Every grammar has to a greater or lesser extent a functional aspect. In this book, Bondarko provides a comprehensive discourse on the theoretical foundations of grammar, concentrating on functional-semantic fields, with emphasis on the diversity of their structural types. Criteria for distinguishing between linguistically structured meaning and non-linguistic cognitive content is developed in a discussion on the Category of Aspect and its Environment which includes an analysis of aspectual opposition according to the Prague School. Special attention is also paid to analysing polycentric fields and, specifically, taxis in the Russian language. The book is divided into three sections: Functional Grammar: Subject Matter and Goals Structural Types of Functional-Semantic Fields Categorial Situations. This book is intended for those interested in the general theory of linguistics.

Morphological and syntactic issues have received relatively little attention in Functional Grammar, due to the fact that this grammatical model, given its functional orientation, was primarily concerned with developing its pragmatic and semantic components. Now that these have been solidly developed, this book turns to the further development of the syntactic and morphological components of the model. Two recent developments receive pride of place: Bakker's Dynamic Expression Model and Hengeveld and Mackenzie's Functional Discourse Grammar. The first model aims at accounting for the complex interactions that one finds in many languages between the sets of expression rules that have to account for form on the one hand and those that establish order on the other. The second model takes a further step by considering morphosyntactic and phonological representations to be part of the underlying structure of the grammar rather than as the output of that grammar, contrary to the original assumptions in FG. The book accordingly contains synopses of these two proposals as well as applications of these to a variety of linguistic phenomena. Further articles provide detailed analyses of a range of semantic and pragmatic categories and their morphosyntactic expression in a wide variety of languages. The articles in this book contain data on some 60 different languages, including focused articles on phenomena in Arabic, Danish, English, Lengua de Señas Española, Mapudungun, Plains Cree, and Tanggu. In all, the contributions to this volume show that the issue of morphosyntactic expression in Functional Grammar is very much alive and moving into promising new directions, while at the same time contributing to a better understanding of a large number of morphosyntactic phenomena in a wide variety of languages.

This book presents an analysis of Chinese grammar from a systemic functional perspective. Its main focus is the clausal grammar of Chinese, and Dr Li provides a thorough analysis of Chinese clauses according to their constituent parts. However, uniquely, the second half of the book extends this examination into an analysis of Chinese discourse and text analysis. Professor Halliday's foreword praises Eden Li's thorough analysis, and shows its relevance to the field of systemic functional linguistics in general. Systemic Functional Grammar of Chinese provides the reader with a general theoretical framework of grammar and discourse analysis from a systemic functional perspective.

Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) is a usage-based theory of language, founded on the assumption that language is shaped entirely by its various functions in the contexts in which it used. The first of its kind, this book advances SFL by applying it comparatively to English, Spanish and Chinese. By analysing English alongside two other, typologically very different major world languages, it shows how SFL can effectively address two central issues in linguistics – namely typology and universals. It concentrates in particular on argumentation, carefully explaining how descriptions of nominal group, verbal group and clause systems and structures are motivated, and draws on examples from key texts which display a full range of ideational, interpersonal and textual grammar resources. By working across three world languages from a text-based perspective, and demonstrating how grammar descriptions can be developed and improved, the book establishes the foundations for a groundbreaking functional approach to language typology.

The purpose of the present work is to explore the description of Constituent Ordering (CO) within the Functional Grammar (FG) framework. The aim is to show how it is possible to achieve a comprehensive description of CO and of CO change which takes properly into account not only the formal or structural properties of ordering but also the part which CO plays in linguistic communication.

Functional Grammar (FG) as set out by Simon Dik is the ambitious combination of a functionalist approach to the study of language with a consistent formalization of the underlying structures which it recognizes as relevant. The present volume represents the attempts made within the FG framework to expand the theory so as to cover a wider empirical domain than is usual for highly formalized linguistic theories, namely that of written and spoken discourse, while retaining its methodological precision. The book covers an array of phenomena, both from monologue and from dialogue material, relating to discourse structure, speaker aims and goals, action theory, the flow of information, illocutionary force, modality, etc. The central question underlying most of the contributions concerns the relation between, and the division of labour between the existing grammatical module of FG on the one hand, and a discourse or pragmatic module capable of handling such discourse phenomena on the other. What emerges are new proposals for the formal treatment of for instance illocutionary force and the informational status of constituents. Many of the data discussed are from ‘real’ language rather than being invented, and samples from various languages other than English (Spanish, Polish, Latin, French) are examined and used as illustrations of the theoretical problem to be solved. Readership: theoretical linguists and discourse and conversation analysts

Functional Grammar (FG) as set out by Simon Dik is the ambitious combination of a functionalist approach to the study of language with a consistent formalization of the underlying structures which it recognizes as relevant. The present volume represents the attempts made within the FG framework to expand the theory so as to cover a wider empirical domain than is usual for highly formalized linguistic theories, namely that of written and spoken discourse, while retaining its methodological precision. The book covers an array of phenomena, both from monologue and from dialogue material, relating to discourse structure, speaker aims and goals, action theory, the flow of information, illocutionary force, modality, etc. The central question underlying most of the contributions concerns the relation between, and the division of labour between the existing grammatical module of FG on the one hand, and a discourse or pragmatic module capable of handling such discourse phenomena on the other. What emerges are new proposals for the formal treatment of for instance illocutionary force and the informational status of constituents. Many of the data discussed are from 'real' language rather than being invented, and samples from various languages other than English (Spanish, Polish, Latin, French) are examined and used as illustrations of the theoretical problem to be solved. Readership: theoretical linguists and discourse and conversation analysts

This third edition of An Introduction to Functional Grammar has been extensively revised. While retaining the organization and coverage of the earlier editions, it incorporates a considerable amount of new material.