MATERIAL PROCESSES OF DOING AND HAPPENING
SUMMARY
1 The first main category of processes, material processes, includes several kinds: ‘doing’, ‘happening’, ‘causing’ and ‘transferring’. Typically, the action of ‘doing’ is carried out by a volitional, controlling human participant: the Agent. A non-controlling inanimate agent is called Force, for instance an earthquake.
2 In processes of doing, the action either extends no further than the Agent itself, as in she resigned, or it extends to another participant, the Affected (the ball in Pelé kicked the ball). A special type of ‘doing’ is the process of transfer, in which an Agent transfers an Affected participant to a Recipient or is intended for a Beneficiary (give someone a present, make someone a cake, respectively).
3 In involuntary processes of happening, the Affected undergoes the happening (the roof fell in, the old man collapsed).
4 The order of elements in the semantic structures is iconic, that is, the linguistic ordering of the event reflects our conceptualization of the event.
