Adventures in Functional Grammar...

Yup, my books have arrived and I've embarked on another semester of Linguistics. Today's highlight (and I mean that literally, I've attacked it with a flourescent yellow wand and adorned it with a gargantuan "?") declares:

Dependent clauses of the second type are the kinds of messages that are full clause projections from projecting processes realised by verbal groups that express saying, thinking, reporting, believing and so on. ~Using Functional Grammar. Butt, Fahey, et al. p.167

I can tell you what verbal group I'm thinking about reporting right now, and it's certainly not fit for Moms or Sailors to read!

Perhaps I should have chosen to study Children's Literature, Plant Destroying, or Pudding Making. Those things I think I could do well. It's going to take me a full semester to de-code the above quote, much less apply it to the looming assignments.

However, the activities I've tried in the textbook so far have been fun. I'm just worried that they're fun the same way Calculus was fun until I realized that there really was a right answer, and I couldn't just choose the numbers that were pretty or felt right. Time (and my professor) will tell.

Enjoy your day, I'm heading back to the books.