The Range is the element that specifies the range or scope of the process. Examples are 'a song' in 'sing a song of sixpence', 'croquet' in 'do you play croquet with the Queen today?', 'an awful blunder' in 'Big Bird’s made an awful blunder'. This is the meaning behind the classical category of cognate object, so-called because in the instances first examined by grammarians it was in fact cognate to the verb, as 'song' is to 'sing'. Cognateness is not a necessary feature; most Range elements in English are not cognate to the verb even if they are as close in meaning as, for example, 'game' and 'play'. But they do stand in a particular semantic relationship to the Process, as suggested by the term Range: they define its co-ordinates, so to speak.
- Halliday (1985), a pag.134

A Range may occur in material, behavioural, mental and verbal processes. (a) In a material process, the Range either (i) expresses the domain over which the process takes place, or (ii) expresses the process itself, either in general or in specific terms.
- Halliday (1985), a pag.134

The Range may be an entity which exists indipendently of the process but which indicates the domain over which the process takes place [...] The Range may be not an entity at all but rather another name for the process. Consider 'John and Mary were playing tennis', where 'tennis' is Range. Tennis is clearly not an entity; there is no such thing as tennis other than the act of playing it. Likewise with 'sing a song'; if we look up 'song' in the dictionary we are likely to find it defined as ʻact of singingʼ, just as game is ʻact of playingʼ.
- Halliday (1985), a pag.134-135

The Range in a material process typically occurs in ʻmiddleʼ clauses, those in which there is only one direct participant – hence in which there is Actor only, no Goal. As a result it is not always easy to distinguish a Range from a Goal. Semantically a Range element is not in any very obvious sense a participant in the process; but grammatically it is treated as if it was. So the Range can become Subject of the clause, as in 'five games were played before tea'. However, there are some grammatical distinctions between a Range and a Goal.
- Halliday (1985), a pag.136

In a verbal process, the Range is the element expressing the class, quality or quantity of what is said: 'ask a silly question' is like 'play a silly game'. Note how this category also relates to what we identified as the Range in a mental process, though examples like 'see a sight', 'hear a noise', 'see a view'. We refer to the Range in a verbal process as the Verbiage (noting that this is not in origin a derogatory term!).
- Halliday (1985), a pag.137