Fawcett (2010: 103-4):
The fact that "Systemic theory" omits any specification of the part of the theory that would be used in a description of the outputs from the grammar leaves the reader in a highly unsatisfactory position. Since the paper is entitled "Systemic theory", this omission seems to imply that the theory does not need to specify these concepts. On the other hand, it is just possible that Halliday has omitted them on the grounds that if one specifies the 'form potential' in the realisation statements, there is no need to specify the outputs, on the grounds that this is what the realisation statements do.
Whatever Halliday's position on this issue, I wish to make clear that my view is that a theory does indeed have the responsibility to specify these concepts explicitly. In other words, it is the task of a theory of SF syntax to specify both the apparatus that generates the text-sentences that are the outputs from the grammar (the realisation component) and the concepts that are required to model those outputs. Moreover, both of these must be treated as int[e]gral parts of the theory, as the use of the theory for modelling the generation and understanding of language in computers shows clearly.
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[1] This is misleading. To be clear, "Systemic Theory" is an article in an encyclopædia that outlines the origins, architecture and development of the theory in 3 pages; it is oriented to theory rather than text description. On the other hand, the "outputs of the grammar" had been previously set out in 350+ pages of the first edition of IFG (Halliday 1985), a text oriented to text description rather than theory.
[2] This is misleading, because it misrepresents Halliday's model (realisation statements in system networks) as Fawcett's model (realisation rules at the level of form).
[3] This is misleading, because these concepts are set out in great detail in the four editions of IFG (1985, 1994, 2004, 2014).
[4] This is misleading. To be clear, the grammatical systems that are realised as grammatical structures are set out in Lexicogrammatical Cartography (Matthiessen 1995) and the grammatical structures that realise grammatical systems are set out in the four editions of IFG. Moreover, the most important grammatical systems are also included in the third and fourth editions of IFG.
[5] This is misleading, because it misrepresents Halliday's model (Systemic Functional Theory) in terms of Fawcett's approach (a theory of syntax). As Halliday (1994: xiv) makes clear:
[2] This is misleading, because it misrepresents Halliday's model (realisation statements in system networks) as Fawcett's model (realisation rules at the level of form).
[3] This is misleading, because these concepts are set out in great detail in the four editions of IFG (1985, 1994, 2004, 2014).
[4] This is misleading. To be clear, the grammatical systems that are realised as grammatical structures are set out in Lexicogrammatical Cartography (Matthiessen 1995) and the grammatical structures that realise grammatical systems are set out in the four editions of IFG. Moreover, the most important grammatical systems are also included in the third and fourth editions of IFG.
[5] This is misleading, because it misrepresents Halliday's model (Systemic Functional Theory) in terms of Fawcett's approach (a theory of syntax). As Halliday (1994: xiv) makes clear:
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