Latin cleft constructions, synchronically, diachronically, and typologically reconsidered

Abstract

In Latin, cleft constructions are a special syntactic focalisation strategy. The phenomenon is not very frequent. A morphosyntactic analysis of the focus clause, the cleft clause, and the whole construction according to several parameters shows a strong tendency towards a uniform structure, though in no parameter is there total agreement. Diachronically, the number of cleft constructions decreases, pronominal cleft phrases are predominant and also adjectives can be focalised increasingly. In a second, typological, part several different parameters of cross-linguistic variation are discussed. Latin has a strong tendency of dropping the cleft pronoun and of showing a fixed order of the cleft phrase and cleft clause. It has one further focalisation strategy, viz. marked word order. The abundant use of pronominal cleft phrases seems typical of this particular language.