tenor. [theoretical] One of the components of context. The role relationship between the interactants in a speech situation. It includes relations of formality, power, and affect. Tenor influences interpersonal choices in the linguistic system. For instance, the strategy chosen for issuing a command depends largely on the tenor of the relationship. => LexCart Section 1.6.1.

text, text. [theoretical] As a systemic term, text refers to a semantic unit; it is a stretch of language functioning - doing a job - in context. As language functioning in context, a text is an instance of the linguistic system. Note that a text can be either spoken or written. => LexCart Section 1.5.

textual. [thetorical: metafunction] One of the systemic metafunctions - the resources for presenting information as text in context. It includes the resources of theme, information, conjunction, substitution-ellipsis and reference. => LexCart Section 1.3, 2.3.6.

THEME. [descriptive: lexicogrammar x textual x systemic x clause rank] Textual clause systems, including THEME SELECTION, THEME PREDICATION, and others. These systems provide options for giving certain elements of the clause textual prominence as local context or point of departure and other elements non-prominence, realized as Theme ^ Rheme; certain other features may be added to this status, such as identification. => LexCart Section 6.2.

Theme. [descriptive: lexicogrammar x textual x structural x clause rank] Textual clause function: the point of departure of the clause as message. It sets up the local context for each clause. This local context often relates to the method of development of the text: the Theme is selected in such a way that it indicates how the clause relates to this method and contributes to the identification of the current step in the development. The term theme has an entirely different meaning in formal grammars (as does the term thematic roles), which has nothing to do with the long tradition of work on theme in Prague School linguistics and other functional traditions. => IFG Chapter 3. => LexCart Section 6.2.

theme. (i) In functional linguistics, following the Prague School, an aspect of Functional Sentence Perspective. (ii) In formal grammar, nowadays particularly Government and Binding theory but following Gruber (1965), a particular case role in the case frame of a verb. The term theme is also used outside grammar, as in the 'theme' of a story.

THEME PREDICATION. [descriptive: lexicogrammar x textual x systemic x clause rank] One of the textual clause systems of THEME. It provides the option of imposing an additional layer of thematic organization on the clause so as to set up the Theme as an identifier, typically selected from a set of potential alternatives, as in it was the dog that died (... 'not the cat') (instead of the unmarked the dog died). For example:

A: There's a lot more in grammar than people notice. People always notice the lexis.
B: Yes.
A: Lots has been done about that - but I mean you can only get so far and so much fun out of 'pavement', 'sidewalk', etcetera.
B: Mm.
A: It's the grammar "where the fun is'.
B: //1 Yes // 4 it's the grammar "which is interesting' // (CEC: 255)

Cleft or it-cleft in formal grammar. => IFG Section 3.7, 59-61. => LexCart Section 6.2.1.4.

THEME IDENTIFICATION. [descriptive: lexicogrammar x textual x systemic x clause rank] One of the textual clause systems of THEME. It provides the option of imposing an alternative constituency organization of the clause on the model of an identifying clause, where the thematic constituent is explicitly identified with the rhematic constituent, as in what we want is Whatneys (instead of the unmarked We want Whatneys). Example:

Let's be quite specific. They write articles that taunt us and mock us to make us look silly. We write a reply that makes each writer of those articles look sillier. They refuse to publish our reply. We say, in that case we will limit your circulation. We haven't blacked them out. We reduce them to a few thousand copies. What we stop them from doing is to sell advertisements. The fact that they know that I reserve the right to reply has been an educating experience for the correspondents. (Lee Kuan Yew, in Time)

Pseudo-cleft or wh-cleft in formal grammar. => IFG p. 41-4. => LexCart Section 6.2.1.6.

