Fawcett's Claim That The Finite (Clause) Should Be Conflated With The Event (Verbal Group)

Fawcett (2010: 134-5, 135n):

The reason why it is important to generate the Subject and Finite as direct elements of the clause (rather than the 'Mood' clement') is that it is the Subject and the Finite on which further work must be done. This further work will  generate (1) the nominal group the new system to fill the Theme/Subject/Actor and (2) the item is to expound the Finite/Process.¹⁶ Interestingly, however, Matthiessen and Bateman do not explain why — or even how — these are generated as "subcomponents' of 'Mood'. (However it is done, the same principle presumably applies to the division of the "Moodtag" into its two elements.) 

16. Strictly speaking, in the Sydney Grammar it is the element 'Event' within the 'verbal group' (the unit that fills the clause element 'Predicator') with which the 'Finite' should be conflated, and not the 'Process', as an example with auxiliary verbs such as the new system may be going to be more reliable than the old one demonstrates. See Fawcett (2000 and forthcoming b) for a full critique of Halliday's approach to the 'verbal group' and Appendix C for a summary. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, on the one hand, the term 'direct' is a red herring here, since there is no distinction between 'direct' and 'indirect' elements of clause structure in SFL theory. The elements Subject and Finite are no less 'direct' for being components of the Mood element.

On the other hand, Fawcett's use of computerised text generation to argue about theoretical issues is also a red herring, since adjustments of the theory in response to the limitations of computers are irrelevant to the theory as a model of human language.

[2] To be clear, the reason why Matthiessen and Bateman generate Subject and Finite as components of the Mood element is because they are applying SFL theory to computerised text generation, and according to the theory, this is a structural realisation of the systemic feature 'indicative'.

[3] To be clear, the Predicator is realised by all elements of the verbal group except the Finite. In Fawcett's example, the Predicator is realised by the elements Auxiliary₁ ^ Auxiliary₂ ^ Event, as shown below.

the new system	may	be	going to	be	more reliable than the old one
Carrier	Process: attributive				Attribute
Subject	Finite	Predicator			Complement
	verbal group
	Finite	Auxiliary₁	Auxiliary₂	Event

[4] This is misleading, because it misrepresents Halliday's theory.  Fawcett's claim is that, on the SFL model, the Finite (clause rank) should be conflated with the Event (group rank), and that his example demonstrates the fact.  That is, Fawcett's claim is that two syntagmatically separated elements, at different ranks, should be conflated. This demonstrates a serious failure to understand the notion of conflation.

As the analysis above makes clear, in Fawcett's example, the Process (transitivity) conflates with Finite ^ Predicator (mood), both of which are integrated in their realisation as a verbal group.