Process + Medium Collocations In Behavioural Clauses

Matthiessen (1995: 253):

Process + Medium. There is a set of features of material process type in the context of which we find Process + Medium pairs. These general features include 

• change in quantity (fall + temperature), 
• change in quality, 
• growth & improvement (repair + [mechanical device such as] car, heal + wound, ripen + fruit, mature + child, age + wine) or
• deterioration (decay + teeth, rot + meat, wilt + flower), 
• phase: beginning (break out + war), 
• preparation for use (make + bed, lay + table, prime + gun, pump); 
• behaviour: typical sound (neigh + horse, bark + dog), 
• behaviour: typical movement (waddle + duck, trot + horse, canter + horse, flap + wing, crawl + snake), 
• behaviour: ingesting (breathe + air, inhale + smoke, drink + liquid, take + medicine).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, since the Medium of a behavioural clause is a Behaver, interpreting the collocation flap + wing construes wing as conscious. The fact that such a collocation occurs in effective material clauses is demonstrated by the agnate clause the young albatross flapped its wings where wings can only be interpreted as the Goal of a material Process.

[2] To be clear, none of these collocations occurs in behavioural clauses, because none of the Mediums — air, smoke, liquid, medicine — is a Behaver (the Medium of a behavioural Process). Moreover, clauses with such collocations are effective, and so the interpretation of such clauses as behavioural is inconsistent with Matthiessen (1995: 211):

If MATERIAL, MENTAL, and RELATIONAL are taken as major types, as they are in IFG, it is interesting to note that the other minor types, BEHAVIOURAL, VERBAL and EXISTENTIAL are all more restricted in AGENCY - they are middle only.