Fawcett's Argument Against The Mood Element

Fawcett (2010: 133):

However, there is a third point of interest in Matthiessen and Bateman's diagram. It is the fact that they have felt obliged to make some show of generating what for Halliday is the 'primary structure' in the analysis of MOOD. This is the 'function' 'Mood', which in an IFG-style description must be represented in addition to the 'Subject' and the 'Finite', which are shown as its two 'subcomponents". But the fact is that it is only the 'Subject' and the 'Finite' that are needed for (1) conflation with other 'functions' from other lines of the analysis, and (2) the next stage of the process of generation. In other words, the 'function' of 'Mood' plays no part in the generation of the clause. Clearly, it would be far simpler to generate the Finite and the Subject as direct 'functions' of the clause, so that they can be directly conflated with the appropriate other 'functions'. 

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Reminder:

[1] This wording seems to insinuate an accusation of insincerity on the part of Matthiessen and Bateman, especially when considered in the light of the earlier judgement of the diagram as 'remarkably honest' (p131).

[2] To be clear, here Fawcett argues against the theoretical value of the Mood element of the clause, in modelling language, on the basis of degrees of expediency in the generation of texts by computers. The theoretical value of the Mood element is in its explanatory power in understanding language, not in whether or not it conflates with the element of another structure in the process of computerised text generation.

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 150) identify both the semantic function of the Mood element:

Hence the Mood element has a clearly defined semantic function: it carries the burden of the clause as an interactive event. So it remains constant, as the nub of the proposition, unless some positive step is taken to change it…

and (op. cit.: 170) its rôle in realising systemic distinctions:

In the grammar of MOOD in English, the general principle is that less delicate distinctions in mood are realised through the Mood element – its presence and the nature and relative sequence of its element, Subject and Finite, plus the presence of the WH- element…

[3] To be clear, Subject and Finite are "direct" functions of the clause, as components of the Mood element, and the Subject, more usually, is "directly" conflated with other functions, with this typically depending on systemic selections such as those of THEME, VOICE and MOOD.