The third major type of evidence is the fact that virtually every element of the supposed 'verbal group' needs to be generated in close conjunction with an established element of the clause — very much as the Operator needs to be generated as an element of the same unit as the Subject, as the co-realisation of meanings of MOOD. This was, of course, Halliday's reason for promoting the Finite (or Operator) in the first place. A well-constructed systemic functional grammar should provide for the interdependencies between, let us say, the 'tense' of the Operator or Main Verb and a Time Position Adjunct, preferably by (1) generating them on the same traversal of the system network and (2) realising them in the same unit. There are seven other similar types of inter-dependency between elements of the supposed 'verbal group' and well-established elements of the clause.
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The first reason is that, if the Finite is to be promoted to function as an element of the clause, the other 'major' elements of the 'verbal group' must be promoted too.
[2] This is not misleading, because it is essentially true, except of course that, in SFL Theory, the Finite is not "promoted", but is a functional element of the structure of both the clause and the verbal group.
[3] To be clear, here Fawcett is describing his own model (Operator, Main Verb, Time Position Adjunct), not SFL Theory. In SFL Theory, the system of TENSE is realised by the logical structure of the verbal group, not by an 'Operator' or 'Main Verb'.
[4] To be clear, one insight of SFL Theory is that enhancement categories like 'time' can be realised in multiple grammatical domains, not just in the same rank unit.
On the other hand, for the validity of Fawcett's claim that one traversal through one of his networks generates a whole unit, see the previous application of his realisation operations here.
[5] To be clear, this is a bare assertion, unsupported by evidence.
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