26 Matthew P. Anstey
2.2. Central Problems
In addition to the evolution of FG, we wish to pay attention to several re-
current problems that emerge. These provide various perspectives from
which to evaluate Hengeveld’s proposal. It is beneficial to articulate them
at this stage.^4
(a) PR1. The problem of structure – what place, if any, does constituent
structure have in the grammar?
(b) PR2. The problem of underlying representations – what do the un-
derlying representations (URs) actually represent and how should
they be interpreted?
(c) PR3. The problem of verbal interaction – how does FG relate to
communication as process?
(d) PR4. The problem of functional primitives – how are the primitives
defined and applied? How many are needed?
(e) PR5. The problem of discourse – how does FG account for linguistic
phenomena beyond the sentence level?
(f) PR6. The problem of psychological adequacy – what does psycho-
logical adequacy mean and does FG fulfil it?
(g) PR7. The problem of formalization – how should the notation for-
mally and explicitly represent language structure?
- FG 0 - prior to 1978
3.1. Publications prior to FG 0
Two of Simon Dik’s earliest writings provide helpful background to FG 0.
Firstly, Dik (1966: 406; cf. 1967b) indicates that his first disagreement
with generative-transformational grammar concerned the strict division be-
tween grammar and semantics. For example, the words manner, many,
manifest, manly, manifold and so forth all contain the string ‘man’ but such
a purely formal observation “can never tell us which of these [recurrences]
are grammatically significant and which are not”. Therefore, some seman-
tic criterion is necessary to determine this. Dik concludes that “no
grammatically relevant element can be found in complete independence of
meaning”. Nevertheless, he maintains, “[w]ithout being committed to rec-
ognize the exclusive rights to the title of ‘grammar’ claimed for it, one
should not underrate the value of the contribution that especially the trans-