diff --git a/promql/bench_test.go b/promql/bench_test.go
index 661faa6556..98b51f5f79 100644
--- a/promql/bench_test.go
+++ b/promql/bench_test.go
@@ -664,6 +664,7 @@ func BenchmarkParser(b *testing.B) {
 		`foo{a="b", foo!="bar", test=~"test", bar!~"baz"}`,
 		`min_over_time(rate(foo{bar="baz"}[2s])[5m:])[4m:3s]`,
 		"sum without(and, by, avg, count, alert, annotations)(some_metric) [30m:10s]",
+		`sort_by_label(metric, "foo", "bar")`,
 	}
 	errCases := []string{
 		"(",
diff --git a/promql/parser/parse.go b/promql/parser/parse.go
index 3a76ddb44d..d7f3b93994 100644
--- a/promql/parser/parse.go
+++ b/promql/parser/parse.go
@@ -819,7 +819,9 @@ func (p *parser) checkAST(node Node) (typ ValueType) {
 				}
 				i = len(n.Func.ArgTypes) - 1
 			}
-			p.expectType(arg, n.Func.ArgTypes[i], fmt.Sprintf("call to function %q", n.Func.Name))
+			if t := p.checkAST(arg); t != n.Func.ArgTypes[i] {
+				p.addParseErrf(arg.PositionRange(), "expected type %s in call to function %q, got %s", DocumentedType(n.Func.ArgTypes[i]), n.Func.Name, DocumentedType(t))
+			}
 		}
 
 	case *ParenExpr: