Clefts In English Research Articles

Correction by Focus: Cleft Constructions and the Cross-Linguistic Variation in Phonological Form.

A challenging issue of cross-linguistic variation is that the same syntactic construction may appear in different arrays of contexts depending on language. For instance, cleft constructions appear with contrastive focus in English, but in a larger array of contexts in French. A part of the cross-linguistic variation may be due to prosodic differences, since prosodic possibilities determine the array of focus structures that can be mapped onto one and the same syntactic configuration. In the present study, we compare languages with flexible nuclear-accent placement (English, German), with languages that do not use this prosodic strategy (French, Mandarin Chinese). In a speech production experiment, we examine the prosodic realization of contrastive focus and identify prosodic reflexes of focus in all languages. The presence of different phonetic reflexes of focus suggests that – anything else being equal – the same syntactic constructions should be possible in the same array of contexts. In an acceptability study with written questionnaires, we examined the felicity of cleft constructions in contexts licensing a focus within the cleft clause. This focus structure is orthogonal to the preferred focus structure of cleft constructions and can appear in cases of second-occurrence foci (in contexts of correction). The obtained judgments reveal a distinction between languages with flexible nuclear-accent placement (English, German) and languages with other types of reflexes of focus (French, Chinese): languages of the former type have an advantage in using cleft constructions with a focus within the cleft clause, which shows that the array of contexts of using clefts in English and German is not a proper subset of the array of contexts applying to the same constructions in French and Chinese. The obtained differences can be explained by the role of prosodic devices and corroborate the view that prosodic reflexes of focus have different semantic-pragmatic import: it is easier to establish a focus structure that is orthogonal to the syntax in a language with flexible nuclear-accent placement (English, German); this does not hold for prosodic correlates of focus that reinforce the articulation of prosodic constituents (French) or the articulation of lexical tones (Chinese).

Translating English Clefts and Pseudoclefts into Arabic A Parallel Corpus-Based Study

Translation practice, theorizing, as well as the long-held preoccupation with equivalence have all recently undergone cutting-edge changes by the development of corpus linguistics by the mid-nineties. Of course, corpus-based studies are not a novelty for translators; translators used to manually explore a parallel corpus (a ST and a TT) for documentation. Before the introduction of electronic data and software, translators had to extensively read through the texts in order to be able to extract any relevant information (O'Keeffe and McCarthy, 2010: 502). It was a tedious and tiring job even with relatively short stretches of texts.

The Role of the English It-Cleft and the French C’est-Cleft in Research Discourse

Despite extensive work on cleft constructions, little attention has been given to their functions in specialised discourse. Using a collection of 40 research articles from the KIAP corpus, this study aims at establishing the role of clefts in English and French research discourse. The quantitative analysis reveals a higher frequency of clefts in French. The study also shows that clefts can help authors increase semantic continuity, reinforce the structure of articles and increase discursive coherence. Clefts thus facilitate the readership’s understanding of the argumentation. From a contrastive viewpoint, the study of the different authorial roles – writer, researcher, arguer, quoter, presenter – reveals that English-speaking researchers tend to be more reader-oriented than French-speaking ones. This study thus gives new insight into the way argumentation is built in research articles and paves the way for further research on the differences between French and English research discourse.

The distribution of functional-pragmatic types of clefts in adverbial clauses

This paper presents the results of corpus research on the distribution of different functional-pragmatic types of it-clefts and c'est-clefts in English and French adverbial clauses. We distinguish between narrowly contrastive clefts, broadly contrastive clefts (or new information focus clefts) and non-contrastive clefts. We present the results of corpus research showing that, whereas the three types occur in asserted (or peripheral) adverbial clauses (typically causals), only narrowly contrastive clefts occur in non-asserted (or central) adverbial clauses (typically temporals). The distribution of the three functional-pragmatic types of clefts is explained on the basis of the interaction between information structure, epistemic modality and assertion.

