Lexical-Semantic Group Analysis of Behavioral Verbs in English

Abstract

This article is mainly about the verbs, which reflect the behavior and character in English and their lexical-semantic group analyses. Human beings use a language involving physiological and psychological behavior. This phenomenon can be analyzed in the systemic functional linguistic approach. This will be a part of the processes called behavioral process. Halliday argues that behavioral processes are processes of physiological and psychological behavior, like “breathing”, “dreaming”, “snoring”, “smiling”, “hiccupping”, “looking”, “watching”, “listening”, and “pondering”. Hence, there are some verbs in which contain not only physiological function in human body, but also some expressions which deal with psychological matters beneath the meaning of the verbs. Additionally, there is one obligatory participant in this process, it is the behaver. The behaver is a “conscious” being. However, the process is one of “doing”, not “sensing”.