"The First Major Difference Between Fawcett's And Halliday's Nominal Group"

Fawcett (2010: 203-4):

Halliday's nominal group is the only class of group that comes at all close to sharing both the same name and the same coverage of phenomena as it does the Cardiff Grammar — but even here there are important differences.

The first is that Halliday treats the type of quality group that has an adjective as its apex (e.g., more generous than most people) is a type of "nominal group" in IFG. He does this in spite [of] the fact that its internal structure is clearly very similar to that of his "adverbial group". Here, then, he is clearly applying the criterion for assigning an expression to a class of unit that what matters is the unit's ability to function at given elements in the unit above on the 'rank scale' (as discussed in Section 10.2.2). His reason is clearly that an 'adjectival group' such as very bright can function in the clause as an Attribute in the same way as a nominal group can, e.g., She is very bright /a very bright student. 

However, this decision appears to ignore the fact that such expressions also function very frequently as the modifier in a nominal group, e.g., the underlined portion of three very bright students. In both cases the unit realises the meaning of a quality of a thing — and so not the meaning of a 'thing'. 

It is not clear why, since Halliday is willing to allow the internal structure of this morning "to determine its primary syntactic assignment" (as we saw in Section 10.2.2) the internal structure of very bright should not also be allowed to determine its class of unit. The solution to the problem is clear: we should use the internal syntax and semantics of a unit to determine its class.

Blogger Comments:

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

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the internal structure of a unit is irrelevant to the classification of a unit, because this takes the view 'from below' (structural realisation), whereas SFL Theory takes the view 'from above' (the function being realised).

[3] To be clear, in all of the provided examples, very bright functions as the (sub-modified) Epithet of a nominal group:

[4] This is true, but misleading. It is true because the Epithet very bright does realise a Quality, rather than a Thing, but it is misleading to imply that, on Halliday's model, it realises a Thing. Fawcett's confusion derives from his misconstruing the Head of the nominal group very bright as Thing, instead of Epithet.

[5] This is very misleading indeed. As we saw in the examination of Section 10.2.2, in the cited example, Halliday was demonstrating the alternative approach that he himself was not taking.

[6] As demonstrated above, the only problem, in this instance, is Fawcett's inability to understand SFL Theory.

[7] To be clear, as previously explained, classifying units 'from below' ("internal syntax") is inconsistent with the functional principles of SFL Theory. However, classifying units 'from above' (semantics) is entirely consistent with SFL Theory, and it is the method that Halliday adopts. That is, classifying groups according to their function in clause structure is classifying them according to the meaning they realise in the clause. However, contrary to the claim here, this is not the criterion that Fawcett applies, but rather, the criterion he continually rejects.