The onomasiological description of the significative system of the language is based on purely functional (cognitive and communicative) concepts. It may therefore also be called ‘function-based description’.
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.
Main subdivision
Functional domains are presupposed in the functional description of any language and constitute its highest structuring units. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Substantive notions and denomination | nominal classification, onomastics, relationality, formation and modification of substantive notions |
| 2 | Quantification, measure, and ordering | plurality, counting, non-numeral quantification, measurement and collection |
| 3 | Reference | anchorage (incl. deixis), individuation, accessibility and phora (incl. reference tracking), demarcation of referential expression (incl. determination) |
| 4 | Situation | types of situation, holistic vs. analytic representation (ideophones, verb series), temporal design of situation core (time stability, phases and boundaries), quality and quantity of situation core (manner, intensification, gradation) |
| 5 | Predication | types and strategies of predication, existence, presentation, equation, categorization, characterization (property, comparison), stative predication, change of category and quality; secondary predication |
| 6 | Possession | possession in reference, possessive predication, possession and participation, past and future possession |
| 7 | Participation | semantic roles, hierarchy of syntactic functions, actor and control (causation, actor demotion), undergoer and affectedness (applicative constructions, introversion), indirectus, experience (desideration, perception, feeling), theme, peripheral roles, meteorological ambience |
| 8 | Space | spatial reference points, spatial regions, spatial distance, rest (posture, location), motion, local relations |
| 9 | Time | temporal reference points (moment and span), temporal relations (simultaneity, succession) |
| 10 | Modality | obligation, possibility, volition; validation, epistemics, evidentiality, evaluative modality (acceptance, regret) |
| 11 | Negation | semantic scope of negation, negated coordination, negation and quantification, negation of notions |
| 12 | Junction | proposition vs. state-of-affairs, intrinsic relations (content propositions), extrinsic relations (logical relations, concrete relations) |
| 13 | Discourse structure | thematic structure articulation, activation of referent (topicalization, reuse), focusing, emphasis, thetic statement |
| 14 | Communicative relations | communication channel, politeness and etiquette, illocution (declaration, denial and contradiction, exchange of information, directive illocution, offer and acceptance, excuse and forgiveness, good wishes and curses), exclamation; metalinguistic operations |
Organization of a functional domain
The functional domains are by their nature very different, being subordinate, in different ways, to the cognitive or the communicative function of language. Therefore they do not share the same internal structure. Their sections are devoted to specific functions. For instance, the functional domain of modality comprises obligation, possibility and volition, each of these constituting a section.
Inside such a section, subdivision is according to coding strategies afforded by the language system, ordered by complexity from lexical-syntactic to morphological. The former fulfill the function in question in the most explicit way, the latter may convey it more or less implicitly.
Description of specific functions
In the allocation of a particular topic to a functional domain, the same principle of scope inclusion prevails as in the semasiological grammar. Just as use of a construction X inside construction Y is treated in the chapter on Y, so fulfillment of function X is treated as a case of fulfillment of function Y if the scope of operation Y includes X. For instance, an alternative question is a polar question which mentions both alternatives. There is a section on adversative coordination and/or exclusive disjunction, but it does not treat the alternative question because this comes under polar question: the alternative does not obtain between two questions, but instead it is a question about an alternative.
In the same spirit, the onomasiological description avails itself of the hierarchical structure of the semasiological description as follows: Generally, a certain function is fulfilled by a construction of a certain complexity level. By virtue of the meronomy, this construction includes lower-level constructions. The description of the function refers to the higher-level construction. The fact that the lower-level construction contributes to the same function need not be mentioned separately. E.g., to express that a certain action pursues a certain purpose with phoric control, it suffices to mention the complex clause comprising an infinitival. It is unnecessary to mention the infinitive.
Semantic representation
The configuration of notions, relations and operations which represent the point of departure of every specific description are to be formulated in some kind of semantic representation. There are, in principle, two ways of doing this:
- The configuration may be described in rather formal terms, using either technical terms designating those notions, relations and operations or a formal representation consisting of predefined symbols.
- The configuration may be converted into a construction of the natural metalanguage (often, English) which provides a translation equivalent to the construction under analysis.
Solution 1 is more precise, but can be very abstract and hard to understand. Solution 2 is easy to understand, but may distort the meaning of the construction under analysis.
In the perspective of the speaker, any ambiguity of the expression chosen is not seen. (A diligent speaker may see it if he takes the viewpoint of the hearer.) Consequently, the onomasiological description of the semantic configuration A says ‘to code A, X may be used’. At the same time, no mention is made of the fact that X is actually ambiguous and the construcion thus formed may also mean B. This will be said in the semasiological description of X.
Subsumption of a function under a domain
The fourteen functional domains of language together exhaust what is coded in the grammars of languages; but they are not disjunct. The semantic role of the theme of a predicate of cognition, communication or experience is a component of the functional domain of participation. However, such a theme may be a propositional object, so it constitutes a relation between two propositions and then belongs in the functional domain of junction. The manner in which something is done is, in principle, a quality of a situation core, belonging thus in the functional domain of the situation. It may, however, consist in acting like something else; then it comes under comparison, a kind of characterization, which, again, is a kind of predication. Coding an inaccessible referent is one of the operations of the domain of reference; but topicalizing it by left-dislocation comes under discourse structure. Such examples can be multiplied. At the level of academic writing, they involve a decision on the locus of a given topic and cross-references from other passages of the framework.