Search results for " pseudo-cleft"
showing 2 items of 2 documents
Two Types of pseudo-clefts?
2010
Sentences such as 'What Fred does is complain' and 'What Fred does is important' have both been labeled as pseudo-clefts, though of two distinct types. We provide four tests to structurally distinguish such constructions. Entailment patterns and a number of structural ties between the post-copular constituent and specific constituents of the pre-copular relative clause suggest using the label ‘pseudo-cleft’ for the former type only. This paper also examines certain cases of pseudo-clefts with no simple correlates, and vice versa, to argue – contra Higgins 1973 – that these do not necessarily contradict the existence of a structural connection (a transformation, in the sense of Z. S. Harris)…
'Do'-support in a Sicilian variety, an Italian pseudo-cleft, and the packaging of information
2009
A parallel is drawn between a Sicilian structure with do-support strategy, and a type of pseudo-cleft in Italian in which a do-verb occurs. These structures are examined from three different perspectives. First, morpho-syntax: the two clause-types share a number of formal aspects, which include the do-verb, a lexical verb in the infinitive, and the sharing of the same subject by both verbs. The second has to do with their packaging of information: in both cases, higher communicative prominence is given to an event (VP) rather than a participant (NP or PP). The expression of the event is broken down into two separable components, its existence (an event is expressed without being specified, …