"Using The Cardiff Grammar As The Baseline For Constructing A Modern Theory Of SF Syntax"

Fawcett (2010: 185-6, 186n):

In Chapters 10 and 11 we turn to the concepts that are required for the specification of 'instances of syntax'. As we have seen, these concepts are drawn on in a computer model of parsing such as that described in Weerasinghe & Fawcett (1993), Weerasinghe (1994) and Souter (1996). However, these concepts are also referred to in the realisation rules, and are in that sense presupposed by them.

As will by now clear, we shall be using the Cardiff Grammar rather than the Sydney Grammar as the baseline for constructing a modern theory of SF syntax.⁵ 

⁵ Apart from the reasons that follow from our findings in Chapter 7, there are two more reasons for this. Firstly, the Cardiff Grammar has taken the revolutionary proposals for changes to the theory made by Halliday in the 1960s (as summarised in Chapter 4) significantly further than the Sydney Grammar has. It has full implementations of (1) explicitly semantic system networks, (2) the concept of lexis as "most delicate grammar", (3) the integration into the system networks of the meanings realised in intonation and (4) the integration of meanings realised in punctuation. Secondly, the Cardiff Grammar provides a much fuller specification than the Sydney Grammar does of the syntactic concepts that are required, both for language in general and for the description of English in particular — especially in its recognition of classes of group and cluster that are not provided for in the Sydney Grammar.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously explained, Fawcett's 'instances of syntax' are actually structures, not instances. Fawcett's model (Figure 4) confuses the realisation relation between the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes with the instantiation relation between potential and instance.

[2] To be clear, Fawcett's Cardiff Grammar is his model of syntax. Halliday's "Sydney Grammar" — SFL Theory — models syntax (and morphology) as a rank scale, but Halliday (1985: xiv) explains why the term 'syntax' is inappropriate for a functional grammar:

[3] To be clear, Halliday's work in the 1960s was concerned with Scale and Category Grammar, not with Systemic Functional Grammar. That is, Fawcett's claim is actually that his Cardiff Grammar takes the proposals of Halliday's superseded theory further than Halliday's current theory does.

[4] To be clear, Fawcett does not present any of his 'explicitly system semantic networks' in this entire publication. In SFL terms, such networks are actually the grammatical networks, and can be found in Halliday & Matthiessen (2004, 2014). For genuinely semantic networks, see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999).

[5] To be clear, Fawcett has nowhere demonstrated, in this publication, how he models 'lexis as most delicate grammar', and it does not figure in his theoretical architecture (Figure 4). Moreover, since Fawcett locates grammatical systems at his level of meaning, his model is committed to lexis as most delicate semantics, not grammar.

[6] To be clear, Fawcett does not present any of the system networks of the meanings realised in intonation in this entire publication. For an SFL approach to intonation, see Halliday & Greaves (2008).

[7] To be clear, Fawcett does not present any of the 'integration of meanings' realised in punctuation in this entire publication.

[8] This misleading. The 'Sydney Grammar' (SFL Theory) does not provide any specifications 'of the syntactic concepts that are required, both for language in general and for the description of English in particular', largely because SFL Theory is not a theory of syntax; see [2] above.