Summary Of The Differences Between "Categories" And IFG2 [3]

Fawcett (2010: 102):

Thus all three of the 'categories' of 'unit', 'class of unit' and 'element (of structure)' are in fact alive and well in IFG, and the 'rank scale' is also there in the background for use when needed. Moreover, while the concept of 'delicacy' is never mentioned, it is illustrated throughout IFG whenever MOOD is analysed, in the sense of an analysis in terms of 'primary' and 'secondary' structures. (For a discussion of the relevance of 'delicacy' to 'structure', see Section 10.3.4 of Chapter 10.)

We might say, then, that IFG is a description of English that is based on the concepts of "Categories" — but with the addition of the concepts of 'parataxis' and 'hypotaxis' from Halliday (1965/81). 

However, there is one highly significant difference that is not covered by what has been said so far. It is that it is assumed in "Categories" that a clause has a single structure, where the typical elements were "S Ρ C A", etc. But in IFG, as we shall see, a clause is seen as having simultaneously five or more different structures. The problems raised by these representations will be our major concern in the next chapter.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, as already explained, in SFL theory, delicacy is a dimension of systems, not structures, and is a type of elaboration (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 144-5).  In applying the term to Mood structure — e.g. Subject and Finite as components of Mood — Fawcett confuses delicacy (elaboration) with composition (extension).

[2] To be clear, this grossly misrepresents the degree of difference between the two theories: Category & Scale Grammar (Halliday 1961) and Systemic Functional Grammar (Halliday 1994).  Among the most important differences are the introduction, in the latter theory, of system and metafunction as major organising principles.

[3] This is misleading. To be clear, in IFG, the clause has three lines of structure:

• experiential (transitivity),
• interpersonal (mood), and
• textual (thematic).

"As we shall see", Fawcett will misrepresent:

• information as a system of the clause,
• mood structure as two structures, and
• thematic structure as two structures.

Misconstruing Parataxis As Coordination

Fawcett (2010: 26):

The first two concepts are a pair of ideas that have come to play a major role in Halliday's later model of grammar — and especially in the framework that he uses for analysing text-sentences in IFG. These are 'parataxis' and 'hypotaxis'. 

In what follows, I shall use 'scare quotes' around these terms as a sign that they — or rather one of them, i.e., 'hypotaxis' — will have no role to play in the framework presented here. However, since the two terms are so closely bound up together in Halliday's theory, it will be safer to avoid 'parataxis' too. The types of relationship between units that 'parataxis' provides for are essentially the same as those covered by co-ordination, in a broad sense of the term that includes 'asyndetic co-ordination' (as described in Quirk et al. 1985:918) as well as co-ordination with overt markers such as and. I shall therefore normally use the term "co-ordination" rather that "parataxis".

Blogger Comments:

This is misleading.  The traditional notion of coordination is not equivalent to parataxis, but to the combination of parataxis and the logico-semantic relation of extension.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 472):

The combination of extension with parataxis yields what is known as co-ordination between clauses.  It is typically expressed by and, nor, or, but.  We can recognise three major subtypes of paratactic extension, (i) addition, (ii) variation and (iii) alternation.

Unlike coordination, parataxis also combines with the other two relations of expansion, elaboration and enhancement, as well as the other major logico-semantic relation, projection, as in the case of a quoting nexus. Traditionally, coordination contrasts with subordination, which largely corresponds to the SFL category combination of hypotactic enhancement.  The distinction between taxis and logico-semantic relations is an important one that potentially obtains between units in complexes at all ranks in the grammar: clause, group/phrase, word and morpheme.

Misunderstanding Lexicogrammatical Delicacy

Fawcett (2010: 23n):

7. In creating and interpeting [sic] system networks, the concept of 'dependency' is in fact more fundamental than 'delicacy', as I have shown in Fawcett (1988b). It is quite widely assumed that systems that are realised in lexis are inherently more 'delicate' than systems that are realised in syntax, and that syntactically-realised systems are therefore never dependent on lexically-realised systems. But see Fawcett (1996) for a demonstration that this assumption is wrong in relation to certain classes of lexical verb, and Tucker (1998) for a similar demonstration in relation to certain adjectives and manner adverbs.

Blogger Comments:

[1] In SFL theory, delicacy is a major organising principle of system networks.  It is the dimension from the most general choices to the most specific.  In terms of the fractal types (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999) that feature throughout the theory at various scales, delicacy is the expansion subtype elaboration.

In SFL theory, dependency is the hypotactic relation between units in unit complexes, as between clauses in a clause complex.  The closest relation to 'dependency' in the architecture of system networks is the conditional relation between systems, as specified by the entry conditions to systems.  In terms of the fractal types, condition falls within the expansion subtype enhancement.

[2] In SFL theory, the traditional notion of 'syntax' can be seen in the syntagms of forms that realise grammatical function structures, and lexis is part of a unified lexicogrammar.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 198-9):

… we can differentiate both processes and participants into finer and finer subcategories, until we reach a degree of differentiation that is associated with the choice of words (lexical items). Note that it is not (usually) the lexical items themselves that figure as terms of the systems in the network. Rather, the systems are systems of features, and the lexical items come in as the synthetic realisation of particular feature combinations. Thus lexis (vocabulary) is part of a unified lexicogrammar; there is no need to postulate a separate “lexicon” as a pre-existing entity on which the grammar is made to operate.