Abstract: The chapter presents Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG) as part of a wider theory of verbal interaction, specifying its distinguishing features and detailing its architecture and notational conventions. It is explained how the grammar can be implemented in linguistic analysis and how it relates to linguistic functionalism and to language typology.

Keywords: top-down organization, Discourse Act, Conceptual Component, Contextual Component, Output Component, formulation, encoding, levels of representation, layering,