FG from its inception 35not only the semantics of nuclear predications, but also the semantics of
fully developed linguistic expressions in their surface realizations. It is not
clear whether the author ... works with two notions: the semantics of
predicate frames and the semantics of surface structures.”^14
Watters (1980: 166) observes the problem of structure (PR1): “Perhaps
the most glaring weakness is the lack of any extended discussion about the
place and role of constituent structure and categorial information. Much of
this is left implicit in the discussion of term formation and the ordering of
constituents”.
5.4. Developments of FG 1
FG 1 sparked an enormous amount of interest, propelled along by Simon
Dik’s charismatic leadership. In the next ten years, many publications were
eventually to become assimilated into FG 2 , usually with some modifica-
tions by Dik. I have grouped them thematically.
5.4.1. The problem of structure (PR1)
Dik never provides an explanation of how he constructed FG 1 from the
various components he appropriated and modified. But to understand the
problem of structure (PR1) in contemporary FG work we need to consider
why constituent structure seems to be absent from FG 1. I submit the
following ‘reconstruction’.^15
The critical objective for Dik was to find a way for the URs of his
grammatical theory to be independent of autonomous syntax. His approach
was quite inventive. Firstly, he simply removed all references to constitu-
ent structure (such as noun phrase, head, and so forth) from the URs,
reducing them to lexical items arranged in a combination of functional
relationships – semantic, syntactic,^16 and pragmatic relationships.
Secondly, he ‘hides’ this stranded structural information in three sepa-
rate locations, employing three strategies as follows:
(a) individuation – the predicate frames, which are stored in the lexicon,
assign to every verb in a language a specific number of argument
slots, each slot being specified for a semantic function, thereby obvi-
ating the need for an abstract (VP-type) structure in the UR;
(b) semanticization – the internal dependency relations of the compo-
nents of noun phrases are isomorphically instantiated in the term