Information Structure of Clefts in Spoken English

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dc.contributor.authorPiotrowski, Jennifer A.
dc.date.accessioned2009-12-23T01:33:42Z
dc.date.available2009-12-23T01:33:42Z
dc.date.issued2009-09
dc.descriptionxiii, 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.en_US
dc.description.abstractTowards 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.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipCommittee in Charge: Dr. Doris L. Payne; Dr. Melissa A. Redforden_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1794/10024
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Oregonen_US
dc.relation.ispartofseriesUniversity of Oregon theses, Dept. of Linguistics, M.A., 2009;
dc.subjectCleft construction
dc.subjectEnglish language -- Spoken English
dc.titleInformation Structure of Clefts in Spoken Englishen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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