ABSTRACT
This chapter explores what are known as grammatical functions or grammatical relations. By this grammatical functions or grammatical relations mean notions like subject, and object, a notion often invoked in traditional grammatical descriptions. The chapter considers the position of subjects and objects in principles and parameters (P&P), and describes the situation in head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG). A subject is an expression that combines with a predicate, while an object is a noun phrase (NP) that combines with a verb. Transformational grammar (TG) has always assumed that subject and object can be defined. Two approaches are discussed in the chapter: lexical functional grammar (LFG), in which they are known as grammatical functions, and relational grammar (RG), in which they are known as grammatical relations. The former is an approach which has developed since the late 1970s. The latter is a framework whose origins go back to the early 1970s.
