Pseudo-clefts: An interactional analysis across languages

• Yael Maschler ^[1] ; Jan Lindström ^[2] ; Elwys De Stefani ^[3]
  1. [1] University of Haifa

     University of Haifa

     Israel

     
  2. [2] University of Helsinki

     University of Helsinki

     Helsinki, Finlandia

     
  3. [3] Heidelberg University

     Heidelberg University

     Stadtkreis Heidelberg, Alemania

     

  Mostrar afiliaciones +
• Localización: Lingua: International review of general linguistics, ISSN 0024-3841, Nº 291, 2023
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • In this introduction to the special issue “Pseudo-Clefts from a Comparative Pragmatic Typological Perspective”, we first discuss the current state of research on the use of pseudo-cleft-like structures in talk-in-interaction. We then compare their use in the six languages investigated in this special issue: French, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin and Swedish, focusing on both structural features and interactional aspects of pseudo-clefts, as they emerge in social interaction. While there have been some previous interactional linguistic studies of pseudo-clefts in a variety of languages, there has been no study systematically investigating this structure from a comparative and interactional cross-language perspective. Our introduction is thus motivated by the need to fill in this gap. Specifically, we compare the six languages with respect to syntactic and lexico-semantic variation, and with respect to prosodic and embodied features of pseudo-cleft turns. We argue that the findings point to universal interactional motivations for the grammatical properties of this structure, and that the analysis of pseudo-clefts occurring in natural, face-to-face interaction needs to pay close attention to two central dimensions of talk: temporality and embodiment.