Mondatfunkció

Mondatfunkció, or sentence function, refers to the pragmatic role a sentence plays in discourse—the illocutionary act the speaker aims to perform. It concerns what the speaker intends to achieve with the utterance, such as informing, asking, commanding, or expressing emotion. In written text, punctuation helps signal function, while in spoken language intonation and stress are crucial indicators.

The most common typology distinguishes four main functions: declarative (a statement that conveys information), interrogative (a question), imperative (a command or request), and exclamative (an exclamation expressing emotion or emphasis). Interrogatives include yes-no questions and wh-questions; imperatives cover direct orders as well as polite requests; exclamatives express surprise, enthusiasm, or strong feeling. Some languages have additional or distinct functions, such as optative or desiderative moods, and others rely on particles, word order, or verb morphology to mark function rather than punctuation alone. Context can also blur boundaries, allowing a single sentence to serve multiple communicative aims.

In linguistic analysis, mondatfunkció intersects with pragmatics and speech-act theory, where function is about intended effect on the listener rather than merely grammatical form. It also plays a central role in language teaching and corpus studies, helping learners interpret usage, respond appropriately, and understand discourse structure. Cross-linguistically, the range and realization of sentence functions can vary, but the idea that sentences serve specific communicative purposes remains a foundational concept in describing how language conveys meaning.