NLP Workbook by Joseph O'Connor

Author:Joseph O'Connor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-11-24T16:00:00+00:00

Unspecified referential index (missing persons)

A referential index is the person or thing that takes action or is affected by an action. When this is unspecified, you are left with something being done but nobody doing it, for example:

‘Mistakes were made.’

‘One likes to walk in a garden.’ (This form is the British royal family’s favourite Meta Model pattern.)

‘Nobody likes me.’

‘They don’t care.’

Listen for words like ‘him’, ‘her’, ‘they’ and ‘one’.

Passive verbs are a good example of this pattern. A passive verb says that something was done rather than a person did something. ‘John hit me’ is an active verb with a specified referential index (John). ‘I was hit’ is a passive verb with no referential index (nobody did the hitting – at least in the sentence). Passive verbs take away responsibility. They are a linguistic vanishing trick – the person responsible disappears. Perhaps because of this they are very popular in politics.

This pattern is also easy to question. Ask for the missing person.

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