PanPacificAssociationofAppliedLinguistics12(1),1128
                    
	

					
                 	  						
	
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                     Recent developments in theories of language (grammars) seem to share a
                     number of tenets which mark a drastic shift from traditional disentangled
                     descriptionsoflanguage:emphasisonabignumberofdiscretegrammatical
                     rules or a corpus of structure patterns has given way to a more unitary,
                     explanatorypowerfuldescriptionoflanguageinformedbyasoundtheoryof
                     languageacquisition,ontheonehand,andverified/refutedbyobservationson
                     samplesoflanguageuse,ontheother.Twowidelywelcomeofsuchtheories
                     are Chomsky’s Universal Grammar and Halliday’s Systemic Functional
                     Linguistics. These two theories have been initiated and developed almost
                     independently and each has been successful in accounting for aspects of
                     languagefromaparticularperspective.However,theyseemtostandmoreina
                     complementarypositionwithrespecttoeachotherthaninaconfrontingstance
                     againstoneanother.Thisarticleaimsatprovidingevidenceforsuchaclaimto
                     supportthearguethatnotonlyaren’tthesetwotheoriesmutuallyexclusivebut
                     theyarerathermutuallydependent;thereisasenseinwhicheachneedsto
                     internalize and incorporate aspects of the other if a fullyfledged accountof
                     languageistobeachieved.
                     
                     ,	-	systemicfunctionallinguistics,universalgrammar,(in)congruent
                    forms,cliticization
                 
                 *	.
                 	
                                      th
                 Since its birth in early 20  century, linguistics has witnessed a big number of
                 changesinitstrends,orientations,subjectsofstudy,andhencetheoriesoflanguage
                 and language acquisition. Apart from the influential reorientation from the
                 ‘historical or diachronic linguistics’ towards a ‘synchronic linguistics’ which
                 marked the beginning of modern linguistics, the most salient demarcation line
                 between current theories of grammar can be sketched by way of reference to
                 Saussure’s consideration of syntagmatic versus paradigmatic relations among
                 linguisticitems(Sampson,1980).Linguisticitemsaresaidtobesyntagmatically
                 relatedwhenviewedasalinearsequenceandparadigmaticallyrelatedwhenviewed
                 aspotentialsubstitutesfortheirsimilarlypositionedcounterpartswithinthegiven
                 
                 ∗
                  First/correspondingauthor:FiroozSadighi,secondauthor:MohammadBavali.
                 11©2008PAAL13458353/00
                         
	


                         sequence.Grammars,then,couldbeviewedasseeingthelanguageasknowledgeof
                         either   primarily   syntagmatic relations among linguistic constituents or
                         predominantlyparadigmaticrelationsamonglinguisticitems.Theformerhasledto
                         grammars such as Markov’s FiniteState grammar, structural (descriptive)
                         linguistics,andChomsky’sgenerativetransformationalgrammar(nowUG),andthe
                         latter has given rise to Firth’s London school of linguistics, Jakobson’s Prague
                         school of linguistics, and Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics (see Lyons,
                         1981andSampson,1980).
                                 Twotheories,ofthosejustmentionedhaveattractedmostattentionandhave
                         beenfrequentlyaddressedandemployedinliteratureonbothlinguisticsandapplied
                         linguistics. They are Chomsky’s Universal Grammar and Halliday’s Systemic
                         FunctionalLinguistics.Thesetwotheorieshavebeeninitiatedanddevelopedalmost
                         independentlyandeachhasbeensuccessfulinaccountingforaspectsoflanguage
                         from a particular perspective. However, they seem to stand more in a
                         complementarypositionwithrespecttoeachotherthan inaconfrontingstance
                         againstoneanother.Thefollowinglinesbearanaccountofthesetwotheoriesof
                         language, their merits and inadequacies, and the way in which each would
                         contributetothecompletionoftheother.
                         
                         &	
	

			
                         	
                         InChomskyantradition,grammarofalanguageisanaccountofthegrammatical
                         competence (rather than performance) of the native speakers of that language.
                         Grammaticalcompetenceisdefinedasthenativespeakers’tacitknowledgeofthe
                         grammar of their language (Chomsky, 1965). Native speakers’ grammatical
                         competence is determined by eliciting their intuitions about grammaticality of
                         sentencesgeneratedintheirownlanguage(knownas



)
                         andabouttheinterpretationofsentences(e.g.realizingambiguousorparaphrase
                         forms,etc.)(ibid).Agrammarissaidtobe

	


ifityieldsthe
                         samestatementsaboutthe(un)grammaticalityandinterpretationsofthesentences
                         asthenativespeakersofthatlanguagedo.AUniversalGrammar,however,isnot
                         anaccountofthegrammarofanindividuallanguage(e.g.English,orFrench).Itis,
                         moreprecisely,a

;itis,inRadford’s(1997)words,“asetof
                         hypothesesaboutthenatureofpossibleandimpossiblegrammarsofnatural(i.e.
                         human) languages” (p.5). It follows that any grammar could be descriptively
                         adequate if and only if it describes the properties of the intended language in
                         accordancewithandfromamongthoseuniversalpropertiesalreadypredictedand
                         devised within the theory of Universal Grammar. This gives rise to one further
                         criterion;thatof	

.Thesecondcriterionofadequacyforgrammarsisthat
                         ofexplanatoryadequacy.AtheoryofUniversalGrammar(henceforthUG)issaid
                         tobe



ifitcouldsuccessfullyexplainwhyitcontainsthe
                         propertiesitdoes.
                                 Inadditiontoallthesecriteria,therearestillthreemoreconditionstobe
                         satisfiedbyatheoryofUG:onethatanytheoryofUGmustbe


	
innature;
                         thatisthedescriptivepoweroftheUGmustnotbesounlimitedthatitsdescriptive
                         12
              




         devices could describe as well the artificial languages (e.g. computer and
         mathematicslanguages)orotherhumanandnonhumancommunicationsystems.
         One more criterion of adequacy that a theory of language must meet is the
         

principlewhichassumesthatalinguistictheoryisadequateifandonly
         ifthegrammaritgeneratescouldbeeasilylearnedbychildreninarelativelyshort
         periodoftimejustastheynormallydoinearlychildhood.Inotherwords,the
         grammarmustbeassimpleaspossible.Thesehaveledtoanewmovementwithin
         UG, beginning in 1990s by Chomsky himself, which aims at minimizing the
         theoretical and descriptive devices in devising grammatical properties of natural
         languages in favor of maximizing the simplicity and hence learnability of the
         grammar.Thismovementisknownas.
            CloselyassociatedwithatheoryofUGistheproblemofexplicatingthe
         acquisitionofgrammarknownastheLogicalProblem(Hawkins,2001,p.1;Foster
         Cohen,1999,p.5).Itaddressestheimportantquestionofhowchildrenacquirethe
         grammar of their language (the initial stage) so rapidly and uniformly in a
         remarkablyshortperiodoftime(ataroundtheageof18monthsuptoaround30
         months).Asecondproblem,knownasthedevelopmentalproblem,concernsthe
         way(s)in whichchildrengothroughotherstages(transitionandfinalstage)of
         learning (ibid). Chomsky’s explanation for such phenomena is that children are
         genetically predisposed with an innate language faculty which facilitates the
         acquisitionoflanguage.ThisinnatelanguagefacultyiswhatChomskyconceivesof
         as UG which comprises a set of implicit abstract 
 that govern the
         grammaticaloperationsallowedandnotallowedinallnaturallanguages.Examples
         of such principles are 


 



 
 (which holds that all
         grammaticaloperationsarestructuredependent,i.e.theyare,accordingtoRadford
         (ibid,p.15),sensitivetothegrammaticalstructureofthesentencestheyapplyto).
            To account for the observed differences across languages in their
         grammaticalstructure,UGhasincorporatedintoitsstructureanumberoflanguage
         specificvariations“whichchildrenhavetolearnaspartofthetaskofacquiring
         theirnativelanguage.Thus,languageacquisitioninvolvesnotonlylexicallearning
         butalsosomestructurallearning”(ibid,p.16).Thesegrammaticalvariationsare
         referredtoas

