Patten Amanda L. The English It-Cleft: A Constructional Account and a Diachronic Investigation

De Gruyter Mouton, 2012. — 269 p. — (Topics in English Linguistics [TiEL] 79). — ISBN 3110277808.The English it-cleft is noted for its non-standard structure and for its unusual pragmatic and discourse-functional properties. This book presents a constructional account of the English it-cleft which is based on evidence from three main areas: (a) the concept of specificational meaning, (b) the existence of predicational (and proverbial) it-clefts, and (c) the early, historical it-cleft data. Featuring a sizeable diachronic component, the book contributes to the limited (and largely unchallenged) literature on the history of the English it-cleft.Introduction and background
An outline of the project
An overview of the literature on cleft sentences
A constructional approach to it-clefts
A diachronic approach to it-clefts
Methodology
A model of language structure and language change
Some basic assumptions
A constructional model of language structure
A constructional model of language change
The application to it-clefts and copular constructions
Specificational copular constructions
Different and competing analyses
Specification as (the inverse of) nominal predication
Accounting for the behaviour of indefinite NPs
Summarizing and extending the account
It-clefts as specificational copular sentences
The English it-cleft
A comparison with expletive accounts of it-clefts
A comparison with other extraposition accounts of it-clefts
A comparison with other constructional accounts of it-clefts
Other varieties of it-cleft
Beyond the archetypal it-cleft
Predicational (and proverbial) it-clefts
It-clefts with non-nominal foci
Informative-presupposition (IP) it-cleftsThe it-cleft and earlier periods of English
Beyond the present-day language system
The early history of the English it-cleft
A restrictively modified pronoun?
An obligatorily extraposed relative clause?
An unusual pattern of agreement?
The evidence from Old English gender agreement
The it-cleft as a relic from an earlier timeThe it-cleft‟s development over time
A diachronic investigation
The corpora, the search and the selection process
Frequency information
Changes to the clefted constituent
Changes to the cleft clauseThe it-cleft and constructional change
The two kinds of constructional change
A grammatical constructionalization account
Some alternative explanations
Why do it-clefts undergo a construction-specific development?
Conclusions