First published in 1991, this book examines the communicative properties of ‘cleft’ and ‘pseudo-cleft’ constructions in contemporary English. The book argues that these properties cannot be ignored in any attempt to provide an adequate grammatical description of the constructions. Furthermore, they provide a source of explanations for the patterns of stylistic variation displayed by clefts and pseudo-clefts. The book reports findings from a corpus-based study of clefts and pseudo-clefts in modern British English.
List of tables and figures; List of abbreviations and symbols;
Acknowledgements;
1. Approaches to the study of cleft and pseudo-cleft
constructions
2. The database
3. Defining the class
4. Formal properties
5.
Communicative meanings
6. Communicative meanings in the corpus
7. Clefts,
pseudo-clefts and register variation
8. Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index
Collins, Peter
