Confusing Form With Function

Fawcett (2010: 192):

Finally, I should comment briefly on the fact that the concepts of 'word' and 'morpheme' are not even considered as candidates for any possible 'rank scale'. The explanation is connected with the meanings of the terms item and exponence, as defined in this theory, and these will be explained in the sections dealing with those concepts (Section 10.5 of this chapter and Section 11.5 of Chapter 11). The present theory regards the relationship of words and morphemes to the 'higher' units on the supposed 'rank scale' as different from the relationship between, let us say, groups and clauses. Indeed, it is the relationship between clauses and the various classes of groups that lies at the heart of understanding English syntax, as Appendix B demonstrates.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Fawcett's 'item' (p226) includes both 'word' and 'morpheme', and it expounds the lowest element of syntactic structure:

The third of the three major categories in the present theory of syntax (with 'unit' and 'element') is the item. This term includes both 'word' (in its traditional sense) and 'morpheme'. … In the present theory of syntax, the lowest syntactic category on each branch of the tree in a tree diagram representation of a sentence is an element (e.g., the head of a nominal group). And each such lowest element is expounded by an item — or as we shall see shortly, by items (in the plural).

That is, Fawcett's model confuses function structure (head of a nominal group) with formal units (items as words and morphemes).

[2] To be clear, as the quote above demonstrates, the exponence relation does not obtain between items (words and morphemes) and higher units (e.g. nominal groups), but between items and an element of group structure (head). That is, Fawcett's model confuses formal constituency (clause-group-word-morpheme) with function structure (head as element of the nominal group).

[3] To be clear, if there are higher and lower (formal) units and (functional) elements, then both units and elements are ranked on (formal and functional) scales.