Whilst recognizing the concern of specific lexis in profiling discourse communities, studies on academic discourse have paid increased attention to general lexis and its disciplinary specificity. This is especially true of recent approaches to phraseology in English for Academic Purposes (EAP), covering both statistically important clusters and grammar patterns and semantic sequences. This article examines the notion of semantic sequences via a case study of sequences covering relative what. Based on a corpus of academic journal articles in the field of history (2.5 million words), the inquiry points out co-occurrence of what with a range of signals addressing a shift in time perspectives or attribution, and indicates the “re-defining” function of what, introducing a re-formulation of what has just been said or presenting an interpretation on the basis of the cotext. A tentative classification of the sequences is supplied, building on former research on a local grammar of evaluation. The sequences are displayed to point out the argumentative voice of historians interacting with their sources and their discourse community, by displaying awareness of varying interpretations of people and events in history.