TABLE OF CONTENTS
General Introduction 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Aims of the study 1
3. Scopes of the study 2
4. Methods of the study 2
5. Design of the study 4
chapter I 4
general conceptualization 4
1.1.Introduction 4
1.2.A brief history of grammatical study 5
1.3. Traditional grammar 6
1.4.Systemic Functional grammar 9
1.5. Some differences between SFG and TG 10
Chapter II 13
The simple sentence in traditional grammar 13
2.1. Introduction 13
2.2. Structural criteria 14
2.2.1. Principal parts of the sentence – subject and predicate 15
2.2.2. Sentence elements syntactically defined 16
2.2.3. Basic clause patterns 18
2.3. Logico-semantic criteria 19
2.4. Communicative criteria 21
2.5. Phonological and orthographic criteria 23
2.6. Summary 24
Chapter III 25
The clause in systemic functional grammar 25
3.1. Introduction 25
3.2. Clause- the crucial unit in systemic functional grammar 25
3.3. Three ways of interpreting clause 26
3.3.1. Clause as representation: experiential metafunction 26

4.2. The differences between the sentence in TG and the clause in SFG 50
CONCLUSION 56

2
General Introduction
1. Rationale
The history of linguistics has seen the endless development of different approaches,
each of which defines its own tasks, scopes and objectives. Of the grammatical
approaches, traditional grammar (TG) considers sentence as the largest unit in the
grammatical system of a language, and the study of grammar is primarily concentrated
around the study of sentence. Because of its earlier foundation, traditional grammar has
largely influenced on linguistics in general and on language teaching in particular in
several parts of the world, including Vietnam. For a long time, sentence has been the
main content of grammar teaching at schools. As a result, the concept of sentence has
become very familiar to many people. Until recently, there has witnessed the flourish
of systemic functional grammar (SFG) during the late 20
th
century and its great
influence on language research and teaching. Among the units recognized for study in
functional grammar, clause represents as a crucial one.
Clause description has been found not only in English but also in Vietnamese although
the studies on Vietnamese clause are found in a small number. Since functional
grammar is still new in Vietnam, the term clause has often been confused and
misunderstood, even some linguists argue that the term sentence should be used
instead of the clause. Therefore, the questions to ask would be “What does the clause
really mean?”, “Is it completely the same as the sentence in traditional grammar?”
The thesis aims at exploring the notion of sentence in traditional grammar and clause
in functional grammar, at the same time making comparison between them to see in
what ways they are similar and different.
2. Aims of the study

definitions in various traditional studies, but mainly in Quirk et al. (1985), Leech &
Svartvik (1975), Cobuild (1991), Delahunty & Garvey (1994). The description of
clause is mostly based on the model given in Halliday (1994). Works by some other
systemic functional linguists are also consulted, including Downing and Locke (1992),
Morley (2000), Bloor (1994), Eggins (1994), etc. The invaluable reference sources in
Vietnamese include the following publications: Trần Trọng Kim (1941), Trơng Văn
Chình & Nguyễn Hiến Lê (1963), Nguyễn Kim Thản (1964), Hoàng Trọng Phiến
(1980), Lê Cận et al. (1983), Diệp Quang Ban (1986), Cao Xuân Hạo (1991), Hoàng
Văn Vân (2002), Diệp Quang Ban (2004). Apart from those publications named above,
other studies are also consulted when necessary.

3
5. Design of the study
The study is organized around three parts: introduction, main content and conclusion.
Introduction – presents the rationale of the study, the aims of the study,
scopes of the study and methods of the study.
Chapter One – General Conceptualization – is concerned with the
theoretical preliminaries: the framework of TG and SFG for describing the
sentence and the clause.
Chapter Two - The Simple Sentence in Traditional Grammar – investigates
how the sentence is conceptualized and described in TG.
Chapter Three – The Clause Simplex in Systemic Functional Grammar –
investigates how the clause is conceptualized and described in SFG.
Chapter Four - Comparison – draws out the similarities and differences
between the sentence and the clause.
Conclusion - summarizes the main points discussed in the thesis and offers
implications of the study and some suggestions for further research.
chapter I
general conceptualization
1.1. Introduction

known as descriptive linguistics became dominant in the U.S during the first half of the
20th century.

