Fawcett (2010: 181-2, 182n):
The "Conflate" operation is clearly the same in both models, and Halliday's "Lexify" is equivalent to our "Expound". However, it is important to note that the example of 'lexification' is the exponence of the Subject by the item it (presumably for cases of 'empty Subjects' such as It's raining). In other words, it seems that the "Lexify" operation is not limited, as one might at first suppose, to lexical items, in the usual sense of that term, and that it can also introduce grammatical items to the structure. It therefore covers all types of 'item' — just as the operation "Expound" does in the Cardiff Grammar.⁴
⁴ It is surprising to find Halliday using this example, because it goes against the principle of 'total accountability at all ranks'. This requires, of course, that the Subject should be filled by a nominal group (or some other unit of that 'rank' or above). In the Cardiff Grammar the item it functions as the direct exponent of the Subject only in cases with an "empty Subject", such as It's raining and It's nice to see you, so perhaps this is the case in Halliday's example? But, if this is so, it breeches his 'rank scale' principle.
Blogger Comments:
This is misleading, because it is untrue. There is no 'breeching' of 'total accountability at all ranks' or the 'rank scale' principle because, in all such examples, the Subject of the clause is realised by nominal group whose Thing/Head is realised by a word:
I cannot fathom how he didn't realize that "it" was a nominal group. That's SFL 101.
ReplyDeleteWell, Fawcett's misunderstandings are motivated. He wants to discredit the rank scale, because SFL models 'syntax' in terms of the compositional rank scale.
Delete