Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 141-2, 142n):
Sensing is not construed in the grammar as activity. But, as already noted above, certain types of conscious process may be construed not only as sensing but also alternatively as a kind of doing — as behaviour (as if active sensing). For instance:Stanley (urgently): Look —McCann: Don't touch me.Stanley: Look. Listen a minute.Anna: Listen. What silence. Is it always as silent?Deeley: It's quite silent here, yes. Normally. You can hear the sea sometimes if you listen very carefully.Here look, touch, listen are verbs in behavioural clauses rather than mental ones; they are construed as activities controlled by an active Behaver. The difference is suggested quite clearly in the last example — You can hear the sea sometimes if you listen very carefully.
All the modes of perception may be construed either as behaviour or as sensing. One significant grammatical difference is that present behaviour would normally be reported as present-in-present (the present progressive) — What are you doing? I'm watching the last whales of August. — but present sensing would not — I (can) see the whales in the distance.⁴
Another one is that only sensing can involve a Phenomenon of the metaphenomenal kind. As long as the 'phenomenon' is of the same order of existence as ordinary things, there is no problem with either process type; we can both see and watch macro-phenomena: I saw/watched the last whales leave the bay. But while we can say I saw that he had already eaten we cannot say I watched that he had already eaten, which includes a metaphenomenon. This is the borderline between the mental and material domains of experience.
There are some behavioural processes that are agnate to cognitive ones (pondering, puzzling, meditating) but none that are agnate to desiderative or emotive ones. (Behavioural processes of giggling, laughing, crying, smiling and the like are outward manifestations of emotions; but they are not active variants of inert emotive processing such as rejoicing, grieving, and fearing.)⁴ Notice also the difference with respect to ability: there is little to choose between I can see birds in the sky and I see birds in the sky, but I can be watching birds in the sky and I am watching birds in the sky are quite distinct — in fact the former would most probably be interpreted as usuality I sometimes watch ...'.
Blogger Comments:
Clearly, the clause Don't touch me is material, not behavioural. The participant me is neither the Range (Behaviour) nor Medium (Behaver) of a behavioural Process, but the Medium (Goal) of a material Process.