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Autonomy and Functionalist Linguistics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

William Croft
William Croft*
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
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Abstract

Functional analyses of grammatical phenomena, and the functionalist approaches that promote them, are appealing to those who believe that an integrated view of language structure and language function is desirable. But functional analyses have been held to founder on basic grammatical facts that are taken to support the autonomy of grammar. The concept of autonomy is a complex one, and at least two different notions are found in current linguistic theory: arbitrariness and self-containedness. These notions of autonomy apply either to the syntactic component of the grammar, or (a more recent claim) to the grammar itself, with respect to change, use, and acquisition. The arbitrariness of syntax must be accepted; and many functional analyses are compatible with self- containedness. However, mixed formal/functional analyses provide an argument against the self-containedness of syntax, and in fact even many formal theories of syntax accept non-self-containedness. The arbitrariness of grammatical knowledge must also be accepted; and many functional analyses of the dynamic process affecting grammar are compatible with self-containedness. An argument against the self-containedness of grammar comes not from these functional analyses but from sociolinguistics.

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Type
Research Article
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Language , Volume 71 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 490 - 532
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by the Linguistic Society of America

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