Interpersonal Grammar in Scottish Gaelic

Substantial research has drawn upon the notion of interpersonal metafunction proposed by Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to approach the interpersonal meanings construed in different contexts. However, there is a lack of review on the recent research of this domain. The objective of this paper is to survey the patterns and trends of literature on interpersonal metafunction in SFL tradition and guide future research. This paper reviews 160 studies published from 2012 to 2022. Four themes emerge from the review: theoretical explorations, multilingual studies, discourse analysis, and language education. These contributions shed light on the applicability and flexibility of SFL as a theoretical tool across a wide range of genres and languages. The four streams of research are guided by the fundamental concepts of SFL and interrelated by the concept of context and the tenet of language as social semiotic. Future directions lie in theoretical model refinement, methodological developments, typological descriptions of interpersonal grammar, and the extension of application areas.

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What is finiteness in Dagaare?

Mwinlaaru

2024

Journal of World Languages

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Although the notion of finiteness has been much debated from different theoretical perspectives, little is known beyond Indo-European languages. The present study examines finiteness in the Lobr dialect of Dagaare (Niger-Congo: Mabia) from a systemic functional typological point of view. The study contributes to debates on whether finiteness is a discrete system or a cline. The study first distinguishes between semantic and grammatical finiteness. The analysis then show that Dagaare has a grammaticalised binary system of finiteness in the verbal group, encoded by four kinds of finiteness markers: (i) tense-mood-polarity, (ii) modality, (iii) habitual tense, and (iv) remoteness particles. Also, the Dagaare verbal group embodies disassociated systems of tense, comprising futurity, habituality, and remoteness and choices from each of these systems result in multiple Finite elements in the verbal group. On the other hand, clausal finiteness in Dagaare is a semantic cline that depends on the system of freedom. Specifically, a clause is finite or less finite depending on whether it combines a finite verbal group with clause final negotiation or information focus. The article provides finer criteria for distinguishing between semantic and grammatical finiteness that can be used for the description and typology of finiteness across languages.

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Interpersonal Grammar in Scottish Gaelic

Cited by 3 publications

References 14 publications

Literature Review

Literature Review

A review of interpersonal metafunction studies in systemic functional linguistics (2012–2022)

What is finiteness in Dagaare?

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