

Passivisation and Participant Positions

As you know, most clauses with transitive verbs may be passivised. For our purpose here, passivization changes the roles of the participants:

• the second participant becomes the subject, whilst
• the first participant becomes the adjunct, as illustrated below.

• The actor (or first participant) and subject occur in the same position only in the active voice.
• In the passive voice, they occur in different positions.

• by the Subject in the active voice and
• by the Adjunct in the passive voice.

Table 8.8

a) Active Voice				b) Passive Voice
the boy	saw	the ghost		the ghost	was seen	by the boy
Participant[1]	Process	Participant[2]		Participant[2]	Process	Participant[1]
Subject	Predicator	Complement		Subject	Predicator	Adjunct

Some Notes on the Behavioural Process

It should be mentioned here that behavioural processes stand between material and mental processes. Partly as a result of this, some of you may find it difficult to distinguish

• between behavioural process verbs and material process verbs on the one hand, and
• between behavioural process verbs and mental process verbs on the other.

• intransitive (it has only one participant) and
• indicates an activity in which both the physical and mental aspects are inseparable and indispensable to it.

Some Notes on the Mental Process

We should also note that a mental process is either

• transitive, or alternatively,
• the target of the mental activity indicated by the verb is either implicit, or mentioned in the adjunct that follows the verb.

Some Notes on the Material Process

Material process verbs, like mental process verbs, can either be transitive or intransitive. If a verb which describes physical action is transitive, it is virtually definite that it is a material, and not a behavioural process verb. For intransitive verbs, one way to determine whether an action is a material or behavioural process is to look at the actor:

• If the first participant of the intransitive verb denoting physical action is non-human, it is usually a material process verb.
• If the first participant of the intransitive verb is human, the process is
  • material if the verb is decidedly actional, or
  • behavioural if the verb is not only actional, but in some way dependent on the person's emotive, sensory or cognitive responses as well.

Notes

1. The final column in the corresponding Tables 5(7) and 5(6) from the earlier editions of Halliday's Introduction is not found, and is added from the third edition to the above table . Although there are some difficulties in the first edition on whether the attribute in attributive relational processes is a participant, Halliday does appear to regard it as such in the second and third editions. Back to earlier position..

2. With regard to material processes, cf. the examples 'the lions sprang' and `the lion caught the tourist' found in Halliday's book. Both of them are material process clauses; but the former has one participant, whilst the latter has two. Back to earlier position..

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Texts to Analyse

Passage from Katherine Mansfield's 'Feuille d'Album'
Carl Sandburg's 'A.E.F'
Emily Dickinson's 'The Soul Selects Her Own Society'
Hart Crane's 'North Labrador'

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Other Literary Stylistics Pages EL3221 Programme EL5221 Programme EL5221 Blog Key Terms in Literature 1. Introduction 2. Nouns and Verbs 3. Adjectives, Adverbs & the Clause 4. Sounds of Poetry 1 5. Sounds of Poetry 2 6. The Clause 7. Mood and Modality 1 11. Point of View in Narrative Fiction 12. Clause Complexing 1 13. Clause Complexing 2 14. Sound Features in Prose 15. Theme-Rheme and Given-New 16. Theme-Rheme and Given-New & Downranking 19. Speech and Thought Presentation 1 20. Speech and Thought Presentation 2 21. Metaphor 22. Pragmatic Analysis of Literature 1 23. Pragmatic Analysis of Literature 2 24. Pragmatic Analysis of Literature 3

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Last revised: 28 May 2008
© Ismail S. Talib 1995-2008.