Misrepresenting Material And Verbal Clauses As Behavioural [1]

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 125):

Most behavioural clauses have only one participant role, the Behaver. However, there may, in some instances, be candidates for a second participant role. Consider for example: they solved the problem, they stared at the doctor; they watched the cricket, they described the new project.

 

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[1] To be clear, this is not a behavioural clause, but a material clause:

Factors that support this analysis include: 

• unlike behavioural clauses, which are middle in voice, this clause is effective; 
• unlike behavioural clauses, where the first participant is the Medium of the Process, the first participant in this clause is the Agent, external cause, of the 'solving' Process;
• unlike behavioural clauses, where the second participant, Behaviour, is the Range of the Process, the second participant in this clause, the problem, is the Medium through which the 'solving' Process unfolds, and is not a behaviour;
• unlike behavioural clauses, where the second participant, Behaviour, is not affected by the Process, the second participant in this clause, the problem, is affected by the 'solving' Process.

[2] To be clear, this is a behavioural clause, but the doctor is clearly not a Behaviour of the first participant. Halliday (1994: 139) resolves the conflict as follows:

Some [types of behavioural clause] also regularly feature a prepositional phrase in it with to, at or on: I’m talking to you, don’t look at me, fortune is smiling on us. These are, in origin, circumstances of Place; in the behavioural context they express orientation but we may continue to use that label.

[3] To be clear, this is a behavioural clause, but the cricket is clearly not a Behaviour of the first participant. Halliday (1994: 139) resolves the conflict as follows:

The verb watch is anomalous: in I’m watching you, the tense suggests a behavioural process but the you appears as a participant, like the Phenomenon of a ‘mental’ clause. Since this is restricted to watch, we can label this participant as Phenomenon, indicating the mental analogue.

[4] To be clear, this is not a behavioural clause, if only because the Range, the new project, is not a behaviour of the Medium they. Although, the Process describe does not project, consistent with verbal clauses, it construes its Medium as a symbol source and its Range as the content of what is said (Verbiage), and Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 347) identify such clauses as verbal:

The two kinds of Verbiage, that which refers to the content, as in describe the apartment, and that which specifies the nature of the verbal process, like tell a story, are analogous respectively to the material ‘entity Scope’ and ‘process Scope’.

Giving criterial priority to 'ability to project' thus leads to the misclassification of process types.