Lexicogrammar

Lexicogrammar is a term directly related to systemic functional linguistics. Systemic functional linguistics is a specific approach to adding as much detail as possible when describing lexicogrammar.{{Cite journal|last1=Thibault|first1=Paul J.|last2=van Leeuwen|first2=Theo|date=1996-04-01|title=Grammar, society, and the speech act: Renewing the connections|journal=Journal of Pragmatics|volume=25|issue=4|pages=561–585|doi=10.1016/0378-2166(95)00058-5|issn=0378-2166}} Michael Halliday, the father of systemic functional linguistics, coined the word "lexicogrammar"{{cn|date=December 2024}} to express the continuity between grammar and lexis. For many linguists, these phenomena are discrete. But Halliday brings them together with this term. As with other dimensions of Halliday's theory, he describes the relation of grammar to lexis as one of a '{{linktext|cline}}', and therefore, one of 'delicacy'. In 1961, he wrote 'The grammarian's dream is...to turn the whole of linguistic form into grammar, hoping to show that lexis can be defined as "most delicate grammar".Halliday, M.A.K. 1961. Categories of a Theory of Grammar. Word, 17 No. 3. p267 In 1987, Ruqaiya Hasan wrote an article titled 'The grammarian's dream: lexis as delicate grammar',In M.A.K. Halliday and R. Fawcett (eds) New Developments in Systemic Linguistics, Volume 1: Theory and Description. London: Frances Pinter. pp184-212. in which she laid out a methodology for mapping lexis in Halliday's terms.

Simply put, lexicogrammar is the grammar of the lexicon. Lexicogrammar derives from the idea that "vocabulary and grammatical structures are interdependent,"{{Cite book |last=Pearce |first=Michael |date=2012-09-10 |title=The Routledge Dictionary of English Language Studies |doi=10.4324/9780203698419 |isbn=9780203698419 |url=http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/id/eprint/1024/1/Pearce_2007.pdf }} and therefore the grammatical structures of lexis is what the systemic functional linguistics approach analyzes. Lexicogrammar does not equally pay attention to lexis as it does to grammar. It is more than anything a specific type of grammar that focuses on lexis.{{Cite book |title=Trust the text : language, corpus and discourse |last=Sinclair | first= John McHardy | author-link = John McHardy Sinclair |date=2004 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-415-31767-3 |oclc=442960047}}