Circumstantiation: taking a broader look at circumstantial meanings

Abstract

Abstract This paper argues for a view of circumstantial meaning as a region of ideational meaning that is instantiated across a range of lexicogrammatical structures: from the rank of the clausal constituent of circumstance in both directions: up to clause rank and down to below or within constituent rank (eg as Qualifier). This paper brings together and extends the work of Halliday & Matthiessen (An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 2004) on expansion and circumstantiation, and the work of Martin (English Text: System and Structure, 1992) within the discourse semantic system of ideation . Each type of circumstantial meaning is defined structurally, that is, according to rank, and semantically, according to type. Analysis of circumstantial meanings is conducted on a small corpus of four introductions to journal articles in order to demonstrate the use of viewing circumstantial meaning in this way.