Confusing Layers Of Structure With Layers Of The Rank Scale

Fawcett (2010: 268-9):

He then goes on to list the very small number of types of embedding that he does still allow (p. 242). These are (expressed here in both Cardiff Grammar and Sydney Grammar terms):

the occurrence of either a clause or a prepositional group/phrase (but no other class of unit, so not a nominal group) as:

1. the head in a nominal group or

2. a qualifier in a nominal group (also referred to as a "postmodifier" in some sections of IFG), or

3. the finisher in a quality group (in IFG a "postmodifier" in an "adverbial group" (but note that in IFG there is no provision for a similarly structured quality group with an adjective as its apex).

Halliday then goes on to state categorically that "there are no further types". The above specification of what types of 'rank shift' are permitted is therefore extremely narrow. It provides for cases such as what Jack built and for Jack to build a house as embedded clauses that fill the Subject, but only by filling the head of a nominal group that in turn fills the Subject. And it even provides for rare cases such as by the bridge as the Subject — but again only as the head of a nominal group that fills a Subject. Why, one wonders, should the clause or prepositional group not fill the Subject directly? Halliday simply states his position and gives no reason. Yet this approach introduces an additional layer of structure, which runs against his general approach of reducing the number of layers of structure in the representation to the minimum.²²

²² In a footnote (p. 242) Halliday re-affirms that the embedded clause or prepositional phrase does indeed function as the head of a nominal group — while at the same time stating that in such cases "we may leave out the intermediate (nominal group) step in the analysis and represent the embedded clause or phrase as functioning directly in the structure of the outer clause, as Subject or whatever." I welcome this small concession, and I suggest that there is, in fact, no reason why a clause should not be permitted to fill an element of another clause.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the Qualifier of a nominal group is an element of experiential structure, whereas the Postmodifier is an element of logical structure. The two do not always conflate, as Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 392) illustrate:

[2] This is misleading. While SFL Theory does not feature Fawcett's quality group, it does provide this type of structure as a nominal group, as Halliday (1994: 242) makes clear on the very page being cited by Fawcett:

[3] To be clear, in Fawcett's terms, a clause that is embedded in a clause does "fill" an element of clause structure; a phrase embedded in a nominal group does "fill" an element of group structure. The crucial thing that Fawcett does not understand is the basic principle that elements of structure at one rank are realised by units of the rank below. This means that if a clause is embedded in a clause, it is shifted to the rank of group where, like groups, it realises an element of clause structure.

[4] This is misleading, because it is untrue. On the one hand, here Fawcett misrepresents the rank scale — clause, group/phrase, word, morpheme — as layers of structure. In SFL Theory, structures are differentiated according to rank, so that 'layers of structure' are those of just one rank.

On the other hand, this "approach" is merely consistent with the SFL principle of exhaustiveness, which means that 'everything in the wording has some function at every rank' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 84). 

[5] This is misleading, because it is untrue, since "reducing the number of layers of structure in the representation" is not Halliday's general approach. In fact, as previously demonstrated, Fawcett has spent considerable effort unsuccessfully arguing that Halliday's model has too many layers of structure.

Here again, Fawcett has confused layers of structure with the rank scale. It is the rank scale that has a fixed number of layers.  Halliday (2002 [1966]: 119):

By a rank grammar I mean one which specifies and labels a fixed number of layers in the hierarchy of constituents, such that any constituent, and any constitute, can be assigned to one or other of the specified layers, or ranks.