Goal or Range?

In Systemic Functional Linguistics tradition, when discussing the transitivity of a clause, we need to identify three items: the process, participants, and circumstances. One common difficulty occurs when we analyze material processes; that is the issue of one type of participants. As you are all aware, in material process there are Actor and either Goal or Range.  It is quite easy to identify the Actor, but it is not always so for Goal and Range. This post briefly elaborates the differences.

The very clear difference between the two is that Range is not an entity, while Goal is an entity. What do we mean with entity, then? Please keep this question in mind until the end of this post. Second, range is an extension of the process. Let me give an example.

(a) I bought a new guitar last night.

In clause (a), a new guitar is Goal. This is because it is the participant that is affected by the process done by the Actor I. This is not a Range because it is entity. That is, the Actor I does something to another thing. Besides, it is not the extension of the process bought. Let us compare this clause to clause (b) below:

(b) I played guitar this morning.

In clause (b), guitar is now Range. It is not an entity. It is also the extension of the process play. It is not an entity in the sense that we cannot see or touch the thing. It is abstract.

Now, let us see clause (c) below.

(c) Agus is writing a novel.

We understand here that Agus is the Actor, is writing is the process, and a novel is the Goal. A novel now is an entity as the result of the process. Some other clauses with similar types as this clauses are as follows.

(d) John is cooking soup.

(e) Shinta prepared the report.

(f) Susi made the pamphlet.

But none of the following has a Goal.

(g) They climb a mountain every year.

(h) They are attending a meeting.

Well, we can now differentiate Goal from Range.