Discourse structure, the generalized parallelism hypothesis, and FG 301Worthy of notice is that, in this view, the concept of discourse covers
not only the linguistic expression proper but also its contextual correlates.
In this sense, we can say that FG, being a pragmatically oriented grammar,
has always been a discourse grammar although it has been, in general, ac-
tually restricted to sentential discourses. This means that the problem now
being extensively discussed in the FG literature should be reformulated: the
required extension should take place not from a sentence FG to a discourse
FG but rather from a sentential discourse FG to a textual discourse FG.
2.2. Discourse categorization
If we adopt the view advocated above, we can distinguish between four
discourse categories: text, clause, term-phrase and word, yielding:
TEXT
(1) DISCOURSE = CLAUSE
TERM-PHRASE
WORD
The discourse categorization visualized in (1) calls for a number of pre-
liminary remarks. Firstly, the term ‘text’ is taken here to designate any
coherent combination of (sequences of) simple or complex clauses. In this
sense, it replaces the traditional term ‘discourse’, which will henceforth be
used as a generic term referring, as mentioned above, to any complete
communicative unit (including a text).
Secondly, as rightly pointed out by Dik (1997b: 379), Natural Language
Users (hereafter NLUs) typically communicate with each other by means
of full texts. In these cases, hierarchical relationships arise between the
four discourse categories, as visualized in the following hierarchy, which
we may call the Discourse Categories Hierarchy (DCH):
(2) Discourse Categories Hierarchy (DCH):
Text > Clause > Term-phrase > Word
However, NLUs can also communicate by using single (simple or com-
plex) clauses:
(3) a. It's cold in here.
b. Can you pass the salt, please?