The analysis of a sentence in terms of theme and rheme is functional in the sense that this distinction has to do with the semantic side of the constituents of a sentence rather than the formal side.

• 我们说用主位和述位来分析句子是功能主义的。这是因为主位和述位的区分必须跟句子组成成分的意义方面相关，而不是跟形式方面有关。