Cleft and Pseudo-Cleft Constructions in English

Abstract

This book is a corpus-based investigation of cleft and pseudo-cleft constructions in contemporary English. It is the first study of such constructions to fully explore the view, now widespread among linguists, that any attempt to satisfactorily explain their structural and functional characteristics must refer to concepts directly related to their use in communication. Its findings reveal that it is necessary to invoke such discourse-relevant notions as information, topic and theme. By using a standard written corpus and a standard spoken corpus of British English, Peter Collins is able to analyse systematically the discourse-functions of clefts and pseudo-clefts, provide information on the frequency of these constructions in different genres, and prevent the tidying-up' found in examples devised by the linguist. It is an excellent study of the interrelations of grammar, pragmatics and discourse, and a persuasive illustration of the importance of corpus-based approaches to linguistic description.