The "Problem" Of How To Conflate Non-Coterminous Elements

Fawcett (2010: 126-7):

The more serious of the two types is that of how to 'conflate' the non-coterminous elements, such as 'Rheme' with 'Process + Goal'. 

Let me now try to state precisely why this is a problem. The theory of generative Systemic Functional Grammar has always, since the mid-1960s, included conflation rules that 'fuse' two or more 'elements' into a single element, e.g., Halliday (1969/81) and Halliday (1970/76b). This is the core of the well-established 'element conflation' model, and we know how to implement computer models of language which incorporate such relationships. But there is no published description of how to map an element onto another element that is not coterminous with it. For example, there is no description of how the supposed 'element' of the 'Rheme' in the thematic structure comes to be mapped onto two or more elements in another structure, such as the Process, Goal and Circumstance in the experiential structure of Figure 7. And the total number of permutations of mappings of all such configurations of elements would be absolutely enormous.

Blogger Comments:

This is misleading, because there is no problem.  Rheme is the element that follows Theme.  For the corrected experiential structure of Figure 7, Actor ^ Process ^ Scope ^ Extent, if Theme is conflated with Actor, then Rheme is conflated with the experiential elements that follow. The structures are integrated by the syntagm that realises them: nominal group ^ verbal group ^ nominal group ^ nominal group.

We	would visit	Mrs Skinner	every Sunday
Theme	Rheme
Actor	Process: material	Scope	Extent
nominal group	verbal group	nominal group	nominal group

To be clear, 'Rheme' is the label for 'not Theme'. It is the labelling of an absence, like 'black' for the absence of light.