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The English it-Cleft : a Constructional Account and a Diachronic Investigation.
The English it-cleft is noted for its non-standard structure and for its unusual pragmatic and discourse-functional properties. This book presents a constructional account of the English it-cleft which is based on evidence from three main areas: (a) the concept of specificational meaning, (b) the ex...
| Clasificación: | Libro Electrónico |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Electrónico eBook |
| Idioma: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
Berlin :
De Gruyter,
2012.
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| Colección: | Topics in English Linguistics TiEL.
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| Temas: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Texto completo |
Tabla de Contenidos:
- Acknowledgements; Contents; Chapter 1 Introduction and background; 1. An outline of the project; 2. An overview of the literature on cleft sentences; 2.1. The expletive approach; 2.2. The extraposition approach; 3. A constructional approach to it-clefts; 4. A diachronic approach to it-clefts; 5. Methodology; Chapter 2 A model of language structure and language change; 1. Some basic assumptions; 2. A constructional model of language structure; 3. A constructional model of language change; 4. The application to it-clefts and copular constructions; Chapter 3 Specificational copular constructions.
- 1. Different and competing analyses1.1. The equative approach; 1.2. The inverse approach; 1.3. A less formal approach; 2. Specification as (the inverse of) nominal predication; 2.1. Specification and definite NP predicates; 2.2. Specification and inversion; 2.3. Capturing this account in cognitive and constructional frameworks; 3. Accounting for the behaviour of indefinite NPs; 3.1. Specification and indefinite NP predicates; 3.2. An account based on discourse requirements; 3.3. An account based on definiteness; 4. Summarizing and extending the account.
- 4.1. An overview of specificational NP be NP sentences4.2. Positioning this account in relation to the literature; 4.3. Other specificational copular constructions; 4.3.1. Th-clefts as specificational copular sentences; 4.3.2. Wh-clefts as specificational copular sentences; 4.3.3. All-clefts as specificational copular sentences; 4.3.4. A family of specificational copular sentences; Chapter 4 It-clefts as specificational copular sentences; 1. The English it-cleft; 1.1. A "discontinuous constituent" account of it-clefts; 1.2. Explaining the it-cleft's pragmatic properties; 1.2.1. Focus.
- 1.2.2. Presupposition1.2.3. Exhaustiveness; 1.2.4. Contrast; 1.3. Explaining the it-cleft's structural properties; 1.3.1. The behaviour of the cleft clause; 1.3.2. The evidence for VP constituency; 1.3.3. The evidence from agreement; 1.4. Interim summary; 2. A comparison with expletive accounts of it-clefts; 3. A comparison with other extraposition accounts of it-clefts; 3.1. The early extraposition accounts of the 1970s; 3.2. The more recent discontinuous constituent accounts; 3.3. A different extraposition account?; 4. A comparison with other constructional accounts of it-clefts.
- Chapter 5 Other varieties of it-cleft1. Beyond the archetypal it-cleft; 2. Predicational (and proverbial) it-clefts; 2.1. An expletive approach to predicational it-clefts; 2.2. Predicational it-clefts and the inverse approach; 2.3. Predicational it-clefts and the equative approach; 3. It-clefts with non-nominal foci; 4. Informative-presupposition (IP) it-clefts; 5. Summary; Chapter 6 The it-cleft and earlier periods of English; 1. Beyond the present-day language system; 2. The early history of the English it-cleft; 3. A restrictively modified pronoun?