formal/functional

[Greg Thomson]

Dick Hudson suggests
>'formal' = involving relations within language
>'functional' = involving relations between language and its use
...
>'functional grammar' = (study of) grammar where some formal patterns are
>explained in terms of functional patterns.

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