Sunday, 29 December 2013

Watching, Meditating, Contemplating


Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 251-2):
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.
The philosopher
is watching
The Meaning Of Life
Behaver
Process: behavioural
Phenomenon

The philosopher
is meditating
on the meaning of life
Behaver
Process: behavioural
Matter

but:

The philosopher
is contemplating
the meaning of life
Senser
Process: mental
Phenomenon



Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 450-1):
… mental clauses representing an ‘undecided’ state of mind are used to project indirect questions.  These include clauses of wondering and doubting, finding out and checking, and contemplating, which tend to be characterised by special lexical verbs such as wonder, ascertain

No comments:

Post a Comment