Functional Discourse Grammar - Principles of Functional Discourse Grammar

Principles of Functional Discourse Grammar

There are a number of principles that guide the analysis of natural language utterances according to functional discourse grammar.

Functional discourse grammar explains the phonology, morphosyntax, pragmatics and semantics in one linguistic theory. According to functional discourse grammar, linguistic utterances are built top-down in this order by deciding upon:

  1. The pragmatic aspects of the utterance
  2. The semantic aspects of the utterance
  3. The morphosyntactic aspects of the utterance
  4. The phonological aspects of the utterance

According to functional discourse grammar, four components are involved in building up an utterance:

  • The conceptual component, which is where the communicative intention that drives the utterance construction arises
  • The grammatical component, where the utterance is formulated and encoded according to the communicative intention
  • The contextual component, which contains all elements that can be referred to in the history of the discourse or in the environment
  • The output component, which realizes the utterance as sound, writing, or signing

The grammatical component consists of four levels:

  • The interpersonal level, which accounts for the pragmatics
  • The representational level, which accounts for the semantics
  • The morphosyntactic level, which accounts for the syntax and morphology
  • The phonological level, which accounts for the phonology of the utterance

Read more about this topic:  Functional Discourse Grammar

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