"Yet Another Serious Source Of Embarrassment For The Concept Of The Rank Scale"

Fawcett (2010: 256, 256n):

This section addresses, as we shall see, a question which would be a serious problem for a 'rank scale' grammar — and which has still not in fact been adequately addressed in the framework of such grammars. But the question is also relevant, in a modified form, in the present grammar. It concerns the point in a tree diagram at which the relationship of exponence should be introduced. We can approach it by asking "Is it the case that there are two types of element: (1) those that are always directly expounded by an item and (2) those that are always filled by another unit?"

In principle, the question should not arise in a grammar with 'accountability at all ranks', but in practice the examples to be considered below cause serious problems for a 'rank-based' grammar'. And in the present grammar it is still relevant to ask whether there should be an equivalent principle of 'total accountability at all possible layers of structure'.¹⁶

¹⁶ We might note that the data that we are about to consider are yet another serious source of embarrassment for the concept of the 'rank scale'.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because, as will be demonstrated, this issue is not a problem for a 'rank scale' grammar, serious or otherwise, which is why it has not been addressed in such frameworks, adequately or otherwise.

[2] To be clear, this issue is only relevant to the Cardiff Grammar, because it is only the Cardiff Grammar that deploys tree diagrams and the notions of filling and exponence.

[3] To be clear, in SFL Theory, 'accountability at all ranks' is the general principle of exhaustiveness, which simply states that 'everything in the wording has some function at every rank' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 84).

[4] This is misleading, because, as will be demonstrated, the examples to be presented do not "cause serious problems" for the concept of a rank scale, nor are they "yet another source of embarrassment". It will be seen that Fawcett interprets the data only in terms of his own model — not in terms of SFL Theory.

[5] This is not misleading, though of course, it has no bearing on SFL Theory.