CHAPTER 6

The grammar of
interpersonal meaning:
MOOD
English Grammar II
 In order to exchange
interpersonal meanings,
people take parte into
conversations.
There are speakers
that speech roles
Initiating or
Responding
English Grammar II
 Initiating move

Giving Demanding

Goods and
Services or
Information
English Grammar II
 Responding move

Supporting Confronting
Initiating speech function Responding speech function

Supporting Confronting

Offer Acceptance Rejection

Command Compliance Refuse
Statement Acknowledgement Contradiction
Question Answer disclaimer

English Grammar II
A clause consists of two parts:
• MOOD Interpersonal meaning
Subject (nominal group)
Finite (first element of the
verbal group)
Fucntion : to hold something of the
propotion in the order to make
it arguable.
Temporal finite verbal operators.
Finite modal operators.
English Grammar II
• RESIDUE Less important in the clause
than MOOD

Predicator (convert verb)

Complement (affected
participant)
Adjunct (added information)

English Grammar II
• Polarity Positiveness

Negativeness

• Modality Degrees of likeliness /

unlikeliness
Modalization and
Modulation

English Grammar II
Chapter 6

English Grammar II
• Mood is a system through which interpersonal meanings are realized within
the conversation. It consists of two parts: (1) the subject, which is a nominal
group, and (2) the finite operator, which is part of a verbal group, and the
remainder of those parts are called residue.

English Grammar II
 The Interpersonal Metafunction

• Language involves interactions where we initiate or respond to the act of

giving or demanding for goods-and-services or information. Thus, Halliday
and Mathiessen (2004) regard this function as one of exchange. The principle
grammatical system here is the MOOD network, within which is a choice
between imperative and indicative. If indicative is chosen, there is a choice
between declarative and interrogative. These choices are realised by
manipulating the Mood element

English Grammar II
• The Mood carries the interpersonal functions of the clause and consists
of Subject+Finite. The Subject is realised by a nominal group that the speaker
gives responsibility to for the validity of the clause (ibid), while the Finite is
realised by the first of the verbal group. The rest of the verbal group is
the Predicator, which forms part of the Residue. A clause thus consists of
Mood+Residue. The Mood element can be identified in Mood tags
(pedagogically, question tags), and is also used in short answers, the Finite
being the core that is bandied about in exchanges because it carries the
validity of the proposition (Thompson, 2004).

English Grammar II
Josh Can Speak English

Subject mood Finite

Josh Can Speak English Can’t He?

Subject Finite Predicator Complement Finite subject

mood Residue mood tag

English Grammar II
• The giving of goods-and-services is labelled an offer, usually realised by
Finite^Subjectsignalling an interrogative, but can also be non-linguistic (I
present you biscuits). A command demanding goods-and-services takes the
imperative, where the Mood is non-existent, although the assumed Subject
‘you’ appears in a marked imperative (see below). Goods-and-services are
tangible commodities or activities, and responses to proposals (offers and
commands) can be non-linguistic and limited to either accepting orrefusing.
Language merely facilitates the success of the exchange.

English Grammar II
• The exchange of information involves an intangible, verbal commodity and
language is the end in itself. The giving of information often takes the form of
a statement, a declarative denoted by Subject^Finite. The demanding of
information is expressed by a question realised by an interrogative.
Statements and questions (propositions) can be argued with, denied, adjusted,
etc., and the response is varied and has to be linguistic, unlike proposals.
• The position and existence of both Subject and Finite therefore indicates
whether a clause is declarative (statement), interrogative (question, offer) or
imperative (command)
• However, declaratives and interrogatives could also be polite requests for
goods-and-services since basic commands might be considered Face
Threatening Acts, and thus highly impolite (Brown and Levinson, 1987).

English Grammar II
• Halliday (1994: 179) pointsoutthatthereisrealization of
threemetafunctionalcomponents of meaning, i.e.ideational, interpersonal and
textual, throughoutthegrammar of a language.
• The three metafunctions are realized simultaneously.
• The structure of a clause, for example, integrates its functions at the same
time in its MOOD system (interpersonal), its TRANSITIVITY system
(ideational) and its THEME system (textual).
• The system provides systemic options in wording and its grammatical feature
has a function in construing systemic options in meaning.

English Grammar II
• The two important roles played by the lexico-grammar: to allow us to mean
anything we like, and to allow us to make more than one meaning at a
time.