Clefts and their relatives by Matthew Reeve (review)

Matthew Reeve. Clefts and their relatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2012. 236 pp. [Linguistik Aktuell, 185.] The book Clefts and their relatives by Matthew Reeve offers a new account of the syntax and semantics of clefts in English and Russian. The book tries to solve a number of puzzles in a uniform way and raises the theoretically important issue of compositionality, which according to the author should be formulated in a non-traditional way. However, the Russian data used in the book are often debatable, so that some of the arguments for the proposed analysis are not convincing. The book consists of six chapters. In the first chapter the author notes the lack of a thorough analysis of clefts in English and Russian. In the second he proposes a syntactic analysis of English clefts. The third chapter discusses the licensing of relative clauses in English clefts. The fourth offers an analysis of clefts in Russian similar to that proposed for English. In the fifth chapter the syntax of specificational sentences is discussed, and some remaining issues with the syntax of clefts are resolved. Chapter 6 concludes the book. The main focus of this review is the analysis of Russian clefts, since this topic is of particular interest to JSL readers. However, in order to present the theory that Reeve proposes for Russian clefts we must first discuss his analysis of clefts in English, at least in outline. The discussion of the Russian clefts will contain more details, critical points, and counterexamples. Examples in this review come from various sources. Some are taken from the book under review (listed as [R] and the page number). Most of the other examples come from the Russian National Corpus (RNC) (http://ruscorpora.ru/en/index.html) and from a small survey I created online to confirm my intuition on constructed examples. My respondents' judgments are reported for the relevant examples and are marked [Q]. 1. Clefts in English Clefts in English, such as (1), consist of a pronoun (it), a copula (was), a focused XP (John), and a restrictive relative clause, also known as the cleft clause (that Mary saw). The main question is what the syntactic relation is between these elements. Reeve proposes that the cleft pronoun is non-expletive, that the cleft clause is adjoined to the clefted XP, and that the cleft clause semantically modifies the initial pronoun. Reeve argues against other theories of clefts which either analyze the pronoun it as an expletive, thus unifying clefts with focus-fronting (Kiss 1998), or treat the cleft clause as extraposed from the cleft pronoun (Percus 1997). He also argues that the relative clause has to be licensed syntactically and semantically, but that in the case of clefts there are two separate licensers, each satisfying one of the conditions. (1) It was JOHN that Mary saw. [R 1] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In chapter 2 Reeve provides arguments in favor of two of his claims, namely, that the pronoun in clefts is non-expletive and that the cleft clause is adjoined to the clefted XP and not to the pronoun. Evidence for the non-expletive nature of the clause-initial pronoun is both syntactic and semantic. The first piece of syntactic evidence is that cleft it, but not expletive it (such as weather pronouns and raising it), can be replaced by a demonstrative pronoun this. Second, cleft it can control PRO, which is unexpected if it is an expletive, as in (2). (2) a. It was THE FURNITURE that annoyed John on Sunday [despite PRO being THE DECOR the day before]. b. It seemed that John was wrong [without it/*PRO seeming that Mary was right]. [R 12, 11] Third, evidence from Germanic languages suggests that there are different kinds of expletives and that languages can allow the use of pro for some expletives but not for others (Vikner 1995). However, in these languages pro is never allowed for referential pronouns. …

Syntactic predictability influences duration

Building on work by Gahl and Garnsey, 2004, this paper demonstrates that speakers “buy time” during the planning of upcoming low-probability syntactic structures by producing prosodic boundaries with longer duration before low-probability than before high-probability structures. Subject extraction cleft sentences (“It was Edward who (t) loved Lucy.”) are more common in corpora than object extraction cleft sentences (“It was Edward who Lucy loved (t).”) [Roland et al. (2007)], and are also easier to process [e.g., Gibson (1998)]. The duration of the clefted constituent (“Edward”) was measured in planned productions of subject- and object-extraction clefts in English. In order to disentangle the probability of each structure from its difficulty level, the probabilities were manipulated within the experiment through training. Participants read aloud: First, two SE and two OE clefts; second, eight SE or eight OE clefts; and finally, another two SE and two OE clefts. Before training, the clefted constituent was longer in OE clefts (mean 407 ms) than in SE clefts (370ms, t = 2.4, p = 0.02). This difference was no longer present after OE training (OE: 385 ms, SE: 397 ms), but was still present after SE training (OE: 448 ms, SE: 388 ms).