5
At the same time, there was another approach to grammar in which descriptive
linguistics developed precise and rigorous methods to describe the formal structural
units in the spoken aspect of any language. The grammar that developed with this view
is known as structural grammar. A structuralist grammar describes what relationships
underlie all instances of speech in a particular language (what Saussure referred to as
langue and parole).
By the mid-20th century, Noam Chomsky developed the generative grammar. A
generative grammar is a formal grammar that can in some sense “generate” the well-
formed expressions of a natural language. His universal theories are related to the ideas
of those 18
th
and early 19
th
century grammarians who urged that grammar be
considered a part of logic – a key to analyzing thought.
In the history of grammatical study, there have always existed two opposite variables in
the way grammars are written: functional and formal. Although there are many cross-
currents with insights borrowed from one to the other, they are ideologically fairly
different. Functional grammar is the name given to any of a range of functionally–
based approaches to the scientific study of language such as the grammar model of the
Prague school, The Copenhagen school, or the grammar model developed by Simon
Dik.
A modern approach to combining accurate descriptions of the grammatical patterns of
language with their function in context is that of systemic functional grammar, an
approach originally developed by Michael A.K. Halliday in the 1960s and now pursued
in all continents. Systemic functional grammar is related to the older functional

grammar of English. Noteworthy in the regard are Curme (1931-1935), Sweet (1891-
98), Zandvolt (1972), and so on. Even certain contemporary approaches, such as that
presented in Quirk et al. (1985), can also be characterized as traditional in their
outlook, even though they are considerably more linguistically sophisticated than
earlier descriptions (Trask, 1999).

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With regard to the background of Vietnamese grammatical study, it is not exaggerated
to say that, in the early period (1850- 1935), most of Vietnamese grammarians
profoundly adopted the model of grammar given by their conquered French scholars.
(H. V. V©n, 2002). Since 1930 on, the study of grammar has extensively influenced by
English grammar, French grammar and Russian grammar. Until recently, a great many
of grammarians have still taken traditional grammar as the basic model for their study.
Through out of the country, a mass of grammatical textbooks written under traditional
perspective is used in schools for all levels, from primary to university education
.
The sentence is taken as a crucial grammatical unit. Study of syntax, which means
study of sentence, is primarily concerned with definition of sentence, classification of
sentence types and identification of sentence elements. In the twentieth century,
language teaching continues to be formed on the word as the minimal unit and the
sentence as the maximal. A typical work on grammar is traditionally divided into two
parts, the first of which deals with parts of speech and the rest is often devoted to
describing the sentence.

Apart from the concepts related to parts of speech, traditional grammar developed a
great deal of grammatical terminologies, including the terminology that refers to
grammatical units (words, phrases, clauses, sentences), the terminology that refers to
clause elements (subject, predicate, object, direct object, indirect object, complement,
adverbial, transitivity, intransitivity, intensive, etc.), and the one that refers to
categories such as gender, number, person, tense, mood, case, inflection, aspect, voice,

the particular discourse are involved. Although different languages can realize these
functions in different ways, there are universal features of all languages. From this
view, language is a resource for making meaning; so, ‘grammar is a resource for
creating meaning in the form of wording’ (Halliday & Matthiessen, forth coming).

9
In the history of thinking about language, there are two somewhat different theoretical
perspectives. Some linguists have approached the study of language with account for
formal aspects of the grammar largely divorced from meanings. They started by
looking at words and sentences (language forms) and then asking how the forms of the
language represent meaning. For Halliday, the only approach to the construction of
grammars that is likely to be successful will be one that recognizes meaning and use as
central features of language. It follows from this use that Halliday’s grammar is
semantic (concerned with meaning), and functional (concerned with how the language
is used).
The systemic functional approach is increasingly being recognized as providing a very
useful descriptive and interpretive framework for viewing language as strategic, meaning-
making resources.
(Eggins, 1991:1)
Systemic functional grammar is concerned primarily with the choices that are made
available to speakers of a language by their grammatical systems. These choices are
assumed to be meaningful and related speaker’s intentions to the concrete forms of a
language. The name “system grammar” is derived from the fact that a language is seen
as being a huge, integrated series of system networks of meaning potential. This
potential gives us a framework within which it makes sense to compare different
choices. According to Halliday, every choice in a system is realized by a syntagmatic
structure. A structure is a linear configuration of slots filled by some functional
elements; i.e. syntagmatic relations give structures. While the systemic approach gives
theoretical priority to paradigmatic relations, “its formalism through the system
network, captures both paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations”. (Eggins, 1994: 213)

1.5.2. Syntagmatic grammar and paradigmatic grammar
In TG, language is a set of rules , rules for specifying structures; so grammar is a set of
rules for specifying structures, which are made up smaller elements, such as the
construction of a transitive sentence with “verb + object”. The grammar is itself
syntagmatic oriented. In contrast to formal grammar, SFG is paradigmatic in
orientation. It interprets a language as a network of relations (systems of choices from