THEME MATTER. [descriptive: lexicogrammar x textual x systemic x clause rank] One of the textual clause systems of THEME. It provides the option of specifying a marked topical Theme as a purely thematic element not serving a transitivity role - often as an elaboration of something inintroduced earlier in the discouse, after some distance in the text. This type of Theme is typically "picked up" cohesively in the clause, by reference or lexical cohesion. In writing it appears with a marker such as as for, as to, with respect to, regarding; but in speech, it typically occurs by itself. Example:

a: If you felt you could have got honours ...
A: no. I - well, maybe I was slightly ... cos there was this other friend of mine that knows about the same amount as me and he actually got an honours viva - you have to have another viva to get honours - and four people went for it and two got it and this friend of mine he didn't get it and I mean I couldn't have got it either: the questions he had got in therapeutics and that he was asked I wouldn't have known either and the questions that the other chap who got it was asked I wouldn't have known. You know, I didn't know it in as much depth as that, so I wouldn't have got it anyway. (CEC: 600)

THEME SUBSTITUTION. [descriptive: lexicogrammar x textual x systemic x clause rank] One of the textual clause systems of THEME. It provides the option of replaying the Theme at the end of the clause as an 'afterthought': they're such darlings, your children. Example:

I was an undergraduate here, of very ripe years, until last July and I went back to my old job in the Civil Service and I found it so dull that I got this lecturing job in a teacher's training college, which is quite fun. I mean they're not university calibre, obviously, the students on the whole, but in some ways they're more fun ... (CEC: 154)

The transformational term is right dislocation. => LexCart Section 6.2.1.5.

tone group. [descriptive: phonology x rank: tone group] The highest-ranking unit on the phonological rank scale of English. A tone group carries an intonation contour (a 'tone' or 'medolody') and is the point of origin of two systems that determine its shape, TONE (the direction of the pitch movement) and TONICITY (the placment of the major pitchmovement). The structure of the tone group is (Pretonic ^) Tonic, which are realized by feet (units at the rank next below on the phonological rank scale). => IFG Ch. 8. => LexCart Section 5.1.3.

topic. The subject matter of a clause; what it is about - often as one member of the pair topic + comment. Topic corresponds roughly to the experiential part of Theme, Topical theme, in Halliday's analysis of English, but it typically excludes textual and interpersonal Themes. (Sometimes the notion of given or known is also included in topic, but never in Halliday's Theme.) Cf. IFG p. 39.

transformational relations. Terms sometimes used to describe paradigmatic relations, systemic agnation, as transformations between structures; for instance, voice can be seen as a transformational relation between active and passive clauses. Transformational relations often correspond to systems in systemic-functional grammar - systems are part of the paradigmatic organization of grammar.

transitivity models. [descriptive: lexicogrammar x ideational x systemic & structural x (typically) clause rank] General model for organizing the configuration of a process plus its participants. Halliday (1967, 1967/8 etc.) discusses two transitivity models in relation to English, the transitive model and the ergative one. The transitive model is one of extension or impact: a process is acted out by one participant, the actor (the lion ran), and it may extend ('transcend') to another participant, the goal (the lion hunted the tourist), and it may be initiated by yet another participant, the initiator (hunger made the lion hunt the tourist):



The fundamental question is whether the process the Actor engages in extends to (impacts) a Goal (transitive) or not (intransitive).

The ergative model is one of external causation: the fundamental question is whether the actualization of the combination of Process + Medium is caused externally by an Agent (the soldier marched the prisoners) or not (the prisoners marched):



=> IFG Section 5.8. => LexCart Section 4.1.2.

transitivity functions (roles). [descriptive: lexicogrammar x experiential x structural x clause rank] The functions in the experiential structure of the clause - its transitivity structure (clause as representation): process, participants, and circumstances. Outside of systemic linguistics, case roles and semantic roles have been used for different but related interpretations of the same area of language. One difference has to do with the level (stratum) at which these roles are posited: in systemic theory they are at the level of grammar, whereas outside systemic theory they are usually treated as part of (lexical) semantics nowadays. In systemic theory, there are correlates at the semantic level; but both semantics and grammar are needed in the interpretation of transitivity, for instance to handle grammatical metaphor in this area. => LexCart Section 4.1.1.