Fawcett (2010: 128, 128n):
Some of Halliday's analyses in IFG introduce a yet more serious problem. This is the fact that they involve presenting the same clause at two different layers of structure in the THEME and MOOD analyses. This occurs in his analyses of clauses with an experiential enhanced theme (also known as 'predicated theme' and the 'it-cleft construction'), e.g., It was his teacher who persuaded him to continue. Halliday's analyses of the THEME and MOOD structures of such examples have very little in common. His THEME structure (IFG p. 60) presents who persuaded him to continue as a direct element of the thematic structure, while the equivalent clause in his MOOD analysis (p. 98) is two layers lower in the structure. This is because Halliday claims (wrongly in my view) that the Subject in the MOOD structure in the above text-sentence is it [...] who persuaded him to continue (where who persuaded him to continue must function as a qualifier in a nominal group whose head is it)ⁱ⁰ The problem is that the clause who persuaded him to continue is at a different layer of structure in each of these two analyses — so running counter to one of the basic assumptions of theoretical-generative SFL, i.e., that each traversal of the system network generates one layer of structure. I can think of no way in which 'structure conflation statements' could cover such cases.
10. The elements of the TRANSITIVITY analysis that Halliday would give to such examples would be the same as the MOOD elements, judging by his analyses in Halliday (1967-8:236).
Blogger Comments:
To be clear, the structures under discussion are the thematic and mood structures of clauses with predicated Theme. Halliday (1994: 60):
[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue. These structures do not pose a theoretical problem because the structures are not conflated, as previously explained. All structures are integrated by the group rank syntagm that realises them.
[2] To be clear, Fawcett neither offers a reason for his grammatical disagreement, nor provides an alternative analysis. In SFL theory, the Subject is identified by what is picked up by a Mood Tag:
[3] This is misleading, because it confuses two distinct senses of 'layer':
Halliday (1994: 98):
[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue. These structures do not pose a theoretical problem because the structures are not conflated, as previously explained. All structures are integrated by the group rank syntagm that realises them.
[2] To be clear, Fawcett neither offers a reason for his grammatical disagreement, nor provides an alternative analysis. In SFL theory, the Subject is identified by what is picked up by a Mood Tag:
It was his teacher who persuaded him to continue, wasn't it?The analysis of it [[who persuaded him to continue]] as a single (discontinuous) clause constituent can be seen more clearly through agnate clauses such as:
Who was it [[who persuaded him to continue]]?and its transitivity structure:
it
|
was
|
his teacher
|
who persuaded him to continue
|
Ident…
|
Process: identifying
|
Identifier
|
…ified
|
[3] This is misleading, because it confuses two distinct senses of 'layer':
- 'layer' in the sense of one of three metafunctional structures, and
- 'layer' in the sense of a compositional level within one metafunctional structure (e.g. Mood composed of Subject and Finite).
The structures of each metafunction — composite or otherwise — realise the systemic choices of its metafunctional system.
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