A Promotion Analysis of Wolof Clefts

Abstract. This article investigates the syntax of cleft clauses in Wolof. I argue that Wolof clefts are derived by the movement of the clefted constituent to the cleft position. Evidence for the movement anlaysis comes from several general and language‐specific reconstruction tests: island sensitivity, idiom chunk reconstruction, reconstruction for Principle A and Principle C, quantifier binding, negative polarity item reconstruction, and the properties of Wolof subjunctive clauses and clitics. I compare Wolof clefts to English clefts throughout and, following work going back to Schachter 1973, suggest that English clefts are also derived by overt movement of the clefted item. Using quantifier float, clausal pied piping and a wh‐copy construction, I argue that movement of the clefted item in Wolof is successive cyclic. Finally, I examine the relation between movement, Superiority, and (Strong and Weak) Crossover by comparing Wolof, English, and Yoruba.

The syntactic structure of English clefts

In this paper I argue that English clefts are an example of an apparent syntax/semantics mismatch, in that the cleft clause (the relative clause appearing at the end of the matrix clause) semantically modifies the initial pronoun it, but syntactically modifies (that is, is underlyingly adjoined to) the clefted XP, as proposed by Hedberg (2000). This renders suspect both ‘specificational analyses’, on which the cleft clause both semantically and syntactically modifies it, and ‘expletive analyses’, on which the cleft clause and clefted XP are both semantically and syntactically composed directly. I provide new evidence for Hedberg's type of analysis. The first set of evidence suggests that cleft it is non-expletive, thus arguing in favour of treating it and the cleft clause as a discontinuous definite description. The second set of evidence shows that, with respect to various tests, the cleft clause behaves as if the clefted XP, rather than it, is its antecedent.

The interpersonal function of clefts in English and Swedish

Seen from an interpersonal perspective, within the framework of Appraisal (Martin and White 2005), cleft constructions in English and Swedish function in the system of Engagement as a heteroglossic rhetorical device by which speakers and writers negotiate an authorial position for themselves while implicitly acknowledging the existence of alternative positions. The cleft clause opens up the utterance to heteroglossic negotiation by representing one of its clause elements as a semantic gap. The identity of the semantic gap is then identified by the clefted constituent in the superordinate clause. It-clefts and reversed wh-clefts have different clefting possibilities in English and Swedish, which means that it-clefts and reversed wh-clefts are used to negotiate different types of authorial positions.

Review of Johansson (2002): Clefts in English and Swedish. A Contrastive Study of IT-Clefts and WH-Clefts in Original Texts and Translations

Review of Johansson (2002): Clefts in English and Swedish. A Contrastive Study of IT-Clefts and WH-Clefts in Original Texts and Translations

Clefts in contrast: a contrastive study of it clefts and wh clefts in English and Swedish texts and translations

This paper presents corpus-elicited contrastive data relevant to the inter- and intralanguage study of cleft constructions. It is shown that even in closely related languages like English and Swedi ...

Focus, checking theory and fronting strategies in Romanian

Checking theory allows only formal features to have syntactic relevance. Focus has an impact on syntax although it is semantic. This paper argues that [focus] features enter the grammar in conjunction with [wh] and [tense]. Complex [wh/focus] and [tense/focus] features induce contrastive configurations and crosslinguistic variation. Romanian constructions with preverbal focus are compared with English clefts, and point to a parametric approach: languages display different strategies for overt movement to focus according to their parametric setting for [wh/focus] or [tense/focus]. The analysis of [focus] as syntactically dependent on [wh]/[tense] provides a uniform treatment for important variation in focus constructions (e.g. preposing through clitic doubling chains versus clefting) and in interrogative clauses (e.g. presence versus absence of V2 effects in embedded interrogatives).

