Clefts and Their Relatives

Clefts and Their Relatives PDF

Author: Matthew Reeve

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 9027255687

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Cleft constructions have long presented an analytical challenge for syntactic theory. This monograph argues that clefts and related constructions cannot be analysed in a straightforwardly compositional manner. Instead, it proposes that the locality conditions on modification (for example by a restrictive relative clause) must be reformulated such that they account for the apparent compositionality of DP-internal modification whilst also permitting 'discontinuous' modification of the type which is independently needed for constructions such as relative clause extraposition. The empirical focus of the book is on clefts in English and Russian, which have a similar interpretation but considerably divergent syntactic structures. The author argues that, despite these syntactic differences, both types of cleft are mapped to their semantic interpretations in the same manner. This monograph will be essential reading for those working on cleft constructions and copular sentences more generally, and will be of interest to those working on the syntax-semantics interface.

Clefts and their Relatives

Clefts and their Relatives PDF

Author: Matthew Reeve

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2012-06-06

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 9027274606

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Cleft constructions have long presented an analytical challenge for syntactic theory. This monograph argues that clefts and related constructions cannot be analysed in a straightforwardly compositional manner. Instead, it proposes that the locality conditions on modification (for example by a restrictive relative clause) must be reformulated such that they account for the apparent compositionality of DP-internal modification whilst also permitting ‘discontinuous’ modification of the type which is independently needed for constructions such as relative clause extraposition. The empirical focus of the book is on clefts in English and Russian, which have a similar interpretation but considerably divergent syntactic structures. The author argues that, despite these syntactic differences, both types of cleft are mapped to their semantic interpretations in the same manner. This monograph will be essential reading for those working on cleft constructions and copular sentences more generally, and will be of interest to those working on the syntax-semantics interface.

Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts

Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts PDF

Author: Kristin Davidse

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-07-31

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 3031322703

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

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.

Cleft Structures

Cleft Structures PDF

Author: Katharina Hartmann

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2013-11-15

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 9027271127

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The phenomenon of clefts is beyond doubt a golden oldie. It has captivated linguists of different disciplines for decades. The fascination arises from the unique syntax of clefts in interaction with their pragmatic and semantic interpretation. Clefts structure sentences according to the information state of the constituents contained in them. They are special as they exhibit a rather uncommon syntactic form to achieve the separation of the prominent part, either focal or topical, from the background of the clause. Despite the long-lasting interest in clefts, linguists have not yet come to an agreement on many basic questions. The articles contained in this volume address these issues from new theoretical and empirical perspectives. Based on data from about 50 languages from all over the world, this volume presents new arguments for the proper derivation of clefts, and contributes to the ongoing debate on the information-structural impact of cleft structures. Theoretically, it combines modern syntactic theorizing with investigations at the interface between grammar and information-structure.

Cleft Lip and Palate

Cleft Lip and Palate PDF

Author: Diego F. Wyszynski

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2002-08-01

Total Pages: 547

ISBN-13: 0199771642

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Majoradvances in the diagnosis and treatment of oral clefts have been made in the past 50 years, and recent genetics and epidemiological studies have led to new theories about the causes of cleft lip and palate. Addressing issues that are relevant to clinicians, researchers and family members, this book is a comprehensive, well-illustrated, and up-to-date account of the many facets of this common disorder. The authors describe the embryological and molecular mechanisms of cleft causation, present and illustrate the genetic and epidemiological methods used to identify risk factors for oral clefts, and describe treatments by the various professionals of the cleft team. A section is also devoted to the integration of research findings into public health practice, including ethical and financial considerations. The book draws together such diverse disciplines as craniofacial development, gene mapping, epidemiology, medicine, ethics, health economics, and health policy and management, and it will be an invaluable reference work.

Cleft and Pseudo-Cleft Constructions in English

Cleft and Pseudo-Cleft Constructions in English PDF

Author: Peter C. Collins

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-07-03

Total Pages: 429

ISBN-13: 1317421361

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

First published in 1991, this book examines the communicative properties of ‘cleft’ and ‘pseudo-cleft’ constructions in contemporary English. The book argues that these properties cannot be ignored in any attempt to provide an adequate grammatical description of the constructions. Furthermore, they provide a source of explanations for the patterns of stylistic variation displayed by clefts and pseudo-clefts. The book reports findings from a corpus-based study of clefts and pseudo-clefts in modern British English.

On Relativization and Clefting

On Relativization and Clefting PDF

Author: Chiara Branchini

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2014-12-12

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1501500007

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This work is a contribution to our understanding of relativization strategies and clefting in Italian Sign Language, and more broadly, to our understanding of these constructions in world languages by setting the discussion on the theories that have been proposed in the literature of spoken languages to derive the syntactic phenomena object of investigation.

Comparison Between It-clefts and WH-Clefts: Similarities and Differences

Comparison Between It-clefts and WH-Clefts: Similarities and Differences PDF

Author: Gabriela Bara

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2010-03

Total Pages: 41

ISBN-13: 3640554256

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,7, Technical University of Braunschweig (Englisches Seminar), course: Introduction to Information Structure, language: English, abstract: From language to language, there are different alternatives in which a speaker can structure information. Information structure deals with the highlighting of pieces of information in sentences. Even though there are a variety of ways in which the same basic informational content can be conveyed, the preference for a particular way reveals how the speaker's semantic representation is transposed into syntactical data. Moreover, the speaker's choice for structuring information into a particular linguistic form shows the coherent way in which utterances are connected in sequences, revealing thus the importance of discourse. There are several syntactic devices that are able to encode the pragmatic information of a preferred alternative. One type of such devices used to mark information structure is cleft constructions. There are two major types of clefts: it-clefts and WH-clefts, also called pseudo-clefts. There has been claimed in the literature for a long time that cleft constructions are interchangeable. Clefts present a series of syntactic similarities, but they behave differently in discourse. The purpose of this paper is to prove that it-clefts and WH-clefts are not interchangeable. In doing so, data will be analyzed by comparing clefts as far as form, structure, and discourse functions are concerned, and eventually, in the light of given and known information, I will show the essential differences between them. Although the grammatical forms are in direct relation and determine to some degree the information structure in a cleft, apart from the syntactical level, of significant importance is the analysis of cleft constructions as integrated components of a discourse. One should take into account the natural flow of la

Lanterna Rally - Theme by Grace Themes