Page 58 - A GRAMMAR OF BHOJPURI _ PhD Dissertation 2020 TU

Going through the notions of adaptive approach to grammar, it is considered
as an enrichment to the functional-typological approach to grammar.

2.3 Assumptions of the framework
The main goal of the functional-typological grammar (FTG) with an adaptive
approach, by T. Givon, is to study the diversity of the structural means of affecting the

same adaptive communicative functions from the formal and functional perspectives.
Going through Regmi (2007), Dhakal (2010), Paudyal (2013), Regmi (2013)

and Khatiwada (2016), some of the basic assumptions of FTG are summarized in the
points as follows:

a. All components of a language like phonology, morphology, syntax and
semantics are interdependent, rather being autonomous from each other.

b. Language and communication are viewed as maturation phenomena and being
part of general Piagetian cognitive abilities.
c. FT approach is basically developmental in the sense that it considers how

acquisition, evolution and change in a language affect its behavior.
d. Human languages consist of categories that are defined not as discrete, but

rather based on prototypes with fuzzy boundaries and contingent pragmatically
based rules, shading off into one another.

e. Language universals are explained at the surface level in terms of functions
cross-linguistically.

f. Syntax which encodes propositional semantic information and discourse
pragmatic function is functionally bound.
g. FTG follows an empirical approach and it views data of language use,

variation, development, behaviour, and discourse processing and experimental
cognitive psychology as part and parcel of one empirical complex.

h. FTG is concerned with the intricate relationships between form and function,
which gives importance to the subtle details of distribution to enrich further
grammatical description.

i. FTG uses the processes of syntactic argumentation used in generative
grammar in analyzing the syntax of a particular language.

j. FTG has the rich view of linguistic structure. It allows for insight from various
linguistic levels simultaneously, thus providing a variety of information of interest

to linguists working within a number of different subfields of linguistics.

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