THE PRESUPPOSED FOCUS – SOME REMARKS ON THE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH IT-CLEFTS
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Date
2023
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Publisher
Plovdiv University Press "Paisii Hilendarski"
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to report on some new findings related to the basic English cleft constructions. The analysis is based on Lambrecht’s extensive works on clefts (1994; 2001) and presents a new reading into the focus and assertion areas of the cleft constructions by introducing a new category: the presupposed focus. The purpose of adding this new category is to unpack the grammatical need and/or motivation for the choice of this grammatical structure. The context and the surrounding non-linguistic prompts play a vital role; hence, the presupposed focus aims to communicate any agreements and/or disagreements the speaker tries to convey based on the addressee’s knowledge database.
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Keywords
information packaging, information structure, clefts, topic, focus