In linguistics, sentence function refers to a speaker's purpose in uttering a specific sentence, phrase, or clause. Whether a listener is present or not is sometimes irrelevant. It answers the question: "Why has this been said?" The four basic sentence functions in the world's languages include the declarative, interrogative, exclamative, and the imperative. These correspond to a statement, question, exclamation, and command respectively. Typically, a sentence goes from one function to the next through a combination of changes in word order, intonation, the addition of certain auxiliaries or particles, or other times by providing a special verbal form. The four main categories can be further specified as being either communicative or informative.
Read more about Sentence Function: Communicative Vs. Informative, Declarative Vs. Affirmative Vs. Positive, Allofunctional Implicature, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words sentence and/or function:
“The reader uses his eyes as well as or instead of his ears and is in every way encouraged to take a more abstract view of the language he sees. The written or printed sentence lends itself to structural analysis as the spoken does not because the reader’s eye can play back and forth over the words, giving him time to divide the sentence into visually appreciated parts and to reflect on the grammatical function.”
—J. David Bolter (b. 1951)
“Any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information—hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations.”
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