First things first

Abstract

In the ultimate chapter of his last and posthumously published work, Dik (1997b) calls for a “functional grammar of discourse”. Whereas Functional Grammar (FG) was originally conceived of as a grammar of smaller units, variously identified in Dik's work as “predications”, “linguistic expressions” and “clauses”, his final contribution to linguistics consisted in a sketch of his views on a question that has been very prominent in FG work in the nineties: what is the relation between clause structure and discourse structure? The fact that the phrase “functional grammar of discourse” can be parsed in two ways reflects the two major answers to this question offered in FG work hitherto. The parsing [functional grammar [of discourse]] invokes various proposals to extend the existing hierarchical framework of FG to cover the structure of discourse; the parsing [functional [grammar of discourse] ], in contrast, suggests that discourse has a structure sui generis, but a structure that is best approached from the general philosophical perspective shared by Functional Grammar, with discourse being linked to grammar at best through some interface.