Misrepresenting Fawcett On Class Of Unit

Fawcett (2010: 197):

Halliday takes a very different approach to the criteria for recognising a 'class of unit'. While the criterion used here is the unit's internal structure (together with semantic criteria, as described in Section 10.2.1), for Halliday the criterion is the unit's ability to fill elements of units at the 'rank' next above it on the 'rank scale' (as we saw in Section 2.3 of Chapter 2). Thus Halliday's definition of 'class of unit' is dependent — like so much else in his theory — on the concept of the 'rank scale'.

It is interesting to note that Halliday later (1963/76) introduced to the theory a concept that he termed "type". It was introduced as a complement to 'class', in a sense that is exactly equivalent to the concept of 'class of unit' as it is used here. In other words, in Halliday (1963/76) a unit's 'type' is defined in terms of a unit's internal structure. Interestingly, while Berry's introduction to the theory gives a clear account of the difference between this concept and Halliday's "Categories" sense of 'class of unit' (1975:76-7, 124-6), Berry makes no further use of it, and the concept has not been used in most later accounts of the theory. Thus it is not mentioned by Halliday in either "Systemic theory" or IFG, nor by Matthiessen (1995). 

Moreover, in both IFG and Matthiessen (1995) units continue to be defined in the "Categories" manner. Halliday is clearly using this criterion when deciding to treat very lucky in You're very lucky as a nominal group (p. 194 of IFG), and Matthiessen emphasises the correlation between "grammatical units of different classes" and their "functional potential [in the unit above]" (Matthiessen 1995:22).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is not misleading, because it is true.

[2] To be clear, this is misleading, because it is untrue. As previously demonstrated, Fawcett's classifies his units differently according to the syntagmatic structure of each unit ('from below'), not on the basis of the meaning it realises ('from above'). For example, as previously discussed, he classifies the groups over sixty and very clever differently — as quantity vs quality group — despite the fact that both congruently realise the same meaning: Attribute.

[3] To be clear, this is slightly misleading. It is not so much that the 'definition' of class of unit is dependent on a rank scale, but that the rank scale provides a grammatical means of modelling the natural relation between meaning (e.g. thing) and grammatical form (e.g. noun). See, for example, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 15, 18ff).

[4] This is very misleading indeed. Halliday (1963) only outlines this alternative method in order to identify it as the approach he is not taking — which is why it is not taken up later by Berry, Halliday or Matthiessen. Halliday (2002 [1963]: 95-7):

I have assumed, for the purpose of the main points made in the paper, that this category of “class” is to be defined syntactically. By this I mean that the concept is introduced into the description of a language in order to bring together those sets of items that have the same potentiality of occurrence; in other words, sets of items which are alike in the way they pattern in the structure of items of higher rank. Thus, to take a typical instance from grammar, we may have morpheme classes defined by word structure, each such class being one set of morphemes having a given value in the structure of words: as, for example, the morphemes of inflexion in Latin nouns. Likewise we might have word–classes defined by group structure, or clause–classes by sentence structure.

This use of the term “class”, to name a category defined in some way by its relationship to a higher structure, is by no means universal in linguistics; but it would probably be granted that some such category is necessary to linguistic description whatever name we choose to adopt for it. Syntactic classification (sometimes referred to as “functional classification”, in what is perhaps a rather misleading opposition of “form” and “function”) is a central feature of linguistic method, and one which it seems appropriate to discuss in the present context.

The alternative to this use of the term “class” is to consider morphological classification. Here “class” would be the name given to a set of items which are alike in their own structure: that is, in the way that they themselves are made up of items of lower rank. A word–class would then be a set of words having a certain similarity in their own formation out of morphemes. In this usage there are no morpheme classes, since “morpheme” is the name given to the smallest unit in grammar, which by definition has no structure: its relation to items abstracted at other levels, such as phonemes, is not one of structure, but involves the interrelation of different dimensions of abstraction.

It is important to notice that this is in the first instance a terminological alternative, not necessarily implying a different theory. It is not the case that the linguist has to choose between two different kinds of classification, the syntactic and the morphological; he has in fact to recognise both kinds of likeness. Moreover, the sets of items identified on these two criteria often coincide: we may recognise a syntactic class “noun”, for example, defined as “that class of word which operates as head of a nominal group”, and find that the items grouped together on this criterion will be the same set as would be grouped together on a morphological criterion such as “that type of word which is made up of a stem morpheme followed by a morpheme of case and a morpheme of number”. Indeed other things being equal, it is usually accepted as desirable that the two should coincide: when the linguist is faced, as he often is, with a choice between two descriptions, both theoretically valid and both accounting for the facts, one in which the two assignments coincide and one in which they do not, he will normally, and “intuitively”, choose the former. For example, groups in English such as this morning operate in clause structure both as Adjunct, as in “I came this morning”, and as Subject (or Complement), as in “this morning promises to be fine” (or “I’ve set this morning aside for it”). The syntactic class defined by operation as Adjunct is the adverbial group; that defined by operation as Subject or Complement is the nominal group. Syntactically, therefore, this morning could be assigned to either or both of these classes. Morphologically, however, it clearly resembles other nominal groups (the morning, this man, etc.) rather than other adverbial groups (quickly, on the floor, etc.), and this can be allowed to determine its primary syntactic assignment.

There are, however, clear instances where syntactically defined sets do not coincide with morphologically defined sets; and it would probably be generally agreed that, whatever the status accorded to the latter, the former cannot be ignored. Syntactic likeness must be accounted for. Moreover, even where the two sets do coincide, the criteria on which they have been established, and therefore their theoretical status, is different; and it is desirable that they should not be called by the same name. It seems to me appropriate that the term “class” should be reserved for the syntactic set (the morphological set may then be referred to as a “type”), and I propose to adopt this usage here. It is also true, in my opinion, that the class thus defined, the syntactic set, is crucial to the whole of linguistic theory, since it is required to give meaning to the basic concepts of “structure” and “system”; whereas the type, or morphological set, is more a descriptive convenience whose theoretical implications are largely internal to itself.

In the remaining sections of this paper, therefore, I should like to discuss two aspects of the syntactically defined set, which I shall refer to henceforward simply as the “class”.