Material process

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In general terms, material processes  involve 'doing-words' in an action-oriented narrative. These processes tend to occur frequently. Like this one: 

A: Laura took the Bills

Actor and goal

Using the previous example, we will explain the terms of actor and goal: 

  • In example (A) Laura is explicitly the performer of an action represented by the process 'took'. We, therefore, label Laura as Actor.
  • Since Laura (the actor) took (the process) are established, we need to understand the role of  'bills'. Laura took the money, so the last one is labeled as Goal.

A: Laura (actor) took (process: material) the bills (goal)

     


 In some cases, there is no goal. Such as in example (B), Laura returned, but since return isn't clarify a specific destination, it cannot be labeled as goal.

B: Half an hour later she (Laura) returned 

Beneficiary

In (C) we have a material process with three participant roles: 

C: he gave some of the bills to John.

Here 'he' is the actor, 'gave' is the material process, 'some of the bills' is the goal, and 'to John' is the beneficiary.

The Beneficiary receives a reward, therefore, the character John in the example literally benefits form the process. But the label cannot always be interpreted so literally. If the proposition is negative, it does not affect the label given to the participant, as in (C1) 

C1: he didn't give some of the bills to John


PRACTICE TIME 

In your own words, answer the following questions: 

  1. What is the material process? 
  2. Are the actor and the beneficiary the same? 
  3. Why the bills in example (C) is the goal? 


Answers: 

  1. A material process is when the person is doing something and it requires any action word as cook, write, etc. 
  2. No. The actor does the action and the beneficiary receives it. 
  3. Because the goal is the what you receive from the action. In that case, the bills are what he gave. 

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