Regularities In The Formation Of English Clefts: A Cognitive Perspective

As a series of idiosyncratic constructions for focussing, clefts have been approached by many scholars from alternate perspectives. In general, previous studies of clefts could be largely divided into:synchronic approach vs. diachronic approach. Synchronic studies focus on the structural and functional characteristics. From a structured perspective, the scholars focus on the syntactic structural analysis of clefts and their origins, the most influential proposals of which are Jespersen's'transposition analysis'and'intercalation analysis'. Yet the functional perspective mainly concentrates on elucidating clefts from their thematic structure and informational structure, and the most important studies are Halliday (1985/1994)'s argumentations and Huang (2003)'s research. In contrast, the number of scholars corresponding to the recent diachronic studies of clefts is relatively few and most of their work consistently concentrates on exploring the origins of clefts as included in Ball(1994a,1994b), Patten(2007) and Traugott(2008). Of all the past studies, it is widely acknowledged that clefts are derived from their corresponding non-clefting counterparts. However, this analysis has some potential problems. For example, there is no consensus on how clefts are transformed from other forms.This study, along with some latest diachronic findings, challenges the prevailing "declefting view", which suggests that clefts are transformed from their non-cleft counterparts. In this thesis, two major proposals are suggested to account for the formation of clefts. On the one hand, the original it-cleft, known as'NP foci it-cleft', is integrated by two simple clauses in forms of a question-answer pair. For clausal integration of the original NP foci it-cleft, the superordinate clause is realized by phonetically and semantically inheriting characteristics of the'answer'in the question-answer pair while the subordinate clause inherits characteristics of the'question'in the question-answer pair. On the other hand, we suggest that the original NP foci it-clefts are responsible for generating'non NP foci it-clefts'and'pseudoclefts'. In other words, there is a tendency that emergence of'non NP foci it-clefts'and'pseudoclefts'is largely analogous to the original NP foci it-clefts. There might be two possible extensions:for one thing, the extension from'NP foci it-clefts'to'non NP foci it-clefts'is mainly based on'explicit type-shifting'; for another, the extension from'NP foci it-clefts'to'pseudoclefts'involves two major mechanisms, namely, reanalysis vs. analogy. In addition, this study further explores cognitive characteristics of clefts, including the cognitive basis of clefts, functions of subject'it', identifying features of'copula be', disagreement in it-clefts, internal relations in pseudoclefts, etc. In light of these questions, we suggest at first that, as a syntactic focusing device, the cognitive basis of clefts is conceptual prominence by placing a participant with independent semantic status on a'fixed'position. Then the subject "it" in it-clefts is functionally similar to'all, what or th-noun'in pseudoclefts which has a cataphoric referring meaning and the construal of highlighted part in it-clefts as an integrated whole for focusing, wherein'copula be', playing a role for identifying, could possibly account for the disagreement phenomenon in the superordinate clausal part of it-clefts. Finally, the relation between the subjects "all, what, th-noun" and highlighted elements in pseudoclefts embodies a conceptual reference-point relationship.In sum, this thesis challenges the popular "declefting" analysis of clefts and it provides a brand-new approach for us to investigate clefts. Thus it will add our understanding to clefts which might thus be beneficial to further studies.