On The Strange Omission Of The Vital Operation 'Insert Unit'

Fawcett (2010: 88):

Strangely, one vital operation appears to be missing from Halliday's list in "Systemic theory" — and it is also missing from the closely related lists given in Matthiessen & Bateman (1991) and Matthiessen (1995). This missing operation is 'Insert unit', and I shall comment on the possible reasons for its absence in Section 9.2 of Chapter 9.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, Fawcett's operation 'Insert unit' corresponds to Halliday's features of the rank scale — clause, group/phrase, word, morpheme — as the entry conditions for more delicate systems at each rank, as will be seen in the examination of Section 9.2 of Chapter 9.  Fawcett's model lacks a rank scale, and so requires this extra 'operation' in his inventory of realisation rules. It will also be seen in that future discussion that Fawcett continues his previously identified confusion of structure with constituency.