Cover not available
Part of
Corpus Interrogation and Grammatical Patterns
Edited by Kristin Davidse, Caroline Gentens, Lobke Ghesquière and Lieven Vandelanotte
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 63] 2014
► pp. 173–205

The case of focus

| University of Hamburg
This article investigates the distribution of pronoun case forms (PCFs) in it-clefts and it BE-sentences in British and American English. Its particular interest is the occurrence of subject PCFs in these two constructions. Functional and pragmatic factors exerting an influence on the distribution are identified, such as first vs. third person, singular vs plural. All these factors are operationalized and quantified in the datasets. The findings confirm the hypothesis that subject PCFs have been re-functionalised as Focus markers in the two varieties examined. As the explanation of this refunctionalization, markedness reversal is put forward.
Published online: 14 November 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.63.13mai
References (66)
References
Angermeyer, S. & Singler, J.V. 2003. The case for politeness: Pronoun variation in co-ordinate NPs in object position. Language Variation and Change 15: 171–209. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aston, G. & Burnard, L. 1998. The BNC Handbook: Exploring the British National Corpus with Sara. Edinburgh: EUP.Google Scholar
Baayen, R.H. 2008. Analyzing Linguistic Data: A Practical Introduction to Statistics using R. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Backhaus, K., Erichson, B., Plinke, W. & Weiber, R. 2008. Multivariate Analysemethoden. Eine anwendungsorientierte Einführung, 12th edn. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Biber, D. 1988. Variation across Speech and Writing. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S. & Finegan, E. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Pearson Education.Google Scholar
Burnard, L. 2007. BNC User Reference Guide. Oxford: University of Oxford. [URL] (21 October 2011).Google Scholar
Burridge, K. 2004. Synopsis: morphological and syntactic variation in the Pacific and Australasia. In Kortmann et al. (eds), 1116–1131.
Butt, M. 2006. Theories of Case. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cooper, C. [1685] 1968. Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae [English Linguistics 1500–1800. A Collection of Facsimile Reprints [86]], R.C. Alston. Menston: Scolar Press.Google Scholar
Crawley, M.J. 2007. The R Book. Chichester: Wiley. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Denison, D. 1993. English Historical Syntax. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Dik, S.C. 1978. Functional Grammar. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing.Google Scholar
. 1989. The Theory of Functional Grammar, Part I: The Structure of the Clause. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
. 1997. The Theory of Functional Grammar, Part II: Complex and Derived Constructions, K. Hengeveld (ed.). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Emonds, J. 1985. A Unified Theory of Syntactic Categories. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
. 1986. Grammatically deviant prestige constructions. In A Festschrift for Sol Saporta, M. Brame, H. Contreras & F. Neumayer. (eds), 92–129. Seattle WA: Noit Amrofer.Google Scholar
Erdmann: 1978. It’s I, it’s me: A case for syntax. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia. 10: 67–80.Google Scholar
Field, A. 2009. Discovering Statistics Using SPSS (and sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll), 3rd edn. Los Angeles CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Field, A., Miles, J. & Field, Z. 2012. Discovering Statistics Using R. Los Angeles CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Greenbaum, S. 1996. The Oxford English Grammar. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Gries, S.T. 2008. Statistik für Sprachwissenschaftler. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.Google Scholar
. 2009. Statistics for Linguists with R: A Practical Introduction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haegeman, L. & Guéron J. 1999. English Grammar: A Generative Perspective. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Harris, M. 1981. It’s I, it’s me: Further Reflections. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 13: 17–20.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, M. 2006. Against markedness (and what to replace it with). Journal of Linguistics 42: 25–70. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hollmann, W.B. 2009. Grammatical change. In English Language: Description, Variation and Context, J. Culperer, F. Katamba, P. Kerswill, R. Wodak & T. McEnery (eds), 314–333. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.Google Scholar
