A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics
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/ n. 1. Any formal expression which accepts some formal object(s) as input (its ‘argument(s)’) and returns some single formal object as its output (its ‘value’). This basic mathematical notion is widely used for a range of purposes in a variety of theories of grammar. For example, the f-structures of LFG are functions, as are the feature matrices (‘categories’) of GPSG.
2. Any particular grammatical purpose which may be served by some form or construction. 3. See grammatical function.
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