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the paradigms) with structures coming in as the realization of these relationships. It
takes semantics as the foundation; hence “the grammar is natural, and so to be
organized around the text, or discourse” (Halliday, 1994).
1.5.3. Descriptive vs. prescriptive grammar
Although traditional grammar and prescriptive grammar are not entirely the same
thing, there is a large overlap between them. TG is thought as the set of descriptive
concepts used by nearly all prescriptive works on grammar. For the readers with
background in TG, grammar equates with the study of how people should talk or write
correctly. The grammar is viewed in terms of “rights” or “wrongs”. It is prescriptive or
normative by the ways that its aim is to provide rules for correcting what are often
referred to as grammatical errors.
On the contrary, SFG is not a prescriptive grammar but a kind of descriptive grammar.
It accounts for how people actually use language. In SFG, degree of appropriacy is
assessed not on terms of grammatical rules but relevant choices in certain contexts. It
is a grammar which can relate the system of all possible choices (the total grammatical
potential of a language) to the grammatical choices made when language is used
within a particular context (how the potential is actualized) in specific contexts of
use). SFG linguists are not interested in making judgments about whether people
should or should not use this or that structure. They simply describe the grammar that
enables language users to do what they do. Therefore, SFG is evaluated to be much
richer semantically than either formal or traditional grammar. In his preface to
Introduction to Functional Grammar (1994), Halliday claims:

verbial group
Areas covered (text>) sentence > clause >
phrase > word > morpheme
the whole communicative event:
experiential, interpersonal and textual
functions
View of the
clause / sentence
syntactic functions, clause
patterns
processes and participants, mood type
+ modality, thematic structure
Table 2:Some differences between systemic-functional grammar and traditional
grammar
Chapter II
The simple sentence in traditional grammar
2.1. Introduction
This chapter deals with the sentence – a very crucial unit in TG. Although the term
sentence seems to be so familiar to everyone, from a language learning beginner to a
linguist, its definitions are hardly unanimously shared by different linguists. Up to
now, it is not surprising that the definitions of sentence have reached the number of
hundreds.
Because it is difficult to give a precise and satisfactory definition of sentence, some
linguists, instead of giving a definition of sentence, cautiously summarize sentence’s
features as follows:
- The sentence is the largest unit of grammatical organization.

13
- The sentence is a minimal unit of communication.
- The sentence is constructed by means or certain grammatical rules.

We are going to leave here.
+A minor sentence is an irregular type of sentence. It does not follow the
grammatical rules (Hello!; How do you do?)
Sentences can also be classified into complete sentence and elliptical sentence, which
are distinguished by the presence or absence of certain elements in the sentence. In
elliptical sentence, some part is ellipsed but can be restored from the context.
Are you free this morning? (complete sentence)
Free this morning? (elliptical sentence)
This way of classification bases on the structural relations between the elements of the
simple sentence. A simple sentence is the most basic type from which all other types of
sentences are built up. It is the largest unit to which the rules of grammar apply.
Delahunty and Garvey (1994) define the simple sentence as “a grammatically unified
structure that contains a subject and a predicate”. In much similar way, Vietnamese
linguist D. Q. Ban (1996) defines simple sentence as one consisting of only one cluster
of a subject and predicate and this cluster simultaneously plays such a role as the
‘core’ of sentence.
2.2.1. Principal parts of the sentence – subject and predicate
Drawing out from the above definitions, traditionally, a complete sentence includes two
principal parts: subject and predicate. However, providing an adequate definition of
the notion of a subject is difficult, and depends on a range of grammatical properties
that may vary from language to language. For this reason, many current grammatical
theories avoid using the term, except for purely descriptive purposes, or define it in
terms of occupying a particular position in the clause. However, many traditional
grammarians try to make definition of subject, and the most common definition is that
the subject is what (whom) the sentence is about, while the predicate tells something
about the subject.

