1887
Volume 27, Issue 2
  • ISSN 0155-0640
  • E-ISSN: 1833-7139
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Abstract

On the basis of 572 examples taken from seven million-word corpora of written English the present study—which complements the spoken data-based studies of Oberlander & Delin (1996) and Weinert & Miller (1996)— explores the relationship between information structure and discourse role with reversed The study confirms the typically summative, internal-referencing, and stage-ending-roles of the informational type upon which previous studies have concentrated (the statistically dominant type, with minimally informative highlighted element and relative clause). A second type observed by Oberlander & Delin (1996), with an ‘informative presupposition’ or ‘comment clause’, is found to occur stage-medially rather than as an ending, and furthermore to have a ‘pivotal’ (both backward-and forward-looking) discourse role. Two further types of reversed cleft with an informationally new highlighted element are identified. Both can occur stage-initially, and share some similarities with basic -clefts and -clefts in their discourse behaviour.

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2004-01-01
2025-02-07
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