Information Structure of Clefts in Spoken English
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Date
2009-09
Authors
Piotrowski, Jennifer A.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Towards a more complete description of cleft constructions, this thesis comprises
an investigation of the prosody, syntax, and information structure of IT clefts, REVERSE
WH clefts, and existential THERE clefts in Spoken English. Cleft constructions were
extracted from the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English on the basis of
syntactic characteristics, and empirical methods were developed for evaluating clefts with
respect to prosody and information structure factors. Native speaker-hearer judgments
about cleft constructions in authentic spoken language were gathered to provide a basis
for operational definitions of PROSODIC PROMINENCE, GIVENNESS, NEWNESS,
CONTRASTIVENESS, and levels of contextual RELEVANCE. While cleft constructions have
conventionally been discussed as contrastive focusing devices, the current study provides
empirical evidence for a more complex view of clefts. Added to past corpus studies, this thesis shows that English cleft constructions exhibit a broader range of subtypes and functions than captured by traditional accounts.
Description
xiii, 92 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.
Keywords
Cleft construction, English language -- Spoken English