Misunderstanding The Place Of Unit Complexes On The Rank Scale

Fawcett (2010: 319):

However, it makes little difference which way one decides on this matter, because my essential point stands in either case. This is that the effect on the concept of the 'rank scale' of introducing 'parataxis' and 'hypotaxis' is that it greatly increases the number of units on the 'rank scale'. Indeed, since in Halliday's model there can be unit complexes of both the 'paratactic' and the 'hypotactic' types above each basic unit, the number of units on the 'rank scale' is increased to at least twelve. Moreover, since either the 'paratactic' or the 'hypotactic' structure may come above the other (or indeed between two instances of the other) there may be even more layers still. The model with which Halliday's account of 'univariate' structures leaves us is therefore one which has, in principle, potentially very many layers of unit complexes (either 'paratactic' or 'hypotactic' or both) above each of the four basic 'units' of the 'rank scale'.

Blogger Comments:

As previously explained, this is misleading because it is untrue. Parataxis and hypotaxis are relations that obtain between units in unit complexes at one of the four ranks of the rank scale. Here Fawcett explicitly demonstrates the extent to which he does not understand either the rank scale or taxis.