Table Of ContentFunction and Expression in Functional Grammar
Functional Grammar Series 16
Editors
A. Machtelt Bolkestein
Simon C. Dik
Casper de Groot
J. Lachlan Mackenzie
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin · New York
Function and Expression
in Functional Grammar
edited by
Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen
Lisbeth Falster Jakobsen
Lone Schack Rasmussen
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin · New York 1994
Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague)
is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.
@ Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the
ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Function and expression in functional grammar / edited by Elisabeth
Engberg-Pedersen, Lisbeth Falster Jakobsen, Lone Schack Ras-
mussen.
p. cm. — (Functional grammar series ; 16)
Paper presented at the fourth International Conference on
Functional Grammar which was held June 1990. University of
Copenhagen.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 3-11-013407-1
1. Functionalism (Linguistics) —Congresses. I. Engberg-Peder-
sen, Elisabeth, 1952- II. Jakobsen, Lisbeth Falster,
1939— . III. Rasmussen, Lone Schack. IV. International Con-
ference on Functional Grammar (4th : 1990 : University of Copen-
hagen) V. Series.
P147.F8614 1994
415-dc20 94-14582
CIP
Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Function and expression in functional grammar / ed. by
Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen ... — Berlin ; New York : Mouton
de Gruyter, 1994
(Functional grammar series ; 16)
ISBN 3-11-013407-1
NE: Engberg-Pedersen, Elisabeth [Hrsg.]; GT
© Copyright 1994 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-10785 Berlin
All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this
book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publisher.
Typesetting and Printing: Arthur Collignon GmbH, Beriin. — Binding: Dieter Mikolai,
Berlin. -
Printed in Germany.
Contents
Introduction 1
The end of the chain: Where does decomposition of lexical knowledge
lead us eventually?
Piek Vossen 11
Semantic fiinctions in perspective - reconsidering meaning definitions
Lone Schack Rasmussen 41
Transitivity and the treatment of (non)prototypicality in
Functional Grammar
Louis Goossens 65
A valence based theory of grammatical relations
Michael Herslund-Finn Serensen 81
The study of ergativity in Functional Grammar
Vit Bubenik 97
Object assignment in a Functional Grammar of Croatian revisited
Mario Brdar 109
Perspective, markedness, and paradigmatic relations between
predicates. A case study of Danish
Lisbeth Falster Jakobsen 127
Syntactic fiinctions, topic, and grammatical relations
Hartmut Haber land-Ole Nedergaard Thomsen 153
Speech acts and information structure in Functional Grammar
Ole Togeby 183
Ancient Greek warfare - A case study in constituent ordering
HelmaDik 197
Contextualizing constituent as topic, non-sequential background and
dramatic pause: Hebrew and Aramaic evidence
Randall Buth 215
Dutch subordinators and PI in a Functional Grammar word order
template
Chris Braecke 233
vi Contents
From CASE to FOCUS in the pronouns of some Wessex-based dialects
of English
Harold Paddock 255
Auxiliary verbs in Arabic
Martine Cuvalay 265
Term-to-phrase mapping rules: A case study from Arabic
Ahmed Moutaouakil 285
On the generation of English temporal satellite terms
John H. Connolly 303
Not without you, I won't: Special utterance types in Functional Grammar
YaelZiv 317
A ftmctional typology of speech reports
Marijke De Roeck 331
Computational description of verbal complexes in English and Latin
Simon C.Dik 353
Prolog for a functional grammar of Hungarian: A programmer's look at
grammar writing
Kwee Tjoe Liang 385
Expression rules using f-structures
Hans Weigand 403
Some formal and computational aspects of the Functional Grammar ma-
chine model
DikBakker 421
Subject index 443
Introduction
1. The Fourth International Conference on Functional Grammar
The Fourth International Conference on Functional Grammar held at the Uni-
versity of Copenhagen in June 1990 has resulted in two volumes of papers
witljin the Functional Grammar framework, one volume entitled "Layered
Structure and Reference in a Functional Perspective" edited by Michael For-
tescue, Peter Harder, and Lars Kristoflfersen and published by John Benjam-
ins, and the present volume published in the Functional Grammar Series
which in April 1991 was taken over by Mouton de Gruyter when Foris Publi-
cations was integrated with this publisher.
The Fourth International Conference on Functional Grammar 1990 was
arranged by a group of Danish linguists who have for a number of years been
working within a functional approach to language description in order to
establish a common theoretical framework. The group has been strongly in-
fluenced by Simon Dik and the school of Functional Grammar, but has also
drawn inspiration from work by other linguists who see language not as a
formal system, but seek to describe the linguistic sign as a combination of
meaning and expression, a consequence of the view that language is a social
phenomenon with a psychological correlate. The group has also renewed
ideas from Louis Hjelmslev's Glossematics with its emphasis on the distinc-
tion between meaning and expression.
