On The Non-Problems Created By Fawcett's Mistaken Notion Of "Structure Conflation"

Fawcett (2010: 126):

The next question is that of what the rules in the "structure conflation rules" component in Figure 8 might be like. (Again, there is no guidance on this matter in the writings of those who work in the framework of the Sydney Grammar.) Let us therefore consider for a moment the nature of the task that such a component would be required to perform. 

Many problems would need to be overcome. In fact, there are points in Halliday's writings when he shows that he is aware of some aspects of them. He hints at one problem when he writes in "Options and functions in the English clause" that "not every clause constituent occupies a role in respect of all three [of TRANSITIVITY, MOOD and THEME] — a Modal Adjunct, for example, has no TRANSITIVITY role" (1969/81:143). In other words, the structures that are to be conflated with each other are not necessarily coterminous, in that they may contain gaps at either end (or indeed in the middle). This raises problems for making explicit statements in the putative 'structure conflation rules'. It seems probable that such rules would need to include many conditional operations, if they are to provide for all possible eventualities, since the conflation rules cannot simply refer to the boundaries of the clause. 

Halliday then goes on to make a second point about the nature of such conflations — and it is one that raises horrendous problems for the theoretical-generative strand of the theory. This is the fact that, in the approach to structure that it entails, "a role may extend over more than one element, for example Rheme over Process and Goal" (1969/81:143). Thus the model that is being proposed in the Sydney Grammar does not simply involve the conflation of non-coterminous structures. In addition, many of the elements of which those structures are composed are also non-coterminous. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, there is "no guidance on this matter" because there is no need for "structure conflation rules" in Halliday's model, because there is no structure conflation in Halliday's model, as previously explained. Figure 8 is Fawcett's modification of his own model (Figure) based on his own misunderstandings, as previously explained.

[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue. There is no problem here because the metafunctional clause structures are not conflated, but integrated by the realising syntagm of units at the rank below, as in:

we	usually	visit	Mrs Skinner	on Sundays
Actor		Process	Scope	Location
Subject	modal Adjunct	Finite/Predicator	Complement	Adjunct
nominal group	adverbial group	verbal group	nominal group	prepositional phrase

[3] This misleading, because it is untrue. Halliday does not make a second point about the nature of such conflations because there are no structure conflations in his model, and the "horrendous problems" only arise from Fawcett's misunderstandings of Halliday's model.

[4] This is misleading, because it is untrue. There is no problem here because the metafunctional clause structures are not conflated, but integrated by the realising syntagm of units at the rank below, as in:

we	usually	visit	Mrs Skinner	on Sundays
Actor		Process	Scope	Location
Subject	modal Adjunct	Finite/Predicator	Complement	Adjunct
Theme	Rheme
nominal group	adverbial group	verbal group	nominal group	prepositional phrase