'Solve' Serving As Material (Not Behavioural) Process

they	solved	the problem
Agent Actor	Process: material	Medium Goal

Blogger Comments:

In Deploying Functional Grammar (Martin et al. 2010: 126), this is erroneously analysed as a behavioural clause with a mental Range:

they	solved	the problem
Medium Behaver	Process: behavioural	Range Phenomenon

This analysis is erroneous in terms of both the ergative and transitive models.

The fact that we can say what they did to the problem was solve it rules out the possibility that the problem functions as the Range of a mental or behavioural Process;  cf.:

• what they did to the birds was see them (mental)
• what she did with the smile is give it (behavioural)

and aligns the clause with transitive material clauses:

• what they did to the blockage was remove it

The fact that the unmarked present tense is the 'present in present', not the 'simple present' also rules out the possibility that this a mental clause, and aligns the clause with material clauses:

• they are solving the problem 
not
• they solve the problem.