Misrepresenting Halliday On Rankshift (Embedding)

Fawcett (2010: 239-40):

It follows naturally from the statements which I have just made that there is no implication in the present theory of syntax that a unit is functioning in a highly marked manner when embedding occurs. In this theory it is expected that a clause will quite frequently occur as an element of another clause, or as an element of a group. This position is almost the opposite of that presented in IFG, where the picture is one of very severe limitations on the embedding of units within each other. Indeed, in IFG Halliday stipulates that it is not possible for a clause to fill an element of another clause (except indirectly, by filling the head of a nominal group that fills an element of the higher clause (IFG p. 242).

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[1] To be clear, in stark contrast, in SFL Theory, rankshift (embedding) is seen as a powerful semogenic resource. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 10):

The units below the clause on the rank scale are all groups (nominal, verbal adverbial, etc.) or phrases (prepositional phrases), or else clauses that are shifted downwards on the rank scale to serve as if they were groups or phrases. Such down-ranking is known as rankshift. This has the powerful effect of expanding the resources of grammar by allowing the meaning potential of a higher-ranking unit to enrich that of a unit of lower rank. … Such rankshifted clauses construe what we call macro-phenomena.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, a rankshifted (embedded) clause does not "occur as" an element of a clause or group, it realises it. This is because clause (form) and element (function) are different levels of symbolic abstraction.

[3] To be clear, Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 427) identify the following types of embedding in SFL Theory:

[4] This is very misleading. In SFL Theory, a nominal group with a rankshifted clause as Head (or Postmodifier) is "directly" serving as an element of clause structure — just like any other nominal group. Moreover, IFG (Halliday 1994: 97) explicitly provides the following example of an embedded clause serving as Subject:

and Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 156) add the syntagm of groups to the analysis: