Everything -cleft constructions in spoken British English
A neglected construction
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20395657 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Eleni Seitanidi (0000-0002-5292-2475, University of Amsterdam), Nele Põldvere (0000-0002-6921-4408, University of Oslo), Cheryl Paradis (0000-0002-7240-9003, University of Amsterdam) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 289-326 |
| Publication date | 2024-12-31 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Functions of Language (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0929-998X • E-ISSN: 1569-9765 |
| Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1075/fol.23014.sei |
| OpenAlex | W4406919703 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 21 |
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
Linguistics · Old English · History · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
Constructionalization and Constructional Changes
The Language of Evaluation
Cognitive Grammar
Regularity in Semantic Change
The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar
Grammar of Spoken and Written English
The English it-Cleft
Language Change
On The London–Lund Corpus 2
Adjectives and boundedness
Motivations and mechanisms for the development of the reactive what-x construction in spoken dialogue
All-cleft constructions in the London-Lund Corpora of spoken English
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |