The Focus Role of Cleft Constituent in It-Cleft Sentence

Khorma&#039;i, Alireza; Shahbaz, Afsaneh

The Focus Role of Cleft Constituent in It-Cleft Sentence

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Authors

Abstract

‍An it-cleft sentence is a construction expressing a single proposition in two clauses instead of one: a main clause containing a cleft constituent and a relative clause. Numerous works have been written on the subject within the framework of information structure. One issue under discussion relates to the information status of the cleft constituent. It has repeatedly been discussed if the cleft constituent is always the focus and hence containing new information or it can also involve old information. This paper, based on four reasons which are also supported by Persian data, tries to prove that the cleft constituent is always the focus, whether it has previously been evoked in the discourse model or not.

Keywords

it-cleft sentence. bi-clausal structure. cleft constituent. open proposition. focus

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