Editing Michael Halliday (section)

===Grammar as systemic===
Halliday's early paper shows that the notion of "[[Linguistic system|system]]" has been part of his theory from its origins. Halliday explains this preoccupation in the following way: "It seemed to me that explanations of linguistic phenomena needed to be sought in relationships among systems rather than among structures – in what I once called "deep paradigms" – since these were essentially where speakers made their choices".<ref name=Meaning>Halliday, M. A. K. forthcoming. "Meaning as Choice". In Fontaine, L., Bartlett, T., and O'Grady, G. ''Choice: Critical Considerations in Systemic Functional Linguistics'', Cambridge University Press, p. 1.</ref> Halliday's "systemic grammar" is a semiotic account of grammar, because of this orientation to choice. Every linguistic act involves choice, and choices are made on many scales. Systemic grammars draw on [[system networks]] as their primary representation tool as a consequence. For instance, a major clause must display some structure that is the formal realisation of a choice from the system of "voice", i.e. it must be either "middle" or "effective", where "effective" leads to the further choice of "operative" (otherwise known as 'active') or "receptive" (otherwise known as "passive").