Agreeing With Huddleston's Conclusion

Fawcett (2010: 324):

There is much in Huddleston's review, therefore, with which I disagree. However, it will be clear that I share his conclusion that most of the uses to which 'hypotaxis' has been put by Halliday are better handled by a simple embedding relationship (but one by co-ordination; see Section 11.9 of Chapter 11). And I also share his view (though for a set of reasons that only partly overlap with his) that "the constraints this [i.e., the requirement of 'accountability at all ranks'] imposes on the grammar have numerous unsatisfactory consequences" (Huddleston 1988:141). Indeed, I would also agree with his statement (though again for reasons that only partly overlap with his) that

the unsatisfactory nature of the constituent structures given in [IFG] derives in very large measure from their foundation in rank theory. (Huddleston 1988:155)

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, agreeing with someone's conclusion is not reasoned argument. Fawcett has still not provided Huddleston's actual argument, and it is clear from previous posts that Fawcett does not understand hypotaxis, especially with regard to how unit complexes relate to the rank scale.

The rhetorical purpose of providing Huddleston's conclusion before providing his argument is to prime the reader to prejudge the argument through prior alignment with the conclusion.