Firstly, Huddleston suggests that in He assumed that she was guilty, the clause that she was guilty functions as a Complement, just as too much is a Complement in He assumed too much. Similarly, he suggests that in He left before the vote was taken, the clause before the vote was taken functions as an Adjunct, just as before the debate does in He left before the debate. Huddleston's point is that Halliday should treat the dependent clause in such examples as functioning as an element of the matrix clause (i.e., as embedded) and not as a clause that is 'hypotactically' related to the rest of the main clause in a 'modifier-head' relationship. The relevance of this for the 'rank scale' is that, if his position is accepted, the amount of 'rank shift' in the grammar is thereby increased enormously, and the predictions made by the 'rank scale' concept are consequently weakened. We shall shortly consider more closely both Huddleston's reasons for taking the position that he does on this matter, and Matthiessen and Martin's reply. As you may have noticed, Huddleston's position is essentially the same as my own, as described in Section 11.9 of Chapter 11.
Blogger Comments:
[1] To be clear, merely reporting Huddleston's suggestions, without the reasoning on which they are based, is not argument.
But note that the above clause that she was guilty can interpreted as a Complement in SFL Theory, if it is construed as a pre-projected fact: He assumed (the fact) that she was guilty. Importantly, the distinction between embedding and hypotaxis provides the means of distinguishing between pre-projected facts and projected ideas, whereas the approach advocated by Huddleston and Fawcett does not.
[2] This is misleading. The rank scale derives from taking a functional approach to formal constituency: the minimal bracketing of ranked constituent analysis (Halliday 1994: 20-8). Its "predictions" are not weakened by any increase in the amount of rankshift. On the contrary, the rank scale provides the principled means of accounting for rankshift in functional terms.
[3] This is misleading, because it is not possible to look more closely at reasons which have not yet been provided. That is, Fawcett falsely implies that the bare assertions he provides here, from Huddleston, are reasoned arguments.
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