Chrispin, Lucy and Fontaine, Lise ![]() |
Abstract
This chapter investigates the semantic and lexico-grammatical profile of watch as an atypical verb of visual perception. Although watch is classified as a behavioural process within Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday 1994; Davidse 2017), it displays features which make it difficult to categorize. We investigate the particular features of watch (including Aktionsart and complement types) through a dataset extracted from COCA (Davies 2008–), in comparison with see as a more typical verb of visual perception. Our results show that watch emerges as an agentive durative transitive verb which typically takes a distinctive event complement. Its unique profile challenges attempts to classify it, providing an example of a verb which appears to be in a fringe “transition area” (Davidse 1999: 303).
Item Type: | Book Section |
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Status: | Published |
Schools: | English, Communication and Philosophy |
Publisher: | John Benjamins |
ISBN: | 9789027212993 |
Last Modified: | 10 Jun 2023 01:59 |
URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/156905 |
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