The aspects of ftinctionality propounded by Simon Dik (1989) were re-
flected very strongly at the Fourth Conference; but the contributors, of course,
chose various points of departure and also in some cases demonstrated a wider
approach to the description of functionality. Among other things the productive
mode of the theory, going from the semantics of grammatical categories and
structures to their expression, inspired applications to the structures of lan-
guages hitherto not described in Functional Grammar terms and explorations
nof the possibility of computer implementations of the model. Diachronic ex-
planations of phenomena in particular languages, using functional notions,
were also presented. Some contributors took their starting point in subjects or
modes of description outside the well-defined scope of Dik (1989), such as the
lexicon or prototypical descriptions of grammatical phenomena in particular
languages.
2 Introduction
2. Functional Grammar 1978 and 1989 compared
The Fourth International Conference was the first to be held after the publi-
cation of Simon Dik's Theory of Functional Grammar. Part I: The Structure
of the Clause (1989). That volume is a considerable expansion of the first
version of the theory in Functional Grammar (1978), and the expansion
reflects the large number of contributions to Functional Grammar inspired
by and elaborating the 1978 version.
In accordance with its title, Functional Grammar (1978) was concerned
above all with the Semantic, Syntactic, and Pragmatic Functions and how
they are expressed within independent linguistic expressions. This approach
restricted the focus of interest to a subset of the NPs of the clause, mainly
the arguments which are related to predicates in predicate frames. Whereas
the theoretical discussion concerning arguments was very detailed, very little
was said about satellites, and practically nothing about other aspects of the
clause, such as temporality, aspectuality, modality, and illocutionary force.
The theory is enlarged in Dik 1989 with the Layered Model, in which a
layering of these elements operators, is combined with an ordering of satel-
lites which correlates semantically with the layers. Ideas on a hierarchical
layering of operators relevant to the predicate were advanced in different
forms by Foley and Van Valin (1984), Bybee (1985), and Hengeveld (1989).
According to the version adopted in Dik (1989), the underlying structure of
the clause can be represented as follows:
(1) Nucleus or Nuclear Predication = predicate frame as selected from
the lexicon or produced by predicate formation rules, applied to ap-
propriate terms = Stem (Arg"), where Stem is the form of the predi-
cate and Arg" are its arguments.
(2) Core Predication = PI [Nucleus] SI, where PI are predicate oper-
ators and SI are predicate satellites. Predicate operators are gram-
matically expressed modifiers of the nuclear State of Affairs (SoA).
They include such "Inner Aspect" values as "progressive", "imper-
fective", "perfective".
(3) Extended Predication = P2 [Core] S2, where P2 are predication
operators and S2 predication satellites. Predication operators are
grammatically expressed distinctions which serve to "localize" or
"situate" the SoA as expressed by the Core Predication. They in-
clude values for the categories Tense, (Outer) Aspect (e.g. "per-
fect"), and Polarity.
Introduction 3
(4) Proposition = P3 [Extended Fred] S3, where P3 and S3 are prop-
ositional operators and satellites, respectively. Prepositional oper-
ators are grammatically expressed distinctions which define the
Speaker's attitude towards, or evaluation of, the content expressed
in the Extended Predication. They include such (subjective) modal
values as "possible" and "desired".
(5) Clause = P4 [Proposition] S4, where P4 and S4 are illocutionary
operators and satellites, respectively. Illocutionary operators are
grammatically expressed distinctions which express or modify the
illocutionary force of the linguistic expression. They include such
values as "declarative" and "interrogative".
The overall structure of the clause can thus be represented as follows:
(6) [P4 [P3 [P2 [PI [Stem (Arg")] SI] S2] S3] S4]
At the same time the three types of Function are attributed to different
stages in the model: the Semantic Functions are part of the predicate frame,
which forms nuclear predications in combination with arguments at stage (1).
The arguments may be assigned Syntactic Functions between stage (2) and
(3); and finally the Pragmatic Functions are assigned between stage (4) and
(5). The result is a model which integrates the ordering of the Functions
with an ordering of the other grammatical phenomena which enter into the
construction of the internal clause structure.
The concentration on the internal structure of the clause has entailed cuts
in the scope of the new framework. Most important for the present volume
is the absence of the notions Theme and Tail among the Pragmatic functions.
In return, the treatment of Topic and Focus is much more detailed in Dik
(1989). The Layering with its concentration on other aspects of the clause
has enriched the categorization of the States of Affairs, and consequently
brought the relation of Nuclear Semantic Functions to the Semantic Function
Hierarchy into focus; this results in a distinction between arguments as such,
argi, arg2, arg3, and classes of arguments which carry the same number in
relation to the ordering of the arguments in predicate frames: A', A^, A^.
This again can be seen as a result of the direct application of the theory
to different languages, highlighting the problem of balancing the universal
functional approach to classification with what is actually the case in particu-
lar languages, where Functions are combined with expressions. Accordingly,
the enrichment of the theory has brought out a much more facetted treatment
of the nature of expression rules and how they operate.
