The Undesirability Of Finite and Subject As Subcomponents Of Mood

Fawcett (2010: 134, 134n):

Unfortunately, Matthiessen and Bateman give no explanation as to why they find it desirable to generate the Finite and the Subject as "subcomponents" of the 'Mood', even though the same effect could have been obtained by simply inserting the Finite and the Subject as direct 'functions' of the clause. The only 'advantage' (if it is one) is that the final structure that is generated resembles slightly more closely the representations shown in IFG than it would otherwise. But there seems to be little point in going to all of this extra work when the 'sister' element to the 'Mood' (i.e., the 'Residue') does not get generated — and when, even if it did, it would serve no useful purpose.ⁱ⁵ 

15. Incidentally, this criticism of the introduction of two layers of structure to model 'interactional' meaning is as valid for text-descriptive work as for theoretical-generative work. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the reason why Matthiessen and Bateman "generate the Finite and the Subject as "subcomponents" of the Mood' is that these are components of the model, SFL Theory, that they are applying to text generation.

[2] To be clear, the 'advantage' of identifying the Mood element of a clause is provided by its explanatory power. 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, the underlying assumption here is that expediency in the generation of texts by computer is the criterion of theoretical validity for a model of human language.

[4] This is misleading. As Figure 9 demonstrates, the Residue is generated, but since it is simply the negative of Mood, for expediency it isn't labelled.



[5] This is true.