Thursday 26 July 2018

Existential ‘There’: Experiential & Interpersonal Functions

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 308):
The word there in such clauses is neither a participant nor a circumstance — it has no representational function in the transitivity structure of the clause; but it serves to indicate the feature of existence, and it is needed interpersonally as a Subject. Unlike participants and circumstances this existential there cannot be queried, theme–predicated or theme–identified