An Introduction to English Sentence Structure puts the study of
English sentences into the meaningful perspective provided by the broad
essentials of functionalism. The book starts from the premise that the
structure of language reflects the structure of events in everyday
experience. By contrast, grammars that are more structural in nature
often begin with gross facts about language structure, such as the
observation that clauses can be divided into subjects and predicates.
The book's premise reflects the fundamental Hallidayan principle that
language simultaneously codes for three dimensions of structure: clause
as representation, clause as exchange, and clause as message. This
approach has the effect of situating the study of language in the
student's familiar world of ideas, relationships, and discourses.
An Introduction to English Sentence Structure blends insights from
three prominent modern schools of grammatical thought (functionalism,
structuralism, and generativism) using functionalism as the
philosophical and organizational motif. It focuses on the
representational function of language, encouraging students to use their
knowledge of the way the world works in order to understand how language
works. The approach taken is hybrid: It assumes that form matters, and
in this sense it is structural. It also assumes that form follows
function, and in this sense it is functional.
As its subtitle suggests, this book is concerned with the argument
structure of clauses, the boundary markers of clause combinations, and
the syntactic and experiential resources that permit language users to
supply the content of empty categories, which are the missing elements.