15
The subject of the sentence has a close general relation to “what is being discussed”, the
“theme” of the sentence, with the normal implication that something new (the predicate) is

general rules about the construction of sentences; it is the elementary construction. At
a more delicate level, a sentence may alternatively be seen as comprising five units

16
called element of clause structure: subject, verb, complement, object and adverbial,
abbreviated as S, V, C, O, A.
They make him the chairman every year
S V O C A
+ Subject: A subject (i) is a noun phrase or a clause with nominal function (ii) occurs
before the verb phrase in declarative clauses and immediately after operator in
question (iii) has the number and person concord, where applicable with the verb
phrase.
+ Object (direct or indirect): An object (i) like a subject, is a noun phrase or clause
with nominal function (ii) normally follows the subject and the verb phrase (iii) by the
passive transformation, assumes the status of subject.
+ Complement: (subject or object) A complement (i) is a noun phrase, an adjective
phrase, or a clause with nominal function (ii) follows the subject, verb phrase and (if
one is present) object (iii) does not become subject through the passive transformation
+ Adverbial: An adverbial (i) is an adverb, adverb phrase, adverbial clause, noun
phrase, or prepositional phrase (ii) is generally mobile, i.e. is capable of occurring in
more than one position in the clause (iii) is generally optional, i.e. may be added or
removed from a sentence without affecting its acceptability.
(Quirk et al., 1985: 348-349)
Unlike English sentence, which always requires verbs as obligatory element, not all
sentences in Vietnamese include verb element (Cô ấy đẹp.; Nhà tôi xa trung tâm.).
While most English and Vietnamese traditional grammarians share the agreement on
the division of subject and predicate as well as taking it as criterion to distinguish
between simple sentence, compound sentence and complex sentence, they differ from
one another in defining subelements of sentence structures. For example, D. Q. Ban
(1987:32) distinguishes principle components (subject and predicate) and subordinate

O
d
+ Pattern three: indirect and direct object verb complement (SVOO).
Mary s husband’ gave her a diamond ring
S V
complex trans

O
i O
d
+ Pattern four: predicate verb complement (SVC).
Mary is a doctor
S V
intens
C
s

18
+ Pattern five: (SVOA).
Mary took the children to the zoo.
S V
complex trans
O
d
A
place


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The affected is the most typical function of the direct object; it is a participant
(animate or inanimate) which does not cause the happening denoted by the verb,
but is directly involved in some other ways.
Kate has just broken a plate.
The recipient is the most typical function of the indirect object; it is the
animate being passively implicated by the happening or state.
Her husband gave her a diamond ring.
The attribute is the function of object complement or subject complement.
Her brother grew happier.
I prefer my coffee black.
Based on semantic criterion, the subject and object are classified into many types:
agentive and instrumental subject, recipient subject, locative and temporal subject,
affected object, effected object, locative object, etc. For more details, see Quirk et al.
(1976); Van Valin & Lappolla (1997).
Similarly, T. V. Chinh & N. H. Le (1963) also define sentence as a linguistic form
expressing one or more than one state of affairs. A state of affairs is an event, action or
a state in which a participant (person/thing) functions as the subject. For example, in
the two states of affairs
T«i ®i xem h¸t
¸o anh dµi qu¸
‘T«i’ is the subject of ‘®i xem h¸t’ and ‘¸o anh’ is the subject of ‘dµi qu¸’. A sentence
which expresses a state of affairs is a simple sentence; a sentence expressing more than
one state of affairs is a complex sentence.
According to D. Q. Ban (1987), the subject, in semantic relation to the predicate, can
function as agentive subject (chủ ngữ tác động), instrumental subject (chủ ngữ phương
tiện), locative subject (chủ ngữ chỉ vị trí), etc.
Anh Long suy nghĩ miên man

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Vietnamese sentence often established by adding không before the predication
+ An interrogative sentence is commonly used to request information. English
interrogative sentences can be subclassified into four types: yes/no question, wh-
question, alternative questions and tag questions. Examples for each type are given
below, respectively.
Do you like art?
Who is the man over there?
Do you live in town or in the countryside?
She isn t married, is she?’
An interrogative in Vietnamese can be established with interrogative pronoun (ai, gì,
nào, thế nào, sao, bây giờ, ở đâu, …), the alternative word “hay”, interrogative word
(có…không, chưa, phải không, à) or rising intonation.
Sao anh về muộn thế?
Cậu thích đọc truyên ngắn phải không?
Cụ Ba có nhà hay không?
Anh sống ở đây?
(Lª CËn et al. 1983)

+ An exclamatory sentence expresses some kind of emotion or feeling. It is generally
a more emphatic form of statement. English exclamatory often begins with the words
What and How.
How beautiful she is!
What an awful day!

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Vietnamese exclamatory is formed by various particle words (ô, ôi, ơi là, nhỉ, ư, thật,
thay, quá, ghê, thế, dường nào, biết, xiết, biết bao, etc).
Bài toán này khó thật!
Sao mà chán thế!
+ An imperative sentence is ordinarily used to make a demand, a request, an