Glossary: function

Explanation

See grammatical function.

Nouning verbs

A quick activity looking at how some words can be both nouns and verbs

This is a simple starter activity that will help your students see how some words can function as both nouns and verbs. The activity is designed to be carried out in pairs around the class. One student be the noun and the other will be the verb. Each will need the same word list (which you can download and print below) or you can just use the word list on the screen.

Form and function

A useful distinction in grammar is that of grammatical form and grammatical function. Grammatical form is concerned with the description of linguistic units in terms of what they are, and grammatical function is concerned with the description of what these linguistic units do. Note that we use capital letters at the beginning of function labels, but this is by no means standard practice everywhere.

Goal

Form and function: Activity 1

Analysing the way that form and function are related

In the exercise you'll be asked to identify the function and the form of the highlighted words.

Identify the grammatical function

Identify the grammatical function of the highlighted words in the following sentences.

Form and function: Activity 2

Identify the grammatical form and the grammatical function

Now identify both the form and the function of the highlighted words in the following sentences.

Adverbial

Subjects, Direct Objects and Indirect Objects are typically noun phrases (and sometimes clauses) which identify participants in the situation described by the main verb – they answer ‘who’ or ‘what’ questions.

Adverbials are rather different. Consider the highlighted phrases in the examples below:

Direct Object

Consider the examples below. What do the highlighted phrases add to the meanings?

He stroked the dog. _{[W2F-018 #175]}
They carried mugs of beer. _{[W2F-018 #140]}

These phrases tell us who or what is being 'verbed', i.e. who is undergoing the action denoted by the verbs, in these situations: the dog is stroked, the mugs of beer are carried. Without these phrases, our examples would be incomplete.

Grammatical functions in the clause

The description of word classes, phrases, and clauses in terms of their structure is part of the study of form. We now turn to the study of grammar from the perspective of function: this notion refers to what words, phrases and clauses do as units of language.

Indirect Object

Consider the following example. Here we have two noun phrases which follow the Predicator (the verb).

I’ll give [you] [the school’s number]. _{[W2F-020 #192]}

Can you see how they build up the meaning of the clause? Both noun phrases refer to participants in the situation of ‘giving’, but the participants have different roles.

Object Complement

Consider the highlighted phrases in the following examples. How do they contribute to the clauses?

She found the maths incredibly hard. _{[S1A-054#137]}
I found the changeover a trying time. _{[W2B-012#101]}

These phrases describe the thing picked out by the Direct Object. The maths is described as incredibly hard (for her). The changeover is described as a trying time (for me).

Subject

The Subject of a sentence is often defined as the phrase identifying the agent that carries out the action denoted by the verb. All the examples below involve actions (fleeing, sniffing, writing) carried out by the individuals referred to by the highlighted phrases, and for this reason we identify these phrases as Subjects.

Subject Complement

Consider the highlighted phrases in the examples below.

The rice is marvellous. _{[S1A-022 #262]}
He was a really nice guy. _{[S1A-006 #21]}

Each of the highlighted phrases adds information about the person or thing picked out by the Subject. Marvellous attributes a property to the rice, and a really nice guy does the same for he.

These phrases have different forms but the same function.

Verbs

Verbs have traditionally been described as ‘doing words’ or ‘action words’. This works well for some verbs, like sprint, chatter, eat. Here are some sentence examples with verbs which describe actions:

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