On The Unjustified Inclusion Of Predicator, Complement And Adjunct In Mood Structure

Fawcett (2010: 114-5, 115n):

Halliday's reasons for including this line of analysis as part of the interpersonal component are dependent on the fact that the Subject and Finite are involved in the expression of MOOD meanings. While I agree that these two elements contribute to the clause's interpersonal meaning (Fawcett 1999), I see no reason to include the other elements here. Halliday's stated reason for including Complements and Adjuncts in this line of analysis is that a Complement is an element that (typically) can become a Subject (though not in examples such as clever in Ivy is clever, as Halliday admits) and that an Adjunct is one that cannot. While this is largely true it does not seem a sufficient justification for including them in the analysis of every clause, and nor does it explain why the 'Predicator' is included there. In fact, this line of analysis does not explain anything about the particular text that is currently being analysed, since these elements patently do not carry the meaning associated with the Subject in the clause currently being analysed. (The Complement might, if the concept of the syntactic transformation were to be introduced to the theory, but Halliday would clearly not wish to do that.)

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the interpersonal structure of the clause, the clause as exchange, realises a proposition or a proposal.  In the case of propositions, the choice of indicative MOOD is realised by the presence of the Mood element, Subject and Finite, which realises the nub of the proposition, with the Residue elements — Predicator, Complement, circumstantial Adjunct — realising the remainder of the proposition.

[2] To be clear, these are not the reasons for including Complements and Adjuncts as elements of the interpersonal structure of the clause, but criteria for differentiating the two.

[3] To be clear, this is a bare assertion, unsupported by reasoned argument.

[4] To be clear, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 151-2) identify four functions of the Predicator, including:

It specifies the process (action, event, mental process, relation) that is predicated of the Subject.