Functional Syntax Handbook

Essential and optional preliminaries: what this handbook does and does not cover; what a language is and how it works. How to analyse syntax functionally: how to analyse clauses - the basic grammar of transitivity and mood; how to analyse clauses - the basic grammar of operators and more on mood and transitivity; how to analyse clauses - the basic grammar of auxiliaries, theme and adjuncts; how to analyse nominal groups - the basic grammar of "thinks" (including nouns); how to analyse prepositional groups - the grammar of "minor relationships with things"; how to analyse quality groups - the grammar of "qualities" (including adjectives and adverbs of manner); how to analyse quantity groups - the grammar of quantities (including quantifiers); how to analyse clauses within clauses - the grammar of situations embedded in situations; how to analyse co-ordinated clauses and groups - the grammar of units alongside units; how to analyse groups and clauses within groups - a first grammar of embedding in entities other than situations; more on how to analyse clauses - towards a full grammar of situations; more on how to analyse nominal groups (including clusters) - towards a full grammar of things; more on how to analyse groups and clauses within groups - towards a full grammar of embedding in entities other than situations; how to analyse incongruent realisations - events as nominal groups and objects as clauses; how to analyse special units -proper names, dates, clock times, addresses an numbers of many types; how to analyse formulas, intonation and punctuation; how to analyse reductions and expansions to the text - ellipsis and ancillary lexicogrammar; the fullest guidelines for sentence analysis so far. Special syntactic constructions: the four principles; eight special constructions. Summary of the theory of systemic functional syntax: the theory of syntax in relation to the theory of language; the theoretical categories and relationships of English syntax; looking beyond functional syntax analysis - the need for (1) multi-strand semantic analysis and (2) the analysis of exchange and genre structure.