Tuesday, 7 July 2020

The Logical Conclusion Of The Argument For A Theory Of Syntax For SFL [3]

Fawcett (2010: 156):
16. As a final point, we might note that the Cardiff Grammar has a simpler architecture than the Sydney Grammar with respect to the relationship between the system networks of TRANSITIVITY, MOOD, THEME etc. and their realisations in form. The former is summarised in Figure 4 of Chapter 3 and the latter in Figure 8 of Section 7.4 3. The Cardiff model is also simpler in that its system networks have been semanticised to the point where there is no need to have a higher layer of networks, as there seems to be in the model described in Halliday (1994) and Matthiessen (1995).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, as previously demonstrated, the simpler architecture of the Cardiff Grammar (Figure 4) is riddled with internal inconsistencies that invalidate it as a model. These include positing realisation rules involving semantic features at the level of form, such that realisation rules realise system networks, and positing structure as an instance of realisation rules:
[2] To be clear, the figure in Section 7.4.3, Figure 9*, says nothing about "the relationship between the system networks of TRANSITIVITY, MOOD, THEME etc. and their realisations in form" in the "Sydney Grammar" since it is merely a metafunctional analysis of clause structure, without reference to the systems that specify each structure:
* Figure 8 presents a modification of Figure 4 to accommodate Fawcett's mistaken notion of structure conflation.

[3] To be clear, Fawcett's "semanticisation" of Halliday's grammatical grammatical systems is merely his relocation of them from Halliday's stratum of lexicogrammar to his level of meaning. Fawcett does not present any of his "semanticised" versions of these networks in the entire publication.

More importantly, as previously noted, the distinction between semantic networks (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999) and lexicogrammatical networks (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004, 2014) is warranted by the explanatory power it provides in modelling grammatical metaphor.

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