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In this article, I shall put forward a set of criteria of adequacy (based on, but going considerably beyond, those proposed by Dik) which, in my view, a functional account of language should make serious attempts to fulfil. I shall argue that the overarching aim of functional linguistics should be a comprehensive theory of language, and that there are dangers in building models of grammar as ends in themselves, if these are not accompanied by equally well-developed models of the relationships between the grammar and other components of the more comprehensive model. I then briefly assess a selection of five functionalist approaches in relation to the proposed criteria of adequacy. The approaches, chosen to cover as wide a range as possible, are Functional Discourse Grammar, Role and Reference Grammar, Systemic Functional Linguistics, and finally two usage-based cognitive-functional approaches, Emergent Grammar/the interactional study of grammar at work, and Word Grammar. In conclusion, I propose that continued work towards a higher overall level of adequacy in functional linguistics would be greatly facilitated by (i) more widespread use of corpus-based data analysis, (ii) increased attention to the interfaces between different linguistic approaches, and (iii) familiarity with the work of other groups of scholars with an interest in language, in particular psycholinguists, psychologists, sociolinguists, sociologists, neurolinguists and neurologists.
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Causativization is typically understood as a morphologically signaled process which introduces an agent to the valency of verbs, thus yielding constructions with n + 1 arguments. This clearly constitutes the core of causatives, and many languages across the globe have means of expressing this function. In addition, causative morphemes may attach to verbs without affecting the valency of verbs and/or the number of arguments in clauses in any way. These are examined in this paper. Three types of non-prototypical uses of causative morphemes will be distinguished, based on whether causativization has consequences for the number of participants in the denoted event, the degree of agency associated with the instigator, or the transitivity of the denoted event in general. These three types are labeled covert causativization , agentivization and transitivization . In addition to providing a systematic overview of non-prototypical uses of causative morphemes, the rationale behind the attested types and their relation to the causative prototype will also be discussed. The goal of the present study is to show that causativization involves more than the mere introduction of an agent. In so doing, it aims to broaden our perspective on causativization.
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In Ancient Greek, two terms meaning ‘man’ ( anēr and anthrōpos ) combine with common nouns referring to human occupations, ethnic groups, and ranks in a generic-specific construction (e.g. anēr hiereus ‘priest’ [lit. ‘man priest’]; anēr Spartiatēs ‘Spartan’ [lit. ‘man Spartan’]). This construction is used to refer to male human referents in a clearly identifiable set of discourse contexts, including (i) numeral expressions, (ii) non-assertive contexts, and (iii) presentative sentences in which a character is introduced at the beginning of a more or less lengthy story about him. In all these contexts, the function of the two terms may be thought of as similar to the function of the indefinite article, i.e. the construction always introduces indefinite referents, which may be both specific ( anēr hiereus = ‘a [certain] priest’) and non-specific ( anēr hiereus = ‘a priest, any priest’). The pairing of a generic and a specific noun resembles the well-known pattern by which generic superordinate terms such as ‘man’, ‘woman’, ‘animal’, ‘vegetable’, ‘bird’, ‘tree’, etc. grammaticalize into noun classifiers, accompanying more specific nouns with a more restricted meaning. Besides classifying discourse referents, the main function of noun classifiers is determination/reference, i.e. they generally play a determinerlike role, marking the discourse status of their referents. Based on the available typological evidence on noun classifiers, in this paper I will argue for an interpretation of the construction anēr/anthrōpos + common noun as an incipient with an identifiable set of discourse situations, in which a free-form lexeme with superordinate semantics is combined with a more specific noun. Classifier constructions are considered to be the first stage in the grammaticalization path leading from generic superordinate nouns to noun classifiers. Similar uses of other superordinate terms such as gynē ‘woman’ and ornis ‘bird’ are also discussed. These uses are suggestive of a rudimentary system of nominal classification in Ancient Greek. In the conclusions, I will provide some speculative thoughts on why this system has not eventually developed into a full system of noun classifiers.
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Ever since the category of evidentiality has been identified in the verbal grammar of certain languages, it has been assumed that evidentiality plays no role in the grammars of those languages that have not incorporated it into their verb morphology or at least their verb clusters. The present paper attempts to show that even if evidentiality is not visible in the verbal grammar of English and Dutch, it appears to be a motivating factor, both historically and synchronically, in the process whereby evidential predicates are made to play a subordinate syntactic role with regard to their embedded subject clause. This process, known as AUXILIATION (Kuteva, Auxiliation: an enquiry into the nature of grammaticalization, Oxford University Press, 2001), appears to manifest itself in a variety of, often successive, grammatical processes or rules, such as Subject-to-Subject Raising (the subject of the embedded clause becomes the subject of the main verb, as in John is likely to be late ), V-ING (as in The man stopped breathing ), Incorporation-by-Lowering (the evidential main verb is lowered on to the V-constituent of the embedded subject clause, as in John may have left ), or Incorporation-by-Raising (also known as Predicate Raising), not or hardly attested in English but dominant in Dutch. A list is provided of those English (and Dutch) predicates that induce one of the above-mentioned auxiliation rules and it is checked how many of those have an evidential meaning. This is set off against evidential predicates that do not induce an auxiliation rule. It results that, for English and Dutch, lexical evidentiality is a powerful determinant for the induction of syntactic auxiliation.
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This article develops a functional synchronic-diachronic description of the clausal complementation of deontic-evaluative adjectives in extraposition constructions (ECs). It does so on the basis of qualitative and quantitative corpus-based analyses of the importance adjectives important, essential, crucial and the appropriateness adjectives appropriate, proper , and fitting . All six adjectives can currently take either mandative complements expressing desired action (coded by to -infinitives or that -clauses) or propositional complements describing arguable claims (typically coded by that -clauses). In reference grammars these have tended to receive incomplete coverage without elucidation of the constructional polysemies involved. We argue that a better understanding of the present system can be arrived at by investigating the diachronic developments by which it was fashioned. The ECs with these adjectives started off as mandative constructions and this continues to be their current unmarked use. They also developed patterns with propositional complements, but in this area the importance and appropriateness adjectives followed different diachronic paths, leading to distinct pragmatico-semantic readings of the pattern with single proposition in Present-day English.
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