Multi-word sequences and their relevance for recent models of Functional Grammar

Abstract

In recent research considerable interest has been shown in strings of linguistic items which appear to behave, in certain respects, as single items, and which are referred to in this paper as multi-word sequences. The aim of the paper is to investigate the interface between work on such phenomena and recent developments in the theory of Functional Grammar. A selective review of corpus-based approaches to multi-word sequences is followed by a brief introduction to Wray’s psycholinguistically-oriented model of formulaicity. A corpus example is then discussed in some detail. The discussion up to this point is then related to four recent models within the overall framework of Functional Grammar which aim to increase the level of psychological adequacy of the theory: Nuyts’ Functional Procedural Grammar, Hengeveld’s Functional Discourse Grammar, Mackenzie’s Incremental Functional Grammar and Bakker and Siewierska’s expression rule model. Brief comments are also made on multi-word sequences in relation to production vs. comprehension and on the relationship between formulaicity and levels of structure.