 Itfollowsthatwhilesomeaspectsofthegrammatical
         structureoflanguagesaredeterminedbyinnategrammaticalprincipleswhichwill
         nothavetobelearnedbychildren,someothershavetobeacquiredasparametric
         variationsacrosslanguages.“Inotherwords,structurallearningwillbelimitedto
         


aspectsofstructure”(p.16).Examplesofparametersinclude
         

 

 according to which some languages (Italian, Spanish, Irish,
         Chinese,etc.)arenullsubject,i.e.theirfiniteverbslicenseeitherovertorcovert
         (null)subjects,whileothersarenonnullsubjectlanguages(French,English,etc.),
         thatisfiniteverbsinsuchlanguageslicenseonlyovertsubjects,notnullsubjects.
         Oneimportantpointtoconsideristhattherearegeneticconstraintsontherangeof
         structural(parametric)variationallowedindifferentlanguagessothat,inprinciple,
         allparametricvariationsappeartooscillatealongabinarychoice(withonlytwo
         possiblesettings)andthatanylanguageallowsforonlyone(uniform)possibility
                                           13
         
	


         andnotacombinationofboth(nosinglelanguagewithsomeformssettoonevalue
         andotherssettotheother).
            ! 
 is an important aspect of grammatical structure which is
         parameterizedalongvariousconstructions.Onesuchconstructionsmakesupthe
         "#

 which determines whether whexpressions can be fronted or not.
         Anothertypeofwordordervariationiscalledthe



which
         statesthatlanguagesvaryintermsoftherelativepositionofheadswithrespectto
         theircomplementswithinphrases:whileEnglishisaheadfirstlanguage,Japanese
         isaheadlastlanguage.
            Inlightoftheabove,onecangeneralizethat“theonlystructurallearning
         whichchildrenfaceinacquiringtheirnativelanguageisthetaskofdeterminingthe
         appropriate value for each of the relevant structural parameters along which
         languagesvary”(p.20).
         
         /				
         
         SystemicFunctionalGrammarorLinguistics,firstintroducedbyMichaelHalliday
         (1985),referstoanewapproachtothestudyofgrammarthatisradicallydifferent
         from the traditional view in which language is a set of rules for specifying
         grammaticalstructures.Inthisview,languageisaresourceformakingmeanings
         and hence grammar is a resource for creating meaning by means of wording.
         Halliday&Matthiessen(1999,p.3)clarifytheirpositionwithrespecttoSFLas
         follows:
             
            For the task of constructing such a meaning base, we shall use a
            
grammar.Asystemicgrammarisoneoftheclassoffunctional
            grammars,whichmeans(amongotherthings)thatitissemantically
            motivated,or‘natural’,Incontradistinctiontoformalgrammars,which
            are autonomous, and therefore semantically arbitrary, in a systemic
            grammareverycategory(and‘category’isusedhereinthe general
            senseofanorganizingtheoreticalconcept,notinthenarrowersenseof
            ‘calss’asinformalgrammar)isbasedonmeaning:ithasasemanticas
            wellasaformal,lexicogrammaticalreactance.
         
            Tocapturetheessenceofthedistinctionbetweengrammarandtheoriesof
         grammar,HallidayandMatthiessen(1997,1999)callthelatter‘grammatics’.They
         furtherunderscoretheneedforarichertheoryofgrammar(i.e.SFL),claimingthat
         thetraditional‘grammarasrule’typeoftheoryfallsfarshortofthedemandsthat
         arenowbeingmadeongrammaticaltheories:
            
            Atthisstageinhistory,weneedarichertheoryofgrammartomeetthe
            challenges of the age of information, e.g. in education and in
            computation(HallidayandMatthiessen,1997,p.1).
            
         14