Adverbial Subordination in Functional Grammar: State of the Art and Prospects

Abstract

The study of adverbial subordination has always been an inescapable topic present in all grammars. Nevertheless, as will be shown in the first section of this paper, it could be claimed that traditional approaches, as well as other approaches that continue on the same line, have not succeeded in providing a clear delimitation of the concept of adverbial subordination and, even more, a complete and logical taxonomy of this type of constructions. The aim of this article is, therefore, to present a new approach to the study of adverbial clauses that has been carried out within the framework of the Functional Grammar Theory. In dealing with the semantic parameters used in this model for the classification of adverbial clauses, special attention will be paid to the application of the hierarchical structure of the clause to the description of this type of constructions.