Dans les replis de la terminologie de la PFP: aktualní členění věty

The aim of this article is to reconstruct the first occurrence, lexical choices, syntagmatic nexus, semantic and epistemic values of aktualní členění věty, one of the classical names, in the Prague Linguistic Circle, of FSP. Coined by Mathesius in 1939, it is the rich synthesis of a linguistic and philosophical tradition, partly rooted in Greek grammatical terminology – articulation –, partly in Brentano’s and the Brentanian school’s empirical psychology – the psychology and philosophy of act –, in both cases traceable to Aristotle. The intention is to account for the biological and motor metaphor of articulation, effective in explaining sentence communicative dynamism, which represents the core of functional syntax research. In addition, it supports a gestaltic concept of the sentence.