Form and function

This unit

See also

A useful distinction in grammar is that of form and 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.

Understanding the way that form and function relate to one another has important implications for text production and comprehension, and enables students to more accurately discuss how grammatical structure relates to meaning.

Table 1: form and function

 Here are the linguistic units relevant to the form and function level (note that we use capital letters at the beginning of function labels):

Form Function  Word classes noun, adjective, verb, adverb, determiner, pronoun, conjunction, preposition  Phrases noun phrase, adjective phrase, adverb phrase, preposition phrase  Clauses main clause, subordinate clause, relative clause Subject Predicator Object Adverbial Complement Modifier

It may be useful to revisit the relevant pages on word classes, phrases, clauses and function labels if you need to.

Let's see how form-function operates in language. Consider the following two sentences:

1. The boy kissed the girl.
2. The girl kissed the boy.

In (1), the boy is doing the kissing, meaning it is the Subject; whereas in (2), the boy is being kissed, meaning it is the Object.
But the boy is a noun phrase in both examples.

We can use a table to show the form/function interface more clearly:

FORM main clause noun phrase   noun phrase determiner noun verb determiner noun   the boy kissed the girl FUNCTION Subject Predicator Object

In summary, the function labels of Subject, Object and Adverbial can be 'filled' by various different forms, as indicated in the table:

Function	…can be a:	Example
Subject	noun	Sylvia loves doughnuts.
	pronoun	She is tired.
	noun phrase	The washing machine is broken.
Object	noun	Eva loves linguistics.
	pronoun	I want it.
	noun phrase	She smashed my new phone.
Adverbial	adverb	Suddenly, the elephants continued on their way
	adverb phrase	Very suddenly, the elephants continued on their way.
	preposition phrase	In the morning, the elephants continued on their way.
	noun phrase	The next day, the elephants continued on their way.
	subordinate clause	When they had eaten, the elephants continued on their way.

You may think of other forms that can function as Subject and Object.