The functional approach to grammatical description takes the semantics of grammar as the starting point and structuring principle of the description. It is assumed that the total of meanings/functions coded in the grammars of languages derives from notions, relations and operations related to the two basic functions of human language, viz. cognition and communication. The union set of these objects can be grouped in a manageable set of areas, called functional domains of language. These constitute the highest structuring units and are presupposed in the functional description of any language. Every language codes some of the concepts, functions and operations involved at the level of grammar, codes others in the lexicon and ignores yet others, leaving them, perhaps, to inference. The following is a set of functional domains that have proved useful in general comparative grammar and in linguistic description.
| functional domain | main areas |
|---|---|
| substantive notions, denomination | nominal classification, proper names, relationality (kinship), formation and modification of substantive notions |
| quantification, measure, order | plurality, counting, non-numeral quantification, measurement and collection |
| reference | individuation, anchorage (incl. deixis), endophora (incl. reference tracking, determination) |
| possession | possession in reference, possessive predication, possession and participation, past and future possession |
| predication | existence and presentation, identification, categorization, characterization (property, comparison), state, change of category/property/state; secondary predication |
| participation | actor and control (causation, actor demotion), undergoer and affectedness (applicative constructions, introversion), indirectus, desideration, experience, peripheral roles |
| design of situations | holistic vs. analytic representation (ideophones, verb series), temporal design of situations (time stability, telicity, phases of a situation), quality and quantity of situation core (manner, intensification, gradation) |
| space | position and posture (incl. spatial and gestalt properties of objects), motion, reference points, spatial regions, local relations |
| time | moment and span, absolute time, temporal relation |
| modality | obligation, volition, possibility; epistemic evaluation, evidentiality; validation, acceptance, regret |
| negation | semantic scope of negation, negation and quantification |
| junction | proposition vs. state-of-affairs, intrinsic relations (content propositions), extrinsic relations (logical relations, concrete relations), pragmatic level of interpropositional relations |
| discourse structure | information structure (topicalization, presupposition vs. assertion, focusing), emphasis |
| communicative relations | communication channel, illocution (declaration, question, request and command, hortatory/monitory), speaker's state of mind (incl exclamation); metalinguistic operations (speech reproduction, operations on the code) |