Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 221):
It is interesting to note how this two-faced character of circumstances — that they are on the one hand like participants and on the other hand like figures — is reflected in their treatment in languages other than English. In the way they are construed in the grammar, in a language such as Finnish, where what corresponds to the English preposition is often a "case" in the nominal group, they appear to be (relatively to English) closer to participants; while in a language such as Chinese, where what corresponds to the English preposition is typically a class of verb, they appear (again, relatively to English) closer to figures. But they typically seem to have a status that lies somewhere intermediate between the two.