This book proposes a radically new account of clefts in English. Since the 1960s, functional as well as formal linguists have generally restricted clefts to constructions with an identifying matrix (it-clefts) and have claimed that they only code information structure. Clefts are assumed to unpack a simple proposition into a focus – presupposition structure. In this book, the authors reject these theoretical-descriptive assumptions, arguing instead that clefts form a field comprising it-clefts, there-clefts and ‘have’-clefts. They show that, like any other construction, clefts compositionally code propositional semantics, onto which a great variety of prosodically coded focus patterns may be mapped. The authors fundamentally challenge the existing approach by entering the debate with an in-depth account of the neglected specificational and presentational there-clefts, offering the first systematic data-based study of their grammatical and prosodic features. While the study is restricted to English, its findings have significant cross-linguistic relevance. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Functional, Cognitive and Formal Linguistics, Corpus Linguistics, and usage-based study of grammar and prosody.

This volume is the first dedicated to the comprehensive, in-depth analysis of constructions with nouns like ‘type’ and ‘sort’. It focuses on type noun constructions in Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages, integrating the different descriptive traditions that had been developed for each language family. As a result, a greater variety of type noun constructions is revealed than in the hitherto more fragmented literature. But attention is also drawn to the cross-linguistic similarity of the new pragmatic meanings, such as ad hoc and approximative categorization, hedging, focus and filler uses, and the new grammatical functions in NPs (e.g. phoric uses), clauses (e.g. adverbial uses) and complex sentences (e.g. quotatives). The volume offers survey chapters of type noun constructions in each language family as well as contributions focusing on specific aspects in one or two languages, such as their grammar, semantics and pragmatics, diachronic development, discursive and sociolinguistic variety. These complementary methodologies elucidate the unique cross-linguistic field of type noun constructions both descriptively and theoretically. Hence, this volume can also serve as a model for similar surveys in other functional domains.

This volume aims to arrive at a fine-grained and grammar-based understanding of the notions of (inter-)subjectivity and (inter-)subjectification in their application to grammaticalization research. In terms of linguistic theory, position is taken vis-a-vis existing approaches to (inter-)subjectification which are either too narrow or too general by addressing two questions: (i) what is the relation between (inter-)subjectivity and pragmatics, and (ii) on what grounds can subjective and intersubjective meanings be distinguished? In the descriptive sections of the volume, these theoretical considerations are confronted with extensive analytical, and often also quantitative, study of empirical data mainly from English but also from Romance languages. The focus in these case studies is on the analytical and diachronic relations between subjectivity and intersubjectivity, with particular emphasis on the question how linguistic syntagms may shift towards the expression of meanings of which the hearer is an essential part. The domains covered include adverbials and modals, but also the noun phrase, to date a relatively under-researched area in grammaticalization studies. Together these three areas ensure broad verification of existing hypotheses about the relative order in which subjectification and intersubjectification take place. This volume is mainly of interest to researchers and graduate students with a special interest in subjectification, intersubjectification and grammaticalization, and with a general interest in language change. The volume will also be welcomed by functional linguists (in a broad sense), since it is the first to bring eclectic functionalists' reflections to bear so explicitly on grammaticalization.