| In this dissertation, I provide an analysis of the French c'est-cleft. This construction consists of two clauses which are used to express a single proposition, which could otherwise be coded in one clause. The focus of this dissertation is to describe the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties of the c'est-cleft, using corpora of spoken French for data. Emphasis is placed on the relationship between the structure of the c'est-cleft and the specific discourse conditions in which it is used.The first two chapters consist of an introduction and a review of the literature on cleft constructions. The third chapter contains the pragmatics of the construction. I discuss such notions as focus, presupposition, accommodation, consciousness, and relevance with regard to the use of this construction. The goal of my research is to show why French speakers use the c'est-cleft instead of the corresponding canonical form.In Chapter Four, I present a discussion of different types of c'est-clefts. I propose that differences in prosody and pragmatic structure necessitate the postulation of two specific types. In this chapter, I also interpret the results of a short experiment I conducted to study prosodic tendencies within the construction.The fifth chapter is devoted to the syntax of the construction. A noteworthy feature of this construction is that although the internal structure of the subordinate clause is that of a restrictive relative clause, there are constraints on what exactly can be found within the clause. Furthermore, the external syntax of the relative clause is not the one found in the restrictive type. There are also specific constraints on the internal syntax of the c'est clause, which have to do with the nature of the grammatical categories that can follow the expression c'est.Finally, there is a concluding chapter which argues that the complexity of the c'est-cleft construction demonstrates the necessity of combining syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic analyses. Because of the peculiarities of the c'est-cleft, I argue that it is best analyzed as a construction in its own right. I use the Construction Grammar framework, as developed by Fillmore and Kay (1992). |
