"The Role Of 'Some Proposals' In Developing A Modern SF Theory Of Syntax"

Fawcett (2010: 166-7):

Let me now summarise this short chapter. "Some proposals" began the work of overhauling the concepts first presented in "Categories" in the light of the requirements of a modern theory of SF syntax — a theory in which the system networks of TRANSITIVITY, MOOD, THEME and the rest are regarded as modelling the level of meaning. As I wrote at the time, "the syntactic categories [...] are those [...] needed to state with the greatest economy the realisation rules that express the options in the semantics" (Fawcett 1974:4-5). The new ideas that it introduced have all proved their value, both in the construction of computer parsing systems (Weerasinghe & Fawcett 1993, Weerasinghe 1994 and Souter 1996) and in the hand analysis of texts by myself, my teaching colleagues, members of a large team of researchers in a study of the language of children aged 6-12, and many generations of students. 

However, later work has shown that in some cases the revisions were not drastic enough (e.g., the retention of the concept of the 'rank scale'). Yet in most cases the concepts established in "Some proposals" have passed the test of twenty-five years of use in various fields of application as a descr[ip]tion of English, as well as in describing various other languages, and they are the central concepts in the theory of syntax for a modern systemic functional grammar that I shall present in Part 2.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Fawcett's "Some proposals" addressed Halliday's first theory, Scale and Category Grammar, after Halliday had devised his second theory, Systemic Functional Grammar, in the light of the requirements of a theory of syntax, despite the fact that neither of Halliday's theories is a theory of syntax, as previously explained.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the system networks of TRANSITIVITY, MOOD, THEME are located at the level of wording (lexicogrammar), not meaning (semantics). As Halliday (1985: xvii) explains:

The relation between meaning and wording is not, however, an arbitrary one; the form of the grammar relates naturally to the meanings that are being encoded. A functional grammar is designed to bring this out; it is a study of wording, but one that interprets the wording by reference to what it means.

[3] To be clear, this is a statement about Fawcett's model only (Figure 4), where realisation rules involving features of meaning are construed as the form that realises systems of meaning.

[4] To be clear, here Fawcett positively assesses his own model.

[5] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the rank scale is the means of modelling what other theories model as syntax.