Editing Systemic functional grammar (section)

==Basic tenets==
Some interrelated key terms underpin Halliday's approach to grammar, which forms part of his account of how language works. These concepts are: system, (meta)function, and rank.  Another key term is lexicogrammar. In this view, grammar and lexis are two ends of the same continuum.

Analysis of the grammar is taken from a trinocular perspective, meaning from three different levels. So to look at lexicogrammar, it can be analysed from two more levels, 'above' (semantic) and 'below' (phonology).  This grammar gives emphasis to the view from above.

For Halliday, grammar is described as systems not as rules, on the basis that every grammatical structure involves a choice from a describable set of options. Language is thus a ''meaning potential''. Grammarians in SF tradition use [[system networks]] to map the available options in a language. In relation to English, for instance, Halliday has described systems such as ''mood'', ''agency'', ''theme'', etc. Halliday describes grammatical systems as closed, i.e. as having a finite set of options. By contrast, lexical sets are open systems, since new words come into a language all the time.<ref>Halliday, M.A.K. 1961. Categories of the Theory of Grammar. Word, 1961, 17(3), pp. 241–92. Reprinted in full in Halliday, M.A.K. On Grammar. Volume 1 in the Collected Works of M.A.K. Halliday. Edited by J.J. Webster. London and New York: Continuum. pp. 40–41.</ref><ref>Halliday, M.A.K. and Matthiessen, C.M.I.M. 2004. [https://books.google.com/books?id=JM3KAgAAQBAJ An Introduction to Functional Grammar]. Arnold.  p. 37ff.</ref>

These grammatical systems play a role in the construal of meanings of different kinds. This is the basis of Halliday's claim that language is ''meta-functionally'' organised. He argues that the raison d'être of language is meaning in social life, and for this reason all languages have three kinds of semantic components. All languages have resources for construing experience (the ''ideational'' component), resources for enacting humans' diverse and complex social relations (the ''interpersonal'' component), and resources for enabling these two kinds of meanings to come together in coherent text (the ''textual'' function).<ref>Halliday, M.A.K. 1977. Text as Semantic Choice in Social Context. In Teun A. van Dijk and János S. Petofi. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, Grammars and Descriptions. Reprinted in full in M.A.K. Halliday, 2002. Linguistic Studies of Text and Discourse. Edited by J.J. Webster. London: Continuum.,</ref><ref name="Halliday, M.A.K 1985">Halliday, M.A.K. and Hasan, R. 1985. Language, context and text: Aspects of language in a social semiotic perspective. Geelong: Deakin University Press.</ref> Each of the grammatical systems proposed by Halliday are related to these metafunctions. For instance, the grammatical system of 'mood' is considered to be centrally related to the expression of interpersonal meanings, 'process type' to the expression of experiential meanings, and 'theme' to the expression of textual meanings.

Traditionally the "choices" are viewed in terms of either the content or the structure of the language used. In SFG, language is analysed in three ways (strata): semantics, phonology, and lexicogrammar.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Chapelle |first1=Carol Ann |author1-link=Carol Chapelle |title=Some notes on Systemic-Functional linguistics |url=http://www.isfla.org/Systemics/documents/chapelle.html |website=www.isfla.org |access-date=30 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210425072442/http://www.isfla.org/Systemics/documents/chapelle.html |archive-date=Apr 25, 2021 |language=en |date=October 28, 1998 |url-status=live}}</ref> SFG presents a view of language in terms of both structure (grammar) and words (lexis). The term "lexicogrammar" describes this combined approach.