Russell (1961: 590):
The third book of the Essay deals with words, and is concerned, in the main, to show that what metaphysicians present as knowledge about the world is purely verbal. Chapter III, 'Of General Terms', takes up an extreme nominalist position on the subject of universals. All things that exist are particulars, but we can frame general ideas, such as 'man', that are applicable to many particulars, and to these general ideas we give names. Their generality consists solely in the fact that they are, or may be, applicable to a variety of particular things; in their own being, as ideas in our minds, they are just as particular as everything else that exists.
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In Systemic Functional Linguistics, 'knowledge about the world' — including particular things and universals — is experience construed as meaning, which can be realised as wording. Meanings are the projections of mental processes; wordings are the projections of verbal processes. The relation between particulars and universals — between instance and type — is one of class membership, which is realised in the grammar as intensive attributive relational clauses.
particular
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universal
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Carrier
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Process: relational: attributive: intensive
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Attribute
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