28 Matthew P. Anstey
guishable part of a construction type in relation to other parts of the same
construction”.^5
What precisely then is a ‘grammatical function’? Dik writes that “...
grammatical functions are irreducible aspects of grammatical structure,
which can be partly correlated to formal features ..., but cannot possibly be
completely reduced to these” (1968: 154). His argument is essentially one
of explanatory power: if we assume that a grammatical system has ‘gram-
matical functions’, then such a system provides a superior account of
linguistic data. However, the axiom of functional primitives is itself not
verifiable.^6
It is clear, moreover, that psychological adequacy is already a motif in
his thinking: “And we can explain the general features of human language
if we can show them to be conditioned by general features of the human
constitution, in particular, human mental and physiological properties. The
latter kind of explanation, however, is not as such within the competence of
the linguist, but should rather be explored by close collaboration between
linguists and psychologists” (Dik 1968: 11–12).
Dik’s “different notion of ‘derivation’” is the forerunner to the ‘avoid
transformations’ constraint found in FG 1 onwards. “The basic (negative)
property of a functional grammar”, he writes, “... is that it does not include
transformational rules” (1968: 163). To achieve this Dik posits a
monostratal underlying representation of the functional, categorial, and
constitutional elements of each linguistic expression.
More specifically, FG 0 has three basic components: constituents (that is,
lexical categories) such as verb, noun, adjective, article; categories such as
noun, pronoun, noun phrase; and functions such as subject, object, predica-
tor, modifier, indirect object, question. How then does one select the
necessary functions to describe a language? Dik provides the following
stipulation, anticipating in many respects the central philosophy of FG1-4:
“At least so many functions are set up for a language as there are gram-
matical (not semantic) differences between the linguistic expressions of
that language which cannot be correlated to differences in constituency
and/or in categorization” (1968: 176).
FG 0 distinguishes four sets of rules that relate constituents, categories,
and functions together to form an ‘independent linguistic expression’. The
application of these rules results in a single UR that combines functional
(CAPITALS), categorial (normal) and constituent (italic) elements. For ex-
ample, the sentence (1) has the underlying structure (2) (Dik 1968: 198):^7
(1) The man came.