Publisher's Synopsis
This work is written in the functionalist (neo-Prague) approach to linguistics in which languages are seen as communicational means or strategies employed for the satisfaction of human needs and aims. Grammatical strategies are an important subset of those communicational means. The theory and methods of a functionalist approach to grammar (following such thinkers as Martinet and Mulder) are explained and applied to key areas of English grammar.;Functionalist approaches provide a relatively simple means for analysis and the understanding of communicational structures peculiar to individual languages. In those ways, functionalist linguistics can contribute to our understanding of mankind as a species. Special attention is paid to the major and minor sentence types and significant and redundant features of English as well as to adjectival constructions, prepositions, parasyntactic features and the "dynamics" of contemporary English.
