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The English it-Cleft A Constructional Account and a Diachronic Investigation

:	Amanda Patten
:	The English it-Cleft A Constructional Account and a Diachronic Investigation
:	De Gruyter Mouton
:	9783110279528
:	Topics in English Linguistics [TiEL]ISSN
:	1
:	CHF 124.00
:

:	Englische Sprachwissenschaft / Literaturwissenschaft
:	English

:	274
:	Wasserzeichen
:	PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
:	PDF

< >The Englishit-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 Englishit-cleft which is based on evidence from three main areas: (a) the concept of specificational meaning, (b) the existence of predicational (and proverbial)it-clefts and (c) the early, historicalit-cleft data. Featuring a sizeable diachronic component, the book contributes to the limited (and largely unchallenged) literature on the history of the Englishit-cleft.

/body>

< >Amanda Patten, Northumbria University, UK.

	Acknowledgements	5
	Contents	7
	Chapter 1 Introduction and background	11
	1. An outline of the project	11
	2. An overview of the literature on cleft sentences	15
	2.1. The expletive approach	15
	2.2. The extraposition approach	17
	3. A constructional approach to it-clefts	19
	4. A diachronic approach to it-clefts	22
	5. Methodology	24
	Chapter 2 A model of language structure and language change	26
	1. Some basic assumptions	26
	2. A constructional model of language structure	27
	3. A constructional model of language change	31
	4. The application to it-clefts and copular constructions	35
	Chapter 3 Specificational copular constructions	37
	1. Different and competing analyses	37
	1.1. The equative approach	38
	1.2. The inverse approach	40
	1.3. A less formal approach	42
	2. Specification as (the inverse of) nominal predication	44
	2.1. Specification and definite NP predicates	44
	2.2. Specification and inversion	48
	2.3. Capturing this account in cognitive and constructional frameworks	52
	3. Accounting for the behaviour of indefinite NPs	57
	3.1. Specification and indefinite NP predicates	58
	3.2. An account based on discourse requirements	59
	3.3. An account based on definiteness	61
	4. Summarizing and extending the account	66
	4.1. An overview of specificational NP be NP sentences	66
	4.2. Positioning this account in relation to the literature	68
	4.3. Other specificational copular constructions	72
	4.3.1. Th-clefts as specificational copular sentences	73
	4.3.2. Wh-clefts as specificational copular sentences	74
	4.3.3. All-clefts as specificational copular sentences	78
	4.3.4. A family of specificational copular sentences	79
	Chapter 4 It-clefts as specificational copular sentences	81
	1. The English it-cleft	81
	1.1. A “discontinuous constituent“ account of it-clefts	82
	1.2. Explaining the it-cleft’s pragmatic properties	88
	1.2.1. Focus	89
	1.2.2. Presupposition	90
	1.2.3. Exhaustiveness	92
	1.2.4. Contrast	95
	1.3. Explaining the it-cleft’s structural properties	97
	1.3.1. The behaviour of the cleft clause	98
	1.3.2. The evidence for VP constituency	103
	1.3.3. The evidence from agreement	106
	1.4. Interim summary	111
	2. A comparison with expletive accounts of it-clefts	112
	3. A comparison with other extraposition accounts of it-clefts	117
	3.1. The early extraposition accounts of the 1970s	117
	3.2. The more recent discontinuous constituent accounts	120
	3.3. A different extraposition account?	124
	4. A comparison with other constructional accounts of it-clefts	125
	Chapter 5 Other varieties of it-cleft	130
	1. Beyond the archetypal it-cleft	130
	2. Predicational (and proverbial) it-clefts	132
	2.1. An expletive approach to predicational it-clefts	133
	2.2. Predicational it-clefts and the inverse approach	137
	2.3. Predicational it-clefts and the equative approach	141
	3. It-clefts with non-nominal foci	144
	4. Informative-presupposition (IP) it-clefts	150
	5. Summary	156
	Chapter 6 The it-cleft and earlier periods of English	158
	1. Beyond the present-day language system	158
	2. The early history of the English it-cleft	159
	3. A restrictively modified pronoun?	162
	4. An obligatorily extraposed relative clause?	167
	5. An unusual pattern of agreement?	172
	6. The evidence from Old English gender agreement	180
	7. The it-cleft as a relic from an earlier time	187
	8. Summary	193
	Chapter 7 The it-cleft’s development over time	194
	1. A diachronic investigation	194
	2. The corpora, the search and the selection process	194
	2.1. OE presentational/impersonal sentences	196
	2.2. Existential sentences with it	200
	2.3. The pattern I it am	201
	2.4. Other constructions mistaken for clefts	202
	2.5. Interim summary	203
	3. Frequency information	204
	4. Changes to the clefted constituent	206
	5. Changes to the cleft clause	214
	6. Summary	221
	Chapter 8 The it-cleft and constructional change	222
	1. The two kinds of constructional change	222
	2. A grammatical constructionalization account	223
	3. Some alternative explanations	228
	3.1. An impersonal account	229
	3.2. A Celtic account	231
	3.3. A word order account	232
	3.4. Interim summary	234
	4. Why do it-clefts undergo a construction-specific development?	235
	4.1. Why do it-clefts develop a construction-specific range of foci?	235
	4.2. Why do it-clefts develop construction-specific discourse functions?	242
	4.3. Summary	251
	Chapter 9 Conclusions	253
	Corpora and data sources	258
	References	259
	Index	276