English Grammar II
 Semantic of interaction
• Halliday (1984, 1985a) approaches the grammar of interaction from a
semantic perspective. He points out that whenever we use language to
interact, one of the things we are doing with it is establishing a relationship
between us: between the person speaking now and the person who will
probably speak next.
• To establish this relationship we take turns at speaking, we take on different
roles in the exchange. The basic speech roles we can take on are: giving and
demanding. We also choose “commodity”. The choice is between
exchanging information, goods or services. The 4 basic move types of
statement, question, offer and command are speech functions. (Halliday).

English Grammar II
 Speech function pairs (initiations and
responses)
Initiating speech function Responding speech function
Offer Supporting Confroting
Acceptance Rejection
Command Compliance Refusal
Statement Acknowledgement Contradiction
Question Answer Disclaimer

English Grammar II
Speech functions and typical mood of cause
Speech function Typical mood in clause
Statement Declarative
Question Interrogative mood
Command Imperative mood
Offer Modulated interrogative mood
Answer Elliptical declarative mood
Acknowledgement Elliptical declarative mood
Accept Minor clause
Compliance Minor clause

English Grammar II
 Exchanging information – The grammatical
structure of propositions

• Mood
• Residue
• Polarity (either yes or no)
• Finite: a verbal-type element
• Subject: a nominal-type element

English Grammar II
 Constituents of the Mood
• Two essential functional constituents of the MOOD component of the clause: the Subject and the Finite
• Subject: it realizes the thing by reference to which the proposition can be affirmed or denied. It
provides the person or thing in whom is vested the success or failure of the proposition, what is “held
responsible”.
• Finite: Halliday (1985a) defines the Finite in terms of its function in the clause to make the proposition
definite, to anchor the proposition in a way that we can argue about it.
• Temporal Finite Verbal operators: these words anchor the proposition by reference to time. They give
tense to the Finite—either past, present or future. E.g. I learnt English language from this guy.
• Finite Modal Operators: these words anchor the proposition not by reference to time but by reference to
Modality. E.g. Henry James could write. The Finite, then, carries either tense or modality to make the
proposition arguable. The Finite also consists of the semantic feature of polarity. E.g.
Henry James was writing “Bostanian”----positive polarity vsHenry James was not writing “The
Bostania”----negative polarity.
I’m reading Henry James. --------a finite clause
Reading Henry James ------ non-finite clause
To read Henry James ----- non-finite (I finitive)
English Grammar II
 Constituents of RESIDUE
• Predicator: is the lexical or content part of the verbal group.
• Complement: is defined as a non-essential participant in the clause, a
participant somehow effected by the main argument of the proposition.
• Adjuncts: clause elements which contribute some additional information to
the clause. They can be identified as elements which do not have the potential
to become Subject—i.e. they are not nominal elements, but are adverbial, or
prepositional.
• Circumstantial adjuncts (adding experiential meaning)
• Modal adjuncts (adding interpersonal meaning)---mood adjunct & polarity
adjuncts (yes or no), & comment adjuncts, vocative adjuncts
• Textual Adjuncts (adding textual meaning)
Conjunctive adjuncts & continuity adjuncts
English Grammar II
 Interrogatives
• English offers two main structures for asking questions: Polar
interrogatives (yes/no questions) or wh- interrogatives.
• Polar interrogatives (yes/no questions)
E.g. Are you the man?
Finite subject complement
Mood Residue
Wh-interrogative
WH element is always conflated another element of clause structure.
E.g. Who wrote “Bostonians”?
Wh-subject finite predicator complement
Mood Residue
English Grammar II
 Exclamatives
• They are used to express emotions such as surprise, disgust, worry, etc. are a
blend of interrogative and declarative patterns.
E.g. What a great writer Henry James was!
WH/complement subject finite

English Grammar II
 Modality
• Proposition: is something that can be argued, but argued in a particular way. When we
exchange information we are arguing about whether something is or is not. Information
is something that can be affirmed or denied.In between these two extremes are a number
of choices of degree of certainty, or of usuality: sometimes is perhaps, something isn’t
for sure.. Something is sometimes or something isn’t always. These intermediate
positions are what we refer to as modalization.
• Modalization: When modality is used to argue about the probability of frequency of
propositions, it is referred to modalization. It involves the expression of two kinds of
meanings: probability (likelihood) and usuality (the frequency). Modalization is the
expression of the speaker’s attitude towards what s/he’s saying. It is the way the speaker
gets into the text: expressing a judgement about the certainty, likelihood, or frequency of
something happening or being. Both modal operators and mood adjuncts can be
classified according to the degree of certainty or usuality they express: i.e. low (night,
possibly, sometimes), median (may, probably, usually), high (must, certainly, always).
• Modulation: when modality is used to argue about the obligation or inclination of
proposals, it is referred to as modulation
English Grammar II