D. discusses the phenomenon of transitivity in discourse as it is accounted for by Hopper and Thompson (1980: 'Transitivity in grammar and discourse') and Lakoff (1977: 'Linguistic gestalts'). He argues that a semantic interpretation along the lines suggested by Lakoff is more viable than the discourse-functional approach of Hopper and Thompson, but that it should be seen as reflecting underlying cognitive representational schemata.