Johanna,
I can't quarrel for a moment about your statement that cognitive grammar 
does a better job than SFG in fine-tuning our understanding of the 
participants involved in a process if only because I don't know much as 
yet about cognitive grammar. I look forward to learning more. For the 
record, though, I wouldn't want those who are not aware of SFG to get 
the impression that "process" and "participant" are not well refined 
concepts. I gave enough information about them to help make my (our) 
point that the kinds of participants are dictated by the nature of the 
verb. SFG, of course, refines these categories in ways that I (and my 
students) find enormously useful.
One other point. Any one of the participants in these processes can 
enter into the grammatical subject role. The nature of the verb dictates 
the kind of participant, but our desire to focus on one part of the 
process or another dictates the kinds of statements we evolve. SFG is 
particularly good at helping us see that flexibility as an aid in the 
making of meaning..
"My brother gave my mother that old car." "That old car was given to my 
mother by my brother." "My mother was given that old car by my brother." 
"My brother gave that old car to our mom."
My point, I guess, is that we run into trouble if we think of 
complements as dictated by the nature of the verb (like indirect object 
or beneficiary, which only certain verbs will support) and as occurring 
in the predicate, precisely because that doesn't allow us to acknowledge 
the flexibility available to us as we construct meaningful discourse.
I'm sorry I introduced this as a side note to a point that Brock wasn't 
interested in (since his confusion was some place else.) I'm glad one or 
two people found it useful.

Craig
Johanna Rubba wrote:

>One more comment on this sentence -- Brock comments on the relatively
>greater processing difficulty of 'more people don't' over 'so few people
>do'. I think this has to do with default values along scales like 'more
>--- few'. These scales should be neutral, but people tend to assign the
>default value to the positive end. We don't ask how short people are; we
>ask how tall they are. We don't ask how short a stick is, we ask how
>long it is. Even if someone says 'there was a small amount of water in
>the cup', we are likely to further inquire 'how much, exactly?' rather
>than 'how little, exactly?' The latter would only be chosen, I think, if
>the context were already focused on there being less in the cup than
>expected. Similarly, if someone says 'my daughter is getting way too
>thin', one is more likely to say 'Oh, how much does she weigh, then?'
>rather than 'how little does she weigh', even though the context makes
>clear that the weight is less than desired. Think of a scale as a
>thermometer: there's a part of the tube that is filled with mercury and
>a part above it that is empty. 'How much' highlights the positive extent
>of the mercury, while 'how little' highlights the the empty part of the
>tube, and the difference between the empty part and the full part.
>
>Therefore the combination of the positive 'more' with the negative
>'don't' is contrary to expecations how the defaults work.
>
>As to Cognitive Grammar vs. systemic-functional grammar, as a partisan
>of CG, and having read at least an introduction to SFG, I find that CG
>can further refine concepts of SFG such as 'participant' and 'process'.
>CG introduces further distinctions that, I think, help tease out
>important differences better than SFG does.
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics 
>English Department, California Polytechnic State University
>One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 
>Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
>• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •      Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
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