15. Cleft constructions

Cesare, Anna-Maria De

doi:10.1515/9783110377088-015

Cited by 14 publications

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“…However, some Romance varieties such as French and some northern Italian dialects also have a strong preference for PoF in contrastive contexts (Paoli 2003, Cruschina 2012a). 8 It is generally assumed that clefts do not simply encode a plain information focus, but convey an exhaustive or contrastive interpretation (see Lambrecht 2001, De Cesare 2017cf. Chapter 103).…”

Section: Postverbal Focalization (Pof)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Focus and Focus Structures in the Romance Languages

Cruschina¹

2022

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics

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Focus is key to understanding processes of syntactic and prosodic readjustments in the Romance languages. Since, prosodically, it must be the most prominent constituent in the sentence, focus associates with the nuclear pitch accent, which may be shifted from its default rightmost position when the syntactic position of the focus also changes. The application of specific syntactic operations depends both on the size and on the subtype of focus, although not always unambiguously. Subject inversion characterizes focus structures where the domain of focus covers either the whole sentence (broad-focus) or a single constituent (narrow-focus). Presentational constructions distinctively mark broad focus, avoiding potential ambiguity with an SVO structure where the predicate is the focus and the subject is interpreted as topic. In narrow-focus structures, the focus constituent typically occurs sentence-final (postverbal focalization), but it may also be fronted (focus fronting), depending on the specific interpretation associated with the focus. Semantically, focus indicates the presence of alternatives, and the different interpretations arise from the way the set of alternatives is pragmatically exploited, giving rise to a contextually open set (information focus), to contrast or correction (contrastive or corrective focus), or to surprise or unexpectedness (mirative focus). Whether a subtype of focus may undergo fronting in a Romance language is subject to variation. In most varieties it is indeed possible with contrastive or corrective focus, but it has been shown that focus fronting is also acceptable with noncontrastive focus in several languages, especially with mirative focus. Finally, certain focus-sensitive operators or particles directly interact with the narrow-focus constituent of the sentence and their association with focus has semantic effects on the interpretation of the sentence.

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Section: Postverbal Focalization (Pof)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Focus and Focus Structures in the Romance Languages

Cruschina¹

2022

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics

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Constructions clivées en Français L1 et L2 (Italien L1). Premiers résultats d’une étude expérimentale

Paolis

Andorno

2022

SHS Web Conf.

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Cette étude analyse la fréquence et les contextes syntaxiques et pragmatiques d’usage des structures clivées (c’est-cleft) en français L1 et L2, à travers un corpus de données de parole élicitée. Le corpus contient 210 énoncés, produits par 21 locuteurs divisés en trois groupes : français natifs, italophones natifs, italophones apprenants de français L2. Les données ont été analysées afin d’observer le contexte informationnel (focalisation étroite identificative vs corrective) et syntaxique (sujet vs objet) d’usage des clivées dans les deux langues natives, italien et français, et successivement en français L2. Les premiers résultats montrent, en accord avec la littérature, une fréquence plus haute des structures clivées en français natifs par rapport à l’italien. En outre, on remarque des différences dans les contextes d’usage de ces structures : les francophones les utilisent pour marquer une fonction identificative ou corrective, alors que les italophones les utilisent principalement en fonction corrective, donc pour des contrastes plus marqués. La nature syntaxe du composant semble aussi jouer un rôle pour les italophones, qui utilisent les clivées exclusivement pour focaliser le sujet. Le groupe d’apprenants présente des tendances qui se rapprochent de celles de la langue cible, tout en gardant une sensibilité aux paramètres d’usage de leur L1 : plusieurs interprétations sont possibles, à vérifier par une analyse prosodique systématique et des études de perception et de jugement grammatical.

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Non-prototypical clefts

Karssenberg

Lahousse

Lamiroy

et al. 2018

BJL

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In this article we present an overview of current debates in the analysis of cleft sentences. The types of sentences that are often seen as prototypical examples of the cleft category are introduced by it is or a cross-linguistic equivalent; in addition, they have specificational semantics and a focus-background information structure articulation. We argue here that other, less prototypical types of constructions, which have received less attention, also belong to the cleft category: sentences that are introduced by expressions such as there is and you’ve got (and their cross-linguistic equivalents), as well as sentences introduced by it is which do not have specificational semantics and which express other types of information structure articulations (e.g. all-focus or topic-comment). We argue that it is fruitful to analyse these ‘non-prototypical’ clefts in more depth, not only to come to a better understanding about these sentence types in their own right, but also to arrive at insights in the phenomenon of ‘clefts’ in general.

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15. Cleft constructions

Cited by 14 publications

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Focus and Focus Structures in the Romance Languages

Focus and Focus Structures in the Romance Languages

Constructions clivées en Français L1 et L2 (Italien L1). Premiers résultats d’une étude expérimentale

Non-prototypical clefts

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