Friday 21 August 2015

Instantial Variation Constructs Semantic Domains

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 323):
Instances do not usually repeat each other word for word; there is some variation … It is this variation that constructs the domain. With each instance of the field, the overall meaning potential is instantiated in slightly varying ways; this variation both confirms the earlier patterns and nudges them along some novel path.