Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts: Redefining the Field of Clefts by Kristin Davidse , Ngum Meyuhnsi Njende , Gerard O'Grady
English | PDF EPUB (True) | 2023 | 192 Pages | ISBN : 303132269X | 5.7 MB
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.
