Abstract:

The pair of sentences of "John is easy to please" and "John is eager to please" has attracted the attention of many grammarians since they were first cited by Chomsky in the 1950s. The literature to date indicates that the discussions of the pair have mainly been conducted within the framework of generative grammar. This paper looks at the pair within the framework of Halliday's systemic functional grammar. It illustrates the differences between the two by taking a metafunctional approach to the examination of the meanings realized by the expressions. It shows that the two sentences are similar only in form and that, like the Chomskyan approach, the Hallidayan approach is able to explain the differences between these two sentences.