PSEUDOCLEFT AND CLEFT CONSTRUCTIONS - A THEMATIC AND INFORMATIONAL INTERPRETATION

This paper uses corpus-derived data to support the position that thematic and informational considerations are central to an understanding of pseudocleft and cleft constructions in English. Each construction is claimed to display a distinctive mapping of logicosemantic, thematic, and informational functions, from which it derives a unique communicative value. ‘Basic’ pseudoclefts attach special status to backgrounded information, consequently requiring description in terms of a rich taxonomy of types of givenness. ‘Reversed’ pseudoclefts, whose theme is typically a text-referen-tial demonstrative, serve an ‘internal-referencing’ function in discourse. Clefts are oriented more toward newness: in both unmarked clefts and one type of marked cleft, new information (be it fresh or contrastive) is highlighted via thematic predication. In a second type of marked cleft the main locus of news occurs in the relative clause, and the thematic constituent, though nonrecoverable, is secondary in communicative significance. © Walter de Gruyter