"Two Problems Unaddressed"

Fawcett (2010: 330):

Even though Halliday may be right that language is ultimately "ineffable" (Halliday 1984/88), it seems to me that, as SF linguists, it is our task to carry out the research programme outlined earlier, i.e., to assemble the available evidence; to decide which relationships between examples should be given systemic priority in the model of the lexicogrammar; and to explain our decisions. As we have seen, M&M accept this goal too, recognising that the question is that of "what to treat as the basic agnation" (M&M 1991:25). So how far do they do this? 

On the 'thematisability' evidence for treating (1a) as being like (2a) rather than (3a), M&M simply state that "Halliday points out that the thematic principle is not limited to [elements within] the clause; it is also in operation in the clause complex" (1991:26). But one's inevitable response is that, since they start from a position of commitment the concept of 'hypotaxis', they are bound to take this position, so that this it is not independent evidence in support of their argument. Their reply to Huddleston leaves two problems unaddressed. 

The first is that, if we do not treat both after they voted in (1a) and after the vote in (2a) as Adjuncts, our grammar will require two different rules to model a generalisation that patently invites expression in a single rule. 

And the second is that it is not clear how such a rule can in fact be formalised (unless the 'alpha' and 'beta' clauses are admitted as full elements of an as yet unnamed unit, so that the 'beta' element can be thematised in the same way that an Adjunct is.

Blogger Comments:

Reminder:

(1a) He left the room before they voted.
(2a) He left the room before the vote.
(3a) He left the room, then they voted.

[1] This is misleading. M&M's reply specifically addressed Huddleston's claim that the thematisability of the dependent clause in (1a) was evidence that it is embedded as an Adjunct, demonstrating why, in theoretical terms, why this was not the case.

[2] To be clear, if this is a problem, it is only a problem for Fawcett's Cardiff Grammar, not for SFL Theory. In SFL Theory, the general meaning of 'time' — like all categories of expansion and projection — is realised across several domains of the grammar. In (1a) it is realised through clause complexing, whereas in (2a) it is realised through the transitivity system of the clause.

[3] To be clear, the "as yet unnamed unit" in which a 'beta' clause can be thematised is not so much a unit as a unit complex: the clause complex. Halliday (1994: 57):