The Grammatical Phenomenon of Rankshift in Systemic Grammar

Abstract

The paper tries to explore the grammatical phenomenon ofrankshift in Systemic Grammar, a functional grammar thatestablishes five units or the rank scale , : namely sentence, clausephrase, word and morpheme .Rankshift a Hallidayan term , occurswhen a given unit is downgraded or shifted down the rank scale andoperates further down its rank or a rank equal to itself as when aclause which has to operate in sentence structure operates at q “qualifier” in a nominal group.The paper , quite significantly, introduces the systemicbackground that enunciates the systemic theory whose organisingconcept system rather than structure. The paper then, grammaticallyexplores rankshifted elements, successive rankshifting, degrees ofrankshifting and types of rankshift .It ends with some concludingmanifestations that serve to highlight the importance and necessityof this downgraded process.