Continuing Discourse on Language - A Functional Perspective, Volumes 1 and 2 - Ruqaiya Hasan†
28. Auxiliary Extensions: six new elements for describing English
Continuing Discourse on Language - A Functional Perspective, Volumes 1 and 2 - Ruqaiya Hasan†
Robin Fawcett [+]
Cardiff University, (Emeritus)
Description
This chapter is offered as an example of the type of contribution to Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) that is made by those working in the framework of the ‘Cardiff Grammar’ (a version of SFG about which I shall say a little more shortly). Thus, like the chapter by Tucker, it is an illustration of the type of detailed, comprehensive description of English that is required in the fully explicit SFG that we believe to be needed, if we are to meet the requirements of the users of our descriptions that we should expect in the twenty-first century. Specifically, this chapter seeks to contribute to the ‘continuing discourse’ about how best to model the lexicogrammar of English by suggesting the value of incorporating in our descriptions certain new elements of structure (and so their meanings) which have so far received short shrift in most grammars – including most Systemic Functional Grammars. Yet these items occur with a frequency that is already considerable and that is, I suggest, increasing. They are all exponents of what we shall term the Auxiliary Extensions (XEx), and they occur as part of what have been called ‘phrasal modals’.