Languages in contrast: Papers from a symposium on text-based cross-linguistic studies Ed. by Karin Aumer, Bengt Altenberg, and Mats Johansson (review)

238 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 74, NUMBER 1 (1998) students to experience a real text and to come to their own conclusions about stylistic effects without being told what to look for. That is, the book is arranged so that students learn about a grammatical structure —what it is and how to identify it—and then they are asked to analyze how it functions in a passage instead of being told about particular styles and trying to account for them. This approach, I believe, leads students to a greater awareness of the structures and devices used to create certain styles. Another strength is that the texts provided for each task can be used with any of the other tasks. Instructors can easily skip around in the book depending on the level of their students. So too can the topics be used in any order. Even though the book is designed to be progressively complex, the tasks are basically the same throughout; only the structure or device to be identified and analyzed changes. Even as well organized and practical as this coursebook is, one should be ready to supplement it in the classroom. The authors state that the book is intended for a literary-linguistic audience (xiv), but some of the definitions and solutions may need more detail. For example, the book begins with a detailed examination of the noun phrase, but students with little background in grammar could become confused by the definition of an adjective as fitting between a determiner and a noun (without determiners yet defined), and then in the next sentence, the word 'vaguely' is called an adverb even though it is between a determiner and a noun—it is modifying an adjective (6). Later, when explaining the effect of the placement of adverbial elements, the authors discuss cohesion and coherence—terms not defined until the next chapter (124). Some knowledge is assumed, as the authors state in the introduction (xiv); instructors will need to be aware of their students' level of knowledge. AU in all, this coursebook is well-organized and detailed; it provides many useful examples and tasks and allows for real, hands-on experience for students. [Lynn Burley, Purdue University.] Languages in contrast: Papers from a symposium on text-based cross-linguistic studies. Ed. by Karin Aumer, Bengt Altenberg, and Mats Johansson . (Lund studies in English 88.) Lund: Lund University Press, 1996. Pp. 200. The ten papers in this volume explore the use of computerized bilingual text corpora for cross-linguistic research. The first two approach contrastive corpus linguistics from an applied perspective. Kari Saja?aara ('New challenges for contrastive analysis ', 17-36) advocates experimental and qualitative research into the production and reception of languages while SYLviane Granger ('From CA to CIA and back: An integrated approach to computerized bilingual and learner corpora', 37-51) demonstrates how a combined parallel/translation corpus of English and French newspaper texts can improve earlier , more intuitive accounts of word formation in the two languages. Other papers are more theoretical, concerned either with translated or with 'parallel' texts in two languages, matched in terms of type and genre. In a large scale statistical comparison oforiginal Swedish novels and novels translated from English, Martin Gellerstam ('Translations as a source for cross-linguistic studies', 53-62) uncovers a range of linguistic features overused in translation. Instances of 'translationese' are also discussed by Karen M. Lauridsen ('Text corpora and contrastive linguistics : Which type of corpus for which type of analysis ?', 63-71) with particular reference to the parallel text corpora at the Aarhus School of Business in the fields of contract law and genetic engineering. Remaining papers offer accounts of work in progress on bilingual corpora in Norway and Sweden . Outlined by the editors ('Text-based contrastive studies in English. Presentation of a project', 73-85), the University of Lund project is shown to focus on three areas of research—epistemic modality, discourse linking, and grammatical focusing devices. Mats Johansson is also the author of another paper ('Contrastive data as a resource in the study of English clefts', 127-50) which examines shared semantic/pragmatic features of cleft and pseudocleft constructions, drawing on data from the EnglishSwedish Parallel Corpus (ESPC). Texts from the...