Procesos, participantes y circunstancias: una aproximación sistémico-funcional a la estructura experiencial de la cláusula española.

This article describes, from the viewpoint of Systemic-Functional Linguistics (henceforth, SFL), the specific ways in which the structure of the Spanish clause is organized for the realization of basic experiential functions, including Participant, Process and Circumstance. Thus far, SFL-descriptive work on Spanish has given little attention to the ways in which units and classes of units are organized along the rank scale of this language and how this organization contributes to the structural configuration of types of process. Based on the principles derived from the SFL theoretical dimensions of axis and rank, this article accounts for Spanishspecific resources at stake, first, in the realization of nuclear clause functions such as Process and Participant, and then in the realization of peripheral circumstantial elements. The paper finally addresses the key implications of the approach adopted to the account of the Spanish clause as well as to the general criteria involved in the identification of basic functions in its experiential structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]