Fawcett's Argument Against Hypotaxis [1]

Fawcett (2010: 27):

It is within the category of 'univariate' structures that a new pair of concepts are to be found. The question is whether their introduction leads to better descriptions of languages, or whether they cause difficulties. I shall argue that one of them — the concept of 'hypotaxis' — is a source of problems in three ways. Firstly, it is not in fact as easy as one at first thinks to work out what it actually means in structural terms to say that one unit is hypotactically related to another. Secondly, Halliday has given it great prominence in his theory, and this prominence has been at the expense of another concept — that of 'embedding'. The concept of embedding is of course tied to the general concept of 'constituency', but it is not necessarily linked to formal grammars, and its use in SFL leads to the insightful analysis of long and complex texts. The third problem with 'hypotaxis' is related to this: in practical terms, it has often led to analyses of text-sentences that are plainly counter-intuitive (e.g. treating He said as a clause in He said that he would be there).

Blogger Comment:

[1] Fawcett's first argument here against the concept 'hypotaxis' is a version of the logical fallacy known as the argument from personal incredulity which might be termed an argument from personal incapacity: because I can't apply the concept, there must be a problem with the concept.  Applied to the field of physics, this could become: because I can't apply the notion of wave–particle duality, there must be a problem with the concept.

In IFG2, Halliday (1994: 221) clarifies "what it means in structural terms to say that one unit is hypotactically related to another" by distinguishing hypotaxis from parataxis, logically, in terms of two parameters, symmetry and transitivity:

Parataxis is the linking of elements of equal status.  Both the initiating and the continuing element are free, in the sense that each could stand as a functioning whole.

Hypotaxis is the binding of elements of unequal status.  The dominant element is free, but the dependent element is not. …

In principle, the paratactic relation is logically (i) symmetrical and (ii) transitive. This can be exemplified by the 'and' relation.

(i) 'salt and pepper' implies 'pepper and salt', so the relation is symmetrical; 

(ii) 'salt and pepper', 'pepper and mustard' together imply 'salt and mustard', so the relationship is transitive.

The hypotactic relation is logically (i) non-symmetrical and (ii) non-transitive. For example, 'when':

(i) 'I breathe when I sleep' does not imply 'I sleep when I breathe'; 

(ii) 'I fret when I have to drive slowly' and 'I have to drive slowly when it's been raining' together do not imply 'I fret when it's been raining'.

[2] Fawcett's second argument here against the concept 'hypotaxis' is an untruth.  It is simply not true that the introduction of hypotaxis has been at the expense of embedding.  In SFL theory, both concepts are used, and the explanatory advantages provided by the distinction include the ability to distinguish:

• in expansion, between non-defining (hypotaxis) and defining (embedding) relative clauses, and
• in projection, between projected reports (hypotaxis) and pre-projected facts (embedding).

[3] Fawcett's third argument here against the concept 'hypotaxis' is another instance of the logical fallacy known as the argument from personal incredulity: because I can't believe it, it can't be true.  No grammatical argument is proffered in support of the intuition.