1. System as Structured Potential
In the relational ontology, a system is not a set of abstract categories or latent forms, but a structured potential — a theory of what can be instantiated. Whether in language (as a system network), physics (as a field or wave-function), or climate (as the range of weather patterns), a system construes the possibility space of meaning.
A system is a construal of the conditions under which meaning may unfold.It is a theory of the event, not its antecedent cause.
2. Instance as Actualised Configuration
An instance is an unfolding, situated configuration of meaning. It is not derived from the system in a generative or compositional sense, but related to it perspectivally: the instance actualises part of what the system construes as possible.
An instance is a meaning-event:not the execution of a rule, but the emergence of a pattern within constraints.
3. Instantiation as Perspectival Relation
Instantiation is not a process in time, nor a mechanism of derivation. It is a perspectival cut — the shift from viewing a configuration as potential (theory) to viewing it as actual (event). The cut is semiotic and ontological, not temporal.
Instantiation is the relation from theory to event —from structured potential to meaningful unfolding.
4. Construal as Condition of Reality
All meaning is construed. There is no reality apart from construed meaning — whether through perception, imagination, affect, intention, or language.
A phenomenon is experience construed as meaning (first-order).
A metaphenomenon is a phenomenon construed as a higher-order meaning (second-order).
A system is a construal of possible phenomena — a meaning of meanings.
Construal is not merely epistemological.It is ontologically constitutive of what is real.
5. Implications for SFL and Physics
In Systemic Functional Linguistics, a system is not a classification but a theory of the clause as it may be instantiated.
In quantum physics, the wave-function is not a physical object but a theory of the possible measurement outcomes.
In relational ontology, these are all construed systems of meaning: theories of what may be.
6. Conclusion
To instantiate is to shift from theory to event.To construe is to make that shift intelligible.Reality is the meaning that emerges across that perspectival cut.
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