I appreciate Judy sharing with us how she uses systemic functional
grammar in her teaching.

Judy Diamondstone wrote:
> Some of the functional terms that I find illuminating about the nature of
> the English language are those that show the way English language cuts up
> the universe of experience -- they set up categories or bins that students
> can try to 'fill' with vocabulary they find. Consider the sentence, "my
> father died." Which bin does the noun phrase go in? Is it an Actor/Agent, a
> Behaver,or a Goal? Which bin does the verb phrase go in -- is it Doing,
> Behaving, or Relating? Students can categorise words taken from a set of
> sentences, labeled in formal terms. What kinds of verb phrases goes with
> what kinds of noun phrases? A grammarian would have various tests to apply
> to determine which bin, but even students working intuitively can "see"
> something about what our language makes possible and what it blurs.

I am not quite sure how making students aware of these various "bins"
help students become better writers let alone deal with whether the
structures they have use are standard or non-standard.

Here is a similar kind of description in the 1996 book Introducing
Function Grammar (Arnold) by Geoff Thompson . Thompson is discussing
"material process" verbs. The following sentences are his examples
showing the various types of material processes and whether the Actor is
human or an inanimate abstract entity.

                He has been shaving.
                The young girl bounded out of the gate.
                Edward was sawing the wood.
                Her mother smashed the glass.

                The car slithered off the road.
                Coarse grass was growing.
                The unhappiness disappeared.

                The fire had destroyed everything.
                Scores of tiny brambles scratched him.
                The pounding rhythm shook walls and floors.  (p 80)

Here is what Jim Kenkel and I said at ATEG several years ago about this
list.

The problem with this list is that in the interest of grouping these
verbs by meaning their syntactic properties have been ignored.  There is
no explanation of the fact that these verbs which represent the notion
of material process do so through a wide array of verb structures.  The
first grouping, for example, has an intransitive verb with a zero
complement, an intransitive verb with an adverbial complement, and two
transitive verbs. To reiterate, this is an unlikely state of affairs if,
to use Halliday's words, formal structures are "organic configurations
of functions" or [every grammatical structure] can be explained,
ultimately, by reference to how language is used."  SF provides no
explanation of the principles by which meanings such as "material
processes" are instantiated into linguistic form.

Earlier today Martha Kolln put forth the following goal for a good
grammar program:

        A good grammar program would not pre-empt writing and literature; it
can work with
        writing and literature. And it can, and should, give students
confidence
        in their own innate grammar expertise--an important aspect of teaching
and
        learning grammar that is completely missing from the traditional
grammar.

I don't think that recognizing "material process" verbs is part of any
native speakers innate grammar expertise.  More importantly, I don't
even understand the purpose of learning such  categories to improve
one's writing.  For example, I don't think that anyone ever says to
herself "I am writing an X type text and an X type text requires
material process verbs.  Oh! no! here I have used a mental process verb
(discussed in Thompson on page 82+).  I have to change to a material
process verb."

Perhaps, I have missed something in my reading of Thompson, but I don't
understand how these categories of SFG achieve what Martha has said a
good grammar program needs to do.

Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University