The first "fundamental category" in "Categories" was that of a 'unit', but this concept, as will by now be abundantly clear, has no role to play in the theory of syntax proposed here, because it is inherently bound up with the concept of 'rank'. The word "unit" is used here, however, as a short form for the concept of 'class of unit'. Surprisingly, the concepts of 'unit' and its partner 'rank' occur only rarely in the recent writings of Halliday and Matthiessen. Yet it is clear that this pair of concepts still provides the general framework for the description of English set out in IFG — just as they underpinned the theory of syntax presented in "Categories".
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[1] To be clear, this is nonsensical, because the concept 'class of unit' includes the concept 'unit', just as the concept 'breed of dog' includes the concept 'dog'. Moreover, Fawcett's fear of acknowledging the concept is entirely unnecessary, because 'unit' is only "bound up with" the concept of 'constituency', which can be modelled in ways other than rank (e.g immediate constituent analysis).
[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue. SFL Theory models grammatical form as a rank scale of units and assigns functions (e.g. Token) to the constituents (e.g. nominal group) of each unit (e.g. clause). However, grammatical form is backgrounded in SFL Theory, because, as a functional grammar, rather than a formal grammar, it gives priority to function over form.
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