Fawcett's 'Sentence' Element

 Fawcett (2010: 176-7):

While the system network models choices between meanings, the early choices are between the generalised meanings such as 'situation', 'thing' and 'quality', which are realised as the major syntactic units of the language. …

In generation, the first unit to be generated is always a clause. The 'element' that it fills is an element of an unusual sort, because it is not an element in a unit that is recognised in the model of syntax presented here. The element is the 'Sentence', and this term is interpreted as a placeholder for the 'element' of discourse structure (whichever it is) for which the text-sentence is being generated.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Fawcett does not present these system networks in this publication.

[2] To be clear, these 'generalised meanings' are experiential meanings only. Logical, interpersonal and textual meanings do not feature as 'generalised meanings' in Fawcett's unseen system network.

[3] As this wording demonstrates, this is a model of text generation, not of language itself.

[4] To be clear, in Fawcett's model of syntax, the clause fills an element in a unit that is not recognised in Fawcett's model of syntax.

[5] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the sentence is a unit of graphology, the expression plane system of written mode.

[6] To be clear, in Fawcett's model, a sentence is an element that is a placeholder for an element of discourse structure, though no such discourse structures are identified, and 'discourse structure' does not feature in his model (Figure 4).