'Sniff' And 'Taste' Serving As Material (Not Behavioural) Processes

the cat	’s sniffing	the flower
I	’m tasting (‘sampling’)	the wine
Agent Actor	Process: material	Medium Goal

Blogger Comment:

In Deploying Functional Grammar (Martin et al. 2010: 107), these are erroneously analysed as behavioural clauses.  There are several reasons why such clauses are not behavioural, for example:

1. the Medium of a behavioural clause is a Behaver;
2. the Range of a behavioural clause is a Behaviour;
3. an Agent is rare in behavioural clauses (she burped the baby, you make me laugh);
4. the probes for material processes apply: what is the cat doing to the flower? what am I doing to the wine?