Misrepresenting The Integration Of Meanings Into A Single Syntagm As The Conflation Of Structures

Fawcett (2010: 116):

For our present purposes, however, the main point to notice is that a diagram such as that in Figure 7 embodies a very significant extension of the concept that a single element such as we in Figure 7 is the 'conflation' of three 'functions'. In such diagrams the whole clause is presented as the 'conflation' of five or more functional structures (as well as also involving 'more delicate' layers of analysis). In Sections 7.4 and 7.5, I shall challenge Halliday's concept that it is whole structures that are conflated with each other, rather than individual elements. Moreover, this central proposal of Halliday's is also challenged, as I shall show, by the actual practice in the theoretical-generative strand of work in the Sydney Grammar, i.e., in the computer implementations of Halliday's model by Mann, Matthiessen and Bateman — and even, surprisingly, by Halliday's own writings on generation.

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Reminder:

[1] This is misleading. To be clear, we is not an element of function structure.  As a clause constituent, the nominal group we realises the conflation of three clause functions: Theme, Subject and Actor.

[2] This is misleading. On the one hand, a clause involves only three types of function structure — theme, mood and transitivity — and the relation between the Mood and Residue blocks and their elements in one of composition, not delicacy; e.g. Subject and Finite are parts of the Mood element, not subtypes of it.

On the other hand, it confuses (functional) structure with (formal) syntagm. To be clear, the 'simultaneous structures' of the clause are integrated into a single syntagm — a syntagm being a string of clause constituents (different classes of group ± prepositional phrase). Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 74):

The clause, as we said, is the mainspring of grammatical energy; it is the unit where meanings of different kinds, experiential, interpersonal and textual, are integrated into a single syntagm.

[3] This is misleading, because it misrepresents Fawcett's concept as Halliday's. That is, the concept that whole structures are conflated is Fawcett's, not Halliday's, which means that Fawcett's challenge will be to his own misunderstanding of Halliday's model, rather than to Halliday's model itself.  In terms of logical fallacies, this can be seen as a variant of the Straw Man argument.