Articles

Specificerende il y a-clefts (er is-clefts)

Author
  • Lena Karssenberg

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate French il y a-clefts ('there is-clefts’) that are semantically specificational
(e.g. ‘Are there vegetarians in your family?’ — Oui, il y a ma soeur qui est
végétarienne “Yes, there’s my sister who’s a vegetarian”). I show on the basis of a qualitative
corpus analysis in three different registers of French that this type of cleft is less
uniform than previously assumed in terms of its semantics, discourse functions and information
structure properties.

How to Cite:

Karssenberg, L., (2016) “Specificerende il y a-clefts (er is-clefts)”, Handelingen - Koninklijke Zuid-Nederlandse maatschappij voor taal- en letterkunde en geschiedenis 70, 77-91. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/kzm.v70i0.17819

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Published on
15 Mar 2016
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