Overview
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.
Full Product Details
Author: Katharina Hartmann (Universität Wien) ,
Tonjes Veenstra (ZAS Berlin)
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Co
Imprint: John Benjamins Publishing Co
Volume: 208
Weight: 0.780kg
ISBN: 9789027255914
ISBN 10: 9027255911
Pages: 348
Publication Date: 28 November 2013
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
Cleft constructions are ubiquitous in languages, and their analysis is relevant to just about every aspect of theoretical linguistic investigation from prosody to pragmatics. This book discusses an impressive array of cleft constructions in different languages and language families: Autronesian (Seediq, Niuean, Tagalog, Malagasy, Fijian), Bantu (Zulu), Dravidian (Malayalam), Indo-European (Italian, French, English, Dutch), Japonic/Altaic (Japanese), Niger-Congo (Wolof), and Sino-Tibetan (Burmese, Mandarin). Hartmann and Veenstra's comprehensive and enlightening introduction is lucid and thorough, emphasizing all the myriad respects in which cleft constructions are challenging for theoretical analysis, including typological variation in structure, prosody, interpretation and use. Almost all the chapters in the book undertake comparative analysis and together, all the chapters introduce a wealth of new data for consideration. I recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in linguistic interfaces and analysis. -- Dr. Rochemont, University of British Colombia, Canada
