Artículos de revistas
Cleft constructions and similar structures: Contrast, focus and emphasis
Clivagem e construções similares: Contraste, foco e ênfase
Fecha
2012-12-01Registro en:
Linguistica, v. 28, n. 1, p. 73-98, 2012.
2079-312X
1132-0214
2-s2.0-84988476766
Autor
Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP)
Institución
Resumen
This paper deals with so called cleft constructions and other similar structures in eight Portuguese varieties, aiming to show that the formal differences correspond to different functional strategies used by the Speaker to achieve his/her communicative intentions, i.e., Focus, Contrast and Emphasis, in accordance with the theory of Functional Discourse Grammar (Hengeveld and Mackenzie, 2008). This study takes as evidence real spoken occurrences extracted from a corpus organized by Linguistic Centre at the University of Lisbon, in partnership with the University of Toulousse Mirail and the University of Provence-Aix-Marseille. The results show the following distribution: cleft construction is a strategy for pragmatic function Contrast marking; Focus-ser constructions are used to highlight a constituent and (é) que is used as an operator of emphasis showing the speaker's desire to intensify certain pieces of information.