Two Further Problems With Halliday's Approach To Modelling Structure

Fawcett (2010: 151-2):

Two further problems with Halliday's current approach to modelling structure are that we are not shown (1) what the final, integrated structure would be like, or (2) what the component that performs this integration on structures with non-coterminous elements would be like. It seems likely that the final structure would have to be something like the structure shown in the upper half of Figure 10, but after Halliday (1970/76b) and (1977/78), Halliday appears to have abandoned that position, as we saw in Section 4.9 of Chapter 4.

So far as I am aware, the present book is the first publication in which the point is made that IFG-style representations do not play a role in the theoretical-generative version of the theory — and indeed that they are incapable of doing so, because of the inherent problem that it is only possible to conflate elements (or indeed units) when they are coterminous.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it misrepresents SFL Theory. To be clear, the reason why "we are not shown" "the final integrated structure" or "the component that performs the operation" is simply that a "final integrated structure" is inconsistent with SFL Theory, as previously explained. In SFL Theory, the three metafunctional structures of the clause are integrated in the formal syntagm of groups and phrases that realises clause structure.

[2] To be clear, the reason why the present book is the first publication to make these claims is that the claims are invalid, since they are based on Fawcett's misunderstandings of SFL Theory, as demonstrated in many preceding posts.