Everything-cleft constructions in spoken British English : A neglected construction
Seitanidi, Eleni LU
; Pöldvere, Nele
LU
and Paradis, Carita
LU
(2025)
In Functions of Language
- Abstract
- Within the framework of Construction Grammar, this study examines constructions with a cleft form containing everything, e.g., that’s everything that’s happened, in spoken British English, using the London-Lund Corpora and the British National Corpora. We trace the development of everything-clefts in recent history and make comparisons with all-clefts since both all and everything express totality. Our aim is to determine the form-meaning properties of everything-clefts, to examine whether everything-clefts too express the smallness and exhaustiveness readings associated with all-clefts, and whether everything-clefts are also dialogically contractive. The frequency per million words of everything-clefts, however, is 3.3, which is lower... (More)
- Within the framework of Construction Grammar, this study examines constructions with a cleft form containing everything, e.g., that’s everything that’s happened, in spoken British English, using the London-Lund Corpora and the British National Corpora. We trace the development of everything-clefts in recent history and make comparisons with all-clefts since both all and everything express totality. Our aim is to determine the form-meaning properties of everything-clefts, to examine whether everything-clefts too express the smallness and exhaustiveness readings associated with all-clefts, and whether everything-clefts are also dialogically contractive. The frequency per million words of everything-clefts, however, is 3.3, which is lower than for all-clefts. Also, based on the distinction between regular predicational, reverse predicational and reverse specificational everything-clefts, we find that most everything-clefts are predicational and express quality and that only a small number of reverse specificational everything-clefts express exhaustiveness and are dialogically contractive. Moreover, an even smaller number of everything-clefts also express smallness. We argue that exhaustiveness in everything-clefts stems from a metonymic link to the boundary involved in the totality meaning of everything in analogy with reverse all-clefts. The reverse exhaustive specificational everything-clefts are similar to all-clefts and clearly deserve a place in the constructional network of English specificational cleft constructions. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/7dbc4004-609e-4465-8a16-dd8ad60aa0c5
- author
- Seitanidi, Eleni
LU
; Pöldvere, Nele
LU
and Paradis, Carita
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025-01-28
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- everything-clefts, exhaustiveness, smallness, specification, Construction Grammar, dialogic contraction
- in
- Functions of Language
- pages
- 38 pages
- publisher
- John Benjamins Publishing Company
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85216975624
- ISSN
- 1569-9765
- DOI
- 10.1075/fol.23014.sei
- project
- Aspects of Spoken Dialogue
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 7dbc4004-609e-4465-8a16-dd8ad60aa0c5
- date added to LUP
- 2025-02-04 18:12:50
- date last changed
- 2025-04-04 14:04:24
@article{7dbc4004-609e-4465-8a16-dd8ad60aa0c5,
abstract = {{Within the framework of Construction Grammar, this study examines constructions with a cleft form containing everything, e.g., that’s everything that’s happened, in spoken British English, using the London-Lund Corpora and the British National Corpora. We trace the development of everything-clefts in recent history and make comparisons with all-clefts since both all and everything express totality. Our aim is to determine the form-meaning properties of everything-clefts, to examine whether everything-clefts too express the smallness and exhaustiveness readings associated with all-clefts, and whether everything-clefts are also dialogically contractive. The frequency per million words of everything-clefts, however, is 3.3, which is lower than for all-clefts. Also, based on the distinction between regular predicational, reverse predicational and reverse specificational everything-clefts, we find that most everything-clefts are predicational and express quality and that only a small number of reverse specificational everything-clefts express exhaustiveness and are dialogically contractive. Moreover, an even smaller number of everything-clefts also express smallness. We argue that exhaustiveness in everything-clefts stems from a metonymic link to the boundary involved in the totality meaning of everything in analogy with reverse all-clefts. The reverse exhaustive specificational everything-clefts are similar to all-clefts and clearly deserve a place in the constructional network of English specificational cleft constructions.}},
author = {{Seitanidi, Eleni and Pöldvere, Nele and Paradis, Carita}},
issn = {{1569-9765}},
keywords = {{everything-clefts; exhaustiveness; smallness; specification; Construction Grammar; dialogic contraction}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{01}},
publisher = {{John Benjamins Publishing Company}},
series = {{Functions of Language}},
title = {{Everything-cleft constructions in spoken British English : A neglected construction}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/fol.23014.sei}},
doi = {{10.1075/fol.23014.sei}},
year = {{2025}},
}