M&M make many valuable points in their "Response to Huddleston". The main weakness in the case that they present in the sections of their "Response" summarised above is this: they do not show how the generalisations that Halliday gives up in order to foreground the similarities between the 'hypotactic' and 'paratactic' analyses are to be handled in the grammar. If M&M are to 'defend' the position taken in IFG successfully, they need to address this question. But perhaps there should be less 'attacking' and 'defending', and more accepting of genuine 'problem examples', together with more exploring of comprehensive solutions to such problems, in the framework of a multi-component model?
Blogger Comments:
[1] To be clear, Halliday does not "give up" any generalisations in "foregrounding the similarities" of hypotaxis and parataxis. On the contrary, the distinction between hypotaxis and parataxis provides a generalisation, the system of TAXIS (interdependency), which Fawcett's Cardiff Grammar lacks. Importantly, the distinction between interdependency and embedding provides a more detailed specification of the different types of grammatical environments in which the generalised meanings of expansion and projection are manifested.
[2] To be clear, it is Fawcett who chooses to construe M&M's 'Response To Huddleston" in terms of 'attacking' and 'defending', the former being his own preferred modus operandi.
[3] To be clear, as previously demonstrated, the 'problem examples' that have been presented by Huddleston and Fawcett are not genuine 'problem examples' when examined with a sufficient grasp of SFL Theory.
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