The clause is agnate with he is enjoying [[what he is doing]].
The unmarked present tense is 'present in present', like behavioural, rather than mental clauses (cf. he likes [[what he is doing]]).
Here 'enjoy' adds an emotional feature to a behavioural Process.
To me the clause was agnate with “he is enjoying himself [under X condition]”. So he’s not enjoying the totality of himself (as reflexivity would imply) but enjoying a version of himself that is temporarily present. So himself seems to be the phenomenon of the mental process which is mental because it is a feeling rather than a behavior.
ReplyDeleteHere’s GPT’s two cents. I agree with it but it did make some odd arguments here and there.
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Great find — this is an interesting reflection on whether enjoy oneself should be analyzed as a behavioural process in SFL. I don’t entirely agree with the blogger’s claim, though I think they’re raising valid points. Let me walk you through my evaluation: what seems plausible, what seems problematic, and what a more standard SFL treatment looks like.
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What the blogger argues
Here’s a summary of the claim:
• The clause “[Someone] enjoys oneself” isn’t a mental process because “oneself” doesn’t function as a Phenomenon (i.e. the thing perceived or felt).
• Also, the blogger seems to think that the “unmarked present tense” has a kind of “behavioural/material” feel, making enjoy oneself align more with behavioural processes.
• They assert that “himself” (in behaves himself, enjoys himself) plays the same kind of role as behavioural behaviour (what someone is doing) rather than Phenomenon.
• So the conclusion is: “enjoy oneself” and similar reflexive verbs are better analyzed as behavioural processes rather than mental ones.
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What I find plausible or useful
Some parts of the argument have merit:
1. Reflexivity is often tricky in transitivity/process-type analysis. The fact that “himself / oneself” is a reflexive pronoun adds complexity because it signals that the Actor and affected thing are the same entity.
2. The blogger is correct to look at the semantic functions: is oneself really a Phenomenon in the sense of a mental process (i.e. something experienced, felt, perceived)? Perhaps not straightforwardly.
3. It’s also reasonable to examine whether “enjoy oneself” in actual usage has more behavioural overtones (something observable, an external manifestation of feeling) than purely internal or private mental perception. That could push analysis toward behavioural.
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Where I think the argument is weak or diverges from SFL canonical treatment
But there are several problems or questionable assumptions:
Issue : Why it’s problematic from a canonical SFL standpoint
Equating reflexive oneself with “behaviour” (observable behaviour) Behavioural processes in SFL are those which are physiological/psychological but borderline with material (e.g. smiling, coughing, breathing) — enjoy oneself tends to denote an internal emotional “feeling good / pleasure” which is more like an affective mental process than an external action.
Claim that “unmarked present tense is ‘present in present’ like behavioural/material clauses” “Unmarked present tense” doesn’t itself force process type; process type is determined by meaning (what the verb denotes), not tense/aspect alone. Present tense isn’t uniquely behavioural or material.
The idea that “behavioural is the only process type that excludes reflexive pronouns” In canonical SFL, mental processes also admit reflexivity (e.g. “She knows herself”, “She remembers herself”). Reflexive pronoun does not by itself force behavioural process.
Overgeneralization of “enjoy oneself” fitting into behavioural While in some uses “enjoy oneself” can have external behavior (e.g. “They enjoy themselves dancing”), the core meaning is affective/mental — pleasure, internal experience — which aligns more clearly with a mental process type in SFL.
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Comment was too long……..
ReplyDeleteWhat a more standard SFL analysis would be
Here’s how I think most SFL analysts would handle enjoy oneself (or “enjoys oneself” etc.):
Component Likely SFL classification
Process type Affective mental process (subtype of mental)
Participants Senser = the one who enjoys; Phenomenon = the “enjoyment” (i.e. whatever the person enjoys, either activity or internal feeling)
Reflexive / “oneself” Realizing that Senser and Phenomenon are intimately connected; possibly the Phenomenon is somewhat co-constructed with the Senser (i.e. “she enjoys herself” means she experiences enjoyment in herself, but it’s still mental / affective rather than observable behaviour)
If the context shifts to emphasise observable behaviour (e.g. “they enjoy themselves dancing wildly in public”), then there could be a secondary behavioural reading, but that doesn’t make enjoy oneself per se a behavioural process in all contexts.
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My verdict: do I agree?
On balance: I do not agree with the blogger’s conclusion that enjoy oneself is best analyzed as behavioural in SFL. The claim seems to rest on conflating external manifestation reflexivity with behaviour, and misunderstanding the boundaries of process types in SFL.
But I do think the blog post does well to highlight how process type distinctions are not always clean, and how reflexivity adds a wrinkle. So it’s a provocative hypothesis — one that would need strong contextual semantic evidence to override the default mental/affective classification.
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Some further GPT remarks……….
ReplyDeleteIs “himself / oneself” the Phenomenon?
In the mental reading, yes — “himself / oneself” can be seen as realizing the Phenomenon, but not in a literal or symmetrical way (“he feels himself”).
Rather, it’s metaphorical or reflexive: the “Phenomenon” represents the person’s state or experience under certain conditions.
That is — as you said perfectly —
“Himself seems to be referencing a state of oneself under certain conditions rather than oneself generically.”
Exactly.
The Senser (he) is experiencing the state of himself-being-in-some-situation, not perceiving himself as an object in the physical world.
So it’s not the same entity in experiential terms:
• Senser: “he” — the experiencer
• Phenomenon: “himself” — him as enjoyed-being / experienced state
This is a subtle relational projection inside a single participant.
The reflexive pronoun lets the clause package the inner experience into a tight unit, but the semantics still follow a Senser–Phenomenon structure.
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Why this isn’t behavioural
If we test it against canonical behavioural processes (e.g. laugh, smile, cry, watch, dream, listen, breathe), those involve outwardly observable manifestations of physiological or psychological states.
“Enjoy oneself” fails that test because it’s not describing an externalized behaviour — unless we shift to a material or physical meaning (like “He enjoyed himself dancing”).
So:
• Mental (affective): He enjoyed himself at the party → inner feeling
• Material: He enjoyed himself with her → physical action (sexual)
• Behavioural: He laughed to himself → observable behaviour (not enjoyment per se)
Thus, your mental classification — conditioned by context — is the most fitting.
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How this fits the SFL model of reflexive phenomena
Reflexivity in SFL can produce layered participant roles.
The reflexive pronoun signals that the Senser and Phenomenon are logically the same entity, but semantically they are different experiential roles: one is the feeler, the other is the felt state of self.
The grammar compresses that relational projection into a reflexive pronoun, but semantically there’s a whole experiential structure embedded there — a kind of “enjoyment-of-self-as-experiencer-in-context”.
Thanks for your generous and well considered comments. You've helped me abandon the analysis I was very unhappy with. I think it can be analysed as a mental clause if the tense factor is ignored, but if it is not ignored, it satisfies the criteria of a 'near mental' behavioural clause.
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