Halliday reminds us that system in systemic functional linguistics is shorthand for system-&-process. This is more than a terminological note; it captures a profound insight: a system is never merely a static repertoire of possibilities — it is always already a field of dynamic inclination.
Relational ontology provides the conceptual tools to generalise this insight far beyond language. Potential is not inert. It is readiness — a structured leaning, a posture toward actualisation that exists prior to construal. Readiness and tendency are not metaphorical: they are the ontological condition of coherence, the vector by which systems become manifest.
The Duality of System and Process
Potential reveals a dual aspect in every system:
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Systemic: the structured field of possibilities, the horizon from which events (phenomena) can be cut.
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Processual: the leaning, the inclination, the ongoing tendency toward actualisation.
This duality echoes Halliday’s insight: linguistic systems are always simultaneously system (possibility) and process (selection). The Inclination Turn extends this grammar to all scales of reality.
Physical, Biological, and Social Systems
The systemic-processual duality is universal:
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Physical systems: a particle field or energy configuration is structured potential (system) and a leaning toward coherent actualisation (process).
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Biological systems: an organism’s abilities and tendencies are its systemic repertoire, and its ongoing inclinations constitute the process of living and adapting.
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Social systems: cultural patterns are structured possibilities, and their coordinated tendencies produce emergent alignment and change.
Language, as Halliday emphasised, is a particular manifestation of this principle. Every clause, every pattern of meaning, is a momentary equilibrium in a field of readiness — a local alignment of inclinations that produces coherent construal.
From The Becoming of Possibility to the Inclination Turn
The Becoming of Possibility examined the conditions under which potential is actualised — the framework that allows construal to cut into reality. The Inclination Turn adds depth by highlighting the dynamic aspect: readiness is not passive; it leans, it tends, it inclines.
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The Becoming of Possibility answers what makes actualisation possible.
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The Inclination Turn answers how actualisation happens — as the field of readiness inclines into coherence.
Together, they reveal reality as a living choreography: potential is both structure and motion, poised and leaning, theory and process.
Implications for Ontology and Ethics
Recognising potential as inclination reshapes how we think about agency, social formation, and even ethics. Every act, every perception, every pattern of meaning is an alignment of readiness. Ethics is not about imposing outcomes but about tuning ourselves to the ongoing inclination of reality, participating with awareness in the leaning of the world toward coherence.
Coda
“Potential leans before it is cut; reality unfolds in the posture of its own readiness.”
Halliday’s system-&-process insight, when read through relational ontology, becomes more than a linguistic principle: it is a generalised grammar of becoming, revealing the dynamic structure of reality itself. Across physics, biology, semiotics, and society, the world is inclined — always ready, always tending — and we are participants in its perpetual choreography.
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