Functional discourse grammar—multifunctional problems and constructional solutions

Linguistics: an interdisciplinary journal of the language sciences, July-August, 2008 by Matthew P. Anstey

Abstract

One of Functional Grammar's (FG) most important features is the so-called LAYERED STRUCTURE OF THE CLAUSE (LSC). The LSC is used as both a descriptive and explanatory construct, dividing the linguistic world into various hierarchically related layers, such as predicate, predication, and proposition layers. But problems with the LSC eventually led to the development of Functional Discourse Grammar, which divides FG's unitary LSC into two layers, the Interpersonal and Representational and also adds a third, Syntactic Layer, a long-standing desideratum for FG.

Nevertheless, the present article argues that there are several problems remaining in FDG's LSC, namely, the place of operators and satellites, the use of a quasi-predicate logic notation, and the insertion of lexemes as parts-of-speech in the Representational Layer.

Moreover, the third of these problems relates to a deeper issue, which concerns the understanding of what SEMANTICS refers to in FDG. Specifically, should it refer only those interpersonal/representational distinctions that are relevant to syntax, or should it embrace conceptualisation more broadly and refer to the speaker's intended meaning? Through a consideration of MULTIFUNCTIONALITY, the latter, broader definition of conceptually-relevant semantics is deemed superior, because multifunctionality requires a prising apart of the one-to-one function-to-form bond between semantics and syntax implicit in FDG. It is suggested that a reinterpretation of FDG along the lines of Construction Grammar offers a way of accounting for such multifunctionality satisfactorily.

1. Introduction (1)

One of Functional Grammar's (FG) distinctive features is its extensive use of the so-called LAYERED STRUCTURE OF THE CLAUSE (LSC). The LSC is used as both a descriptive and explanatory construct, dividing the linguistic world into various hierarchically related layers, such as predicate, predication, and proposition layers (Dik 1997a, 1997b) or interpersonal, representational, and structural layers (Hengeveld 2004). Since Hengeveld (1989), the principle of layering has come to permeate the entire grammatical model. Rijkhoff (2002), for instance, explores the application of layering to the noun phrase across languages, noting the parallelism in this regard between the layering of terms and predicates.

The LSC of FG received a fair amount of criticism since its first appearance in Hengeveld (1989; see Anstey 2004 for its precursors), which eventually led to a new version of FG, Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG: Butler 2003: 63-117; Anstey 2004: Hengeveld 2004: Mackenzie and Gomez-Gonzalez 2004: Hengeveld and Mackenzie 2006, 2008). FDG divides the LSC of FG into two layers, the interpersonal and representational. FDG also adds an explicit syntactic layer, a long-standing desideratum for FG.

Nevertheless, the present article argues that there ate still problems in the LSC that remain in the reworked interpersonal and representational layers of FDG. Section 2 builds on the evaluation of FDG in Anstey (2002: 2004) to offer three additional changes to the model. Furthermore, Section 2 raises a more basic issue what should "semantics" actually refer to in FDG? Specifically, should it refer only to those interpersonal/ representational distinctions that are relevant to syntax, or should it embrace conceptualization more broadly and refer to the speaker's intended meaning? Section 3 offers an answer to this question in light of the phenomenon of MULTIFUNCTIONALITY (Of. Haspelmath [2003] and the references therein: that is, many-to-many function-to-form correspondences) and argues for the latter, broader definition of conceptually relevant semantics. This results in a prizing apart of the implicit one-to-one function-to-form bond between semantics and syntax in FDG, allowing each a greater degree of independence of each. Section 4 suggests that an interpretation of FDG along the lines of Construction Grammar (Croft 2001, 2004; Goldberg 2003) offers a way of accounting for the multifunctionality arising from the interdependence of conceptual semantics and syntax.

2. Functional Discourse Grammar

Despite the advantages of FDG over FG, it is my contention that there remain four interrelated problems with the model, namely, the place of operators and satellites, the use of a quasi-predicate logic notation, the insertion of lexemes as parts-of-speech in the Representation Layer (RL), and, more significantly, the tight one-to-one bonding between the Interpersonal Layer (IL) and RL on one hand and the expression (syntactic, prosodic, etc.) layers on the other (see Butler and Taverniers, Introduction, for overview of FDG). Because the fourth problem, the problem of MULTIFUCTIONALITY, requires a substantial rethinking of the model, it will be dealt with in Section 3. The remainder of Section 2 addresses the first three problems.

2.1. Operators and satellites

Operators and satellites ate central to FDG. However, their theoretical status needs to be reconsidered, particularly in that unlike FG, FDG has a distinct syntactic layer. Satellites and operators are expressed at the syntactic level, in lexical and morphophonological ways respectively. This poses two problems: how can they be defined on a purely interpersonal and/or representational basis, and how can their conceptual unity be more explicitly indicated?