Friday, 19 May 2023

Middle Material Clauses

Matthiessen (1995: 215, 218):

middle

(i) non-Ranged

[Actor:] I [Process:] appear [Location:] on the scene [Location:] at very rare intervals.
[Actor:] I [Process:] was <still> looking [Location:] at Farnham actually.
[Actor:] The wind [Process:] was blowing [Location:] from the west.
[Actor:] He [Process:] tried not to cry II but [Actor:] some little tears [Process:] dropped [Location:] on to his teddy.

(ii) ranged

[Actor:] They [Process:] surrounded [Range:] the field.
[Actor:] Mr. Smith [Process:] is representing [Range:] Washington.
[Actor:] They don't [Process:] frequent [Range:] Kennedy.
… 
A good many verbs can serve in more than one clause type. For instance, represent can be either relational (as in, up represents happiness) or material (as in, Jones is representing the City).

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, for Halliday (1985, 1994) and Halliday & Matthiessen (2004, 2014), these are behavioural Processes mediated by Behavers.

[2] To be clear, the Process of this clause is circumstantial relational: identifying, with they as Token/Medium and the field as Value/Range. See, for example, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 294).

[3] To be clear, the Process of such clauses is intensive relational: identifying, with Mr. Smith/Jones as Token/Medium, and Washington/the City as Value/Range. See, for example, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 277-86). The (marked) use of 'present in present' tense is not criterial of process type (e.g. he is being an idiot, she is playing the fool, etc.)

1 comment:

  1. To be fair, he states on the same page that he is using a different model than IFG (a seemingly better model imo).
    He further states on 227:
    “ We can identify a region of behaviour that is the active version of verbal and mental processes - saying and sensing as activity; for example: chat, gossip; ponder, watch, listen, smile, grin. Behavioural processes are like mental ones in that one participant is endowed with consciousness. This is the Senser in the case of mental processes. We can call it the Behaver in the case of behavioural processes; the Behaver is either a subtype of Actor or a separate type of participant, depending on whether we treat behavioural processes as a type of material process (as done here) or as a separate process type (as in IFG).”

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