On the grammar of utterances: putting the form vs. substance distinction back on its feet

Abstract

ABSTRACTRecent work in language theory, linguistic typology and usage-based linguistics has actualised the time-honoured distinction between ‘form’ (or ‘structure’) and ‘substance’, which was popular not least during classical European structuralism. This paper reviews some controversies within the theory of form and substance. Current dialogical theories of situated languaging, as well as many variants of functional, cognitive and other usage-based approaches, motivate a perspective shift in the language sciences, assigning primacy to language use (‘languaging’, ‘doing language’) rather than to abstract language systems. This gives more weight to ‘substance’, while it still necessitates the recognition of language structures. This paper makes an argument for a respecification of the relationships between form and substance, or between structuralist and substantialist conceptions, seen in relation to received versions. The empirical data adduced in this paper are drawn from conversational Swedish.