Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts: Redefining the Field of Clefts

Davidse, Kristin, Njende, Ngum and O'Grady, Gerard ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1730-9074 2023. Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts: Redefining the Field of Clefts. Palgrave Pivot.

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Abstract

This book proposes a radically new account of clefts in English. Since the 1960s, functional as well as formal linguists have generally restricted clefts to constructions with an identifying matrix (it-clefts) and have claimed that they only code information structure. Clefts are assumed to unpack a simple proposition into a focus – presupposition structure. In this book, the authors reject these theoretical-descriptive assumptions, arguing instead that clefts form a field comprising it-clefts, there-clefts and ‘have’-clefts. They show that, like any other construction, clefts compositionally code propositional semantics, onto which a great variety of prosodically coded focus patterns may be mapped. The authors fundamentally challenge the existing approach by entering the debate with an in-depth account of the neglected specificational and presentational there-clefts, offering the first systematic data-based study of their grammatical and prosodic features. While the study is restricted to English, its findings have significant cross-linguistic relevance. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Functional, Cognitive and Formal Linguistics, Corpus Linguistics, and usage-based study of grammar and prosody.

Item Type:	Book
Book Type:	Authored Book
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	In Press
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Publisher:	Palgrave Pivot
ISBN:	978-3-031-32269-3
Last Modified:	24 Jul 2023 09:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/161202

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