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Lexical Functional Grammar
Volume 34 of Syntax and Semantics is a thorough and accessible overview and introduction to Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG), a theory of the content and representation of different aspects of linguistic structure and the relations that hold between them. The book motivates and describes the two syntactic structures of surface phrasal organization is represented by a context-free phrase structure tree, and more abstract functional syntactic relations like subject and object are represented separately, at functional structure. The book also presents a theory of semantics and the syntax-semantics interface in which the meaning of an utterance is obtained via deduction from semantic premises contributed by its parts. Clear explication of the formal aspects of the theory is provided throughout, and differences between LFG and other linguistic theories are explored. The theory is illustrated by the analysis of a varied set of linguistic phenomena, including modification, control, anaphora, coordination, and long-distance dependencies. Besides its interest to linguists, LFG also has practical applications in computational linguistics and computer science.
Key Features
* Thorough overview of the state of the art in Lexical Functional Grammar
* Clear explanation of the formal tools of the theory
* Introduction to the "glue" semantics, a theory of the syntax-semantics interface
* In-depth syntactic and semantic analysis of a variety of linguistic constructions
Key Features
* Thorough overview of the state of the art in Lexical Functional Grammar
* Clear explanation of the formal tools of the theory
* Introduction to the "glue" semantics, a theory of the syntax-semantics interface
* In-depth syntactic and semantic analysis of a variety of linguistic constructions
- GenresLinguistics
Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
17 people want to read
About the author
Mary Dalrymple
12 booksMary Dalrymple is university lecturer in general linguistics at the University of Oxford and fellow of Linacre College.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
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March 28, 2009It's kind of like reading a cookbook, except instead of '2 egg whites, beaten' it says things like 'up=down.' Oh, LFG.
January 13, 2026
Mission 2026: Binge reviewing all previous Reads, I was too slothful to appraise, back when I read them
This book entered my life like a corrective slap delivered by someone impeccably polite. Dalrymple’s LFG is not flamboyant, not evangelical, and not seductively theoretical. It is disciplined, almost monastic.
Reading it felt like being invited into a grammar that had renounced metaphysics and embraced bookkeeping—with pride.
Every function accounted for, every structure split cleanly from meaning, as though language itself could be morally purified by good design.
I read this book during a phase when I still believed theories should thrill me. LFG did not. Instead, it slowly trained me to respect restraint. Dalrymple refuses the theatrical excesses of transformational fireworks. There are no derivational miracles here, no deep structures rising dramatically to the surface.
What you get instead is a grammar that behaves like a civil servant: efficient, reliable, quietly indispensable. Over time, this sobriety began to feel radical.
What unsettled me most was how LFG denied my desire for narrative. Syntax does not transform, it aligns. Arguments do not move, they map. The book made me confront how much of my intellectual appetite was shaped by metaphor rather than necessity. LFG insists that language is not a story of movement but a system of correspondences. That insistence felt almost anti-literary—and therefore strangely honest.
Dalrymple writes with an authority that does not ask for approval. The examples are carefully chosen, multilingual without being exotic, technical without showing off.
It is a book that trusts its reader but refuses to entertain them.
At times I resented it for that. At other times I admired its refusal to seduce. This is a grammar that believes clarity is an ethical position.
Yet, for all its rigor, I never felt emotionally close to this book. It did not haunt me. It did not intrude into my dreams. It taught me how to think about structure, not why structure should matter existentially.
Perhaps that is its quiet limitation: LFG explains language impeccably, but it does not console anyone for having to speak.
Most recommended.
This book entered my life like a corrective slap delivered by someone impeccably polite. Dalrymple’s LFG is not flamboyant, not evangelical, and not seductively theoretical. It is disciplined, almost monastic.
Reading it felt like being invited into a grammar that had renounced metaphysics and embraced bookkeeping—with pride.
Every function accounted for, every structure split cleanly from meaning, as though language itself could be morally purified by good design.
I read this book during a phase when I still believed theories should thrill me. LFG did not. Instead, it slowly trained me to respect restraint. Dalrymple refuses the theatrical excesses of transformational fireworks. There are no derivational miracles here, no deep structures rising dramatically to the surface.
What you get instead is a grammar that behaves like a civil servant: efficient, reliable, quietly indispensable. Over time, this sobriety began to feel radical.
What unsettled me most was how LFG denied my desire for narrative. Syntax does not transform, it aligns. Arguments do not move, they map. The book made me confront how much of my intellectual appetite was shaped by metaphor rather than necessity. LFG insists that language is not a story of movement but a system of correspondences. That insistence felt almost anti-literary—and therefore strangely honest.
Dalrymple writes with an authority that does not ask for approval. The examples are carefully chosen, multilingual without being exotic, technical without showing off.
It is a book that trusts its reader but refuses to entertain them.
At times I resented it for that. At other times I admired its refusal to seduce. This is a grammar that believes clarity is an ethical position.
Yet, for all its rigor, I never felt emotionally close to this book. It did not haunt me. It did not intrude into my dreams. It taught me how to think about structure, not why structure should matter existentially.
Perhaps that is its quiet limitation: LFG explains language impeccably, but it does not console anyone for having to speak.
Most recommended.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews