formal/functional

Dick Hudson dick at LINGUISTICS.UCL.AC.UK
Mon Feb 28 10:48:20 UTC 2000


Thanks to Greg Thomson for this, which I found helpful. Just for the record
(and a bit late), I'd like to say that I agree with him. What I meant to
say in my earlier postings, but didn't, was that I see the difference
between 'formal grammar' and 'functional grammar' as simply a matter of
focus, where we decide to put our research effort. We all pay attention to
both form and function in defining the structures we recognise - that's
what linguistic 'structure' is, as we've all recognised since Saussure -
and that includes extralinguistic functions (whether to do with semantics,
pragmatics, discourse, sociolinguistics or processing). Where we differ is
the kind of analysis we enjoy doing and think we do well; but not
surprisingly, perhaps, there's a certain tendency to be a bit
over-enthusiastic about our own favourite area, which I suspect we could
all find examples of in our own work.

     Dick

>Does anyone really believe in functionless form? As long as a particular
>aspect of form is doing work in comprehension or production, it is
>functional. Take agreement. Agreement probably helps to unite parts of
>utterances which need to be united in comprehension (among other
>functions). That seems to be quite a useful function, in that agreement
>keeps cropping up all over the world. So agreement will not fly as an
>example of functionless form. Agreement may cease to function in a
>particular agrammatic individual language user. But if some aspect of form
>were to cease to have any function for an entire speech community, would it
>not thereby cease to be an aspect of form (in any linguistically relevant
>sense)?
>
>Greg Thomson


Richard (= Dick) Hudson

Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London,
Gower Street, London WC1E  6BT.
+44(0)171 419 3152; fax +44(0)171 383 4108;
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/home.htm



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