A Problem With Exercise 7: Practising Tests To Discriminate Behavioural From Mental Processes

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 139):

Could the process in question report what was thought? (If yes, mental.)

e.g. He heard the news: he heard that they’d left.                      yes

e.g. He meditated in his room: he meditated that they’d left.   no

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this misrepresents an embedded fact that they'd left of a mental clause of perception ('hear') as a report projected by a mental clause of cognition ('thought'). Mental processes of perception do not project; see Halliday & Matthiesesen (1999: 138-9). The embedded fact clause serves as the Phenomenon of the ranking clause:

Problems With Exercise 3: Practising The Projection Test

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 131):

Find a clause related to the example, which reports or quotes, as in the models:

Blogger Comments:

There are three problems here.

[1] The exercise confusingly asks for a clause that reports or quotes (α), whereas what is actually required is a clause that is reported or quoted (β).

[2] The model in the exercise misleads by including a projected clause that is neither a report or a quote, but an embedded fact in a non-projecting clause of perception:

[3] The exercise potentially misleads by including a behavioural clause:

5. The king smiled to himself

despite the fact that behavioural processes cannot project. What is true is that such verbs are used to add a behavioural feature to a quoting verbal Process. Halliday (1994: 139):

Note, finally, that while ‘behavioural’ clauses do not ‘project’ indirect speech or thought, they often appear in fictional narrative introducing direct speech, as a means of attaching a behavioural feature to the verbal process of ‘saying’.

 That is, this exercise invites the reader to conclude, falsely, that behavioural processes project.

Misrepresenting A Verbal Quoting Complex As A Behavioural Clause

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 124-5):

One final borderline case is when a sound is ‘quoted’, usually with go realising the process. For example:

the tyres went ‘screech!’

the little engine went ‘wheeee!’

the car went ‘bang!’

It is not possible to have a Receiver in these clauses since the sound is simply a sound and not a piece of language being addressed to anyone. They are therefore moving towards the material end of a cline and are best treated as behavioural.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, these are clause complexes, not clauses; see [2].

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, each of these is a material happening realised metaphorically as a clause complex: a verbal clause projecting a quoted minor clause. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 510-1):

In fact, paratactic projection allows for a greater range: we can quote not only propositions and proposals but also minor speech functions such as greetings and exclamations…

In this case, the authors have misunderstood a material-verbal correspondence in a grammatical metaphor as the overlap of material and verbal features in a behavioural clause.

Again, proposing that behavioural processes can project unnecessarily complicates the theory without adding any explanatory power.

Misrepresenting Verbal Clauses

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 118):

But on the one hand, a mental projection is an idea, whereas a verbal one is a locution, and on the other hand, while all verbal clauses can project, only certain mental ones can (namely, cognitive ones and certain affective ones).

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, 'certain affective' here means 'desiderative', and though all verbal clauses can quote, those that include a Target do not easily report (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 307).