Hopkins, E.A. 1975. Clefts and case: Two Sources of interference for FL learners. Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German 8: 27–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huber, M. 1999. Ghanaian Pidgin English in its West African Context. A Sociohistorical and Structural Analysis [Varieties of English around the World G24]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huddleston, R. & Pullum G. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Hudson, R. 1995. Does English really have case? Journal of Linguistics 31: 375–392. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jespersen, O. 1933. Essentials of English Grammar. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Kjellmer, G. 1986. ‘Us Anglos are a cut above the field’: On objective pronouns in nominative contexts. English Studies: A Journal of English Language and Literature 67: 445–449. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kortmann, B., Schneider, E., Burridge, K., Mesthrie, R. & Upton, C. (eds) 2004. A Handbook of Varieties of English, Vol. 2: Morphosyntax. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Langacker, R.W. 1991. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Vol II: Descriptive Application. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Lass, R. 1990. How to do things with junk: Exaptation in language evolution. Journal of Linguistics 26: 79–102. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2006. Phonology and morphology. In A History of the English Language, R. Hogg & D. Denison (eds), 43–108. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leech, G., Paul Rayson & Wilson, A. 2001. Word Frequencies in Written and Spoken English – Based on the British National Corpus. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Maier, G. 2012. The Distribution of Pronoun Case Forms in Subject Predicative Complements: A Corpus- and Web-Based Study of Pronoun Case Variation. PhD dissertation, University of Hamburg.Google Scholar
. 2013. As the case may be: A corpus-based approach to pronoun case variation in subject-predicative complements in British and American English. In Proceedings of ICAME 31 [Varieng: Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English], J. Mukherjee & M. Huber (eds), 228–245. Giessen: University of Giessen.Google Scholar
Mayerthaler, W. 1981. Morphologische Natürlichkeit. Wiesbaden: Athenaion.Google Scholar
McEnery, T., Xiao, R. & Tono, Y. 2006. Corpus-Based Language Studies: An Advanced Resource Book. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Miller, J. 2006. Spoken and written English. In The Handbook of English Linguistics, B. Aarts & A. McMahon (eds), 670–691. Malden MA: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montgomery, M.B. 2004. Appalachian English: morphology and syntax. In Kortmann et al. (eds), 245–280.Google Scholar
Paddock, H. 1991. The actuation problem for gender change in Wessex versus Newfoundland. In Dialects of English. Studies in Grammatical Variation, P. Trudgill & J.K. Chambers (eds), 29–46. London: Longman.Google Scholar
. 1994. From CASE to FOCUS in the pronouns of some Wessex-based dialects of English. In Function and Expression in Functional Grammar, E. Engberg-Pedersen, L. Falster Jakobson & L.S. Rasmussen (eds), 255–264. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Pampel, F.C. 2000. Logistic Regression: A Primer (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences 132. Thousand Oaks US: Sage.Google Scholar
Pietsch, L. 2007. Nominative subjects of non-finite constructions in Hiberno-English. In Connectivity in Grammar and Discourse [Hamburg Studies on Multilingualism 5], J. Rehbein, C. Hohenstein & L. Pietsch (eds), 165–184. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009. English in Ireland: Grammar in Language Contact. PhD dissertation, University of Hamburg.Google Scholar
Poussa, P. 1997. Derivation of it from þat in eastern dialects of British English. In Linguistic History and Linguistic Modelling: A Festschrift for Jacek Fisiak on his 60th Birthday, R. Hickey & S. Puppel (eds), 691–699. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Quinn, H. 2005. The Distribution of Pronoun Case Forms in English [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 82]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009. Pronoun forms. In Comparative Studies in Australian and New Zealand Grammar and Beyond [Varieties of English around the World G39], P. Peters, P. Collins & A. Smith (eds), 31–47. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. & Svartvik, J. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Radford, A. 2009. Analysing English Sentences: A Minimalist Approach. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shorrocks, G. 1992. Case assignment in simple and coordinate constructions in Present-Day English. American Speech 67: 432–444. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Siewierska, A. 1991. Functional Grammar. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
. 2004. Person. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sobin, N. 1997. Agreement, Default Rules, and Grammatical Viruses. Linguistic Inquiry 28: 318–343.Google Scholar
Swan, M. 2005. Practical English Usage, 3rd edn. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Sweet, H. 1875. Words, logic and grammar. Transactions of the Philological Society: 470–503.Google Scholar
Szmrecsanyi, B. 2006. Morphosyntactic Persistence in Spoken English. A Corpus Study. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trudgill, P. 2004. The dialect of East Anglia: morphology and syntax. In Kortmann et al.(eds), 142–153.
Wagner, S. 2002. We ‘don’ ‘say ‘she, ‘do us? Pronoun Exchange – a feature of English dialects? Manuscript, Universität Freiburg, 2002. [URL] (22 July 2010).
. 2004. English dialects in the Southwest: Morphology and syntax. In Kortmann et al. (eds), 154–174.
Wales, K. 1996. Personal Pronouns in Present-Day English. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Weinert, R. & Miller, J. 1996. Cleft constructions in spoken language. Journal of Pragmatics 25: 173–206. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Zhang, Yi & Ming Yue
2024. Case and agreement variation in contact. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics DOI logo
Bevacqua, Luca & Tatjana Scheffler
2020. Form variation of pronominal it-clefts in written English. Linguistics Vanguard 6:1 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.