Cleft and Pseudo-Cleft Constructions in English (Theoretical Linguistics)

Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Contents......Page 5
List of tables and figures......Page 13
List of abbreviations and symbols......Page 15
Acknowledgements......Page 17
Approaches to the study of cleft and pseudo-cleft constructions......Page 18
A functional perspective......Page 20
Register......Page 23
Structure of the book......Page 25
The database......Page 27
The nature and composition of the database......Page 29
Register characteristics of the database......Page 33
Accessing the database......Page 42
Defining the class......Page 43
Wh-clefts and th-clefts......Page 46
All-clefts......Page 49
Clefts......Page 51
Identification versus attribution......Page 54
System deviance and incompleteness......Page 61
Formal properties......Page 66
Highlighted elements: form and function......Page 71
Semantic properties......Page 84
Communicative meanings......Page 92
Theme......Page 94
Halliday on theme......Page 96
Theme in pseudo-clefts and clefts......Page 98
Information......Page 102
The realization of information structure......Page 103
The meaning of given and new information......Page 108
Givenness and presupposition......Page 110
Taxonomies of information......Page 111
Givenness in clefts and pseudo-clefts......Page 115
Communicative meanings in the corpus......Page 134
Informational classification of basic pseudo-clefts......Page 138
Basic pseudo-clefts and theme-rheme structure......Page 150
Reversed pseudo-clefts......Page 156
Discourse functions of reversed pseudo-clefts......Page 162
Reversed pseudo-clefts and theme-rheme structure......Page 168
Clefts......Page 171
Clefts and information structure......Page 175
Clefts and theme-rheme structure......Page 187
Clefts, pseudo-clefts, and register variation......Page 195
Clefts and pseudo-clefts in spoken registers......Page 199
Clefts and pseudo-clefts in written registers......Page 203
Distribution of clefts and pseudo-clefts according to informational properties......Page 206
Highlighted elements and register......Page 213
Distribution of clefts and pseudo-clefts according to highlighted element......Page 216
Clefts, pseudo-clefts, and word length......Page 220
Conclusion......Page 225
Notes......Page 234
Bibliography......Page 239
Index......Page 245