Fawcett's Modern Systemic Functional Theory Of Syntax

Fawcett (2010: 186):

There are two parts to a theory of instances of syntax: the categories and the relationships by which these are related. We shall begin in Chapter 10 with the more 'object-like' concepts of the theory, i.e., the categories. Then in Chapter 11 we shall examine the relationships. There is a fairly close parallel between this pair of concepts and the "categories" and "scales" of Halliday (1961/76). But it is important to emphasise that my term "relationships" includes a wider range of concepts than Halliday's term "scales".

The structure of what follows therefore broadly reflects that of both Halliday (1961/76) and Fawcett (1974-6/81). …

By the beginning of Chapter 12, therefore, we shall be in a position to summarise the concepts that are required for a modern systemic functional theory of syntax, and also to evaluate how far the seven "fundamental concepts" established in "Categories" are still valid today.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, Fawcett's "modern systemic functional theory of syntax" is a development of Scale and Category Grammar (Halliday 1961). This theory, which has long since been superseded by Systemic Functional Grammar, did not include system networks or metafunctions. On this basis, Fawcett's theory can hardly be called 'modern', and might be better termed a Scale and Category theory of syntax, were it not for the fact that even Halliday's first theory modelled syntax (and morphology) as a rank scale.