This paper, which is based on a corpus of contemporary Australian English, investigates the structural and communicative properties of extraposed clause constructions. Such constructions will often be superficially similar to right-dislocated constructions, but are generally distinguishable from these on structural, communicative and prosodie grounds. If there are no grammatical factors impeding extraposition (such as a matrix predicate containing a subordinate clause or an identified complement), then finite and infinitival clauses may be freely extraposed. Present-participials, which are more highly nominalised, extrapose less freely. The matrix predicate, which typically expresses an 'objectified epistemic or moral judgement, exhibits a variety of structural patterns. Dominant among these is the 'Subject~Predicator~Predicative Complement' pattern, with the complement most commonly realised as an adjectival phrase.
Three communicative factors which influence extraposition may be identified: 'weight*, information, and theme. The data suggest that there is strong pressure in English to avoid sentences with a clause as subject in initial position and a comparatively light matrix predicate in final position. Non-extraposed sentences with a clausal subject in fact require special rhetorical and/or cohesive motivation, their infrequent occurrence reflecting the preferred 'given - before -new' ordering found in English. Just as important as the end-positioning of material in extraposition is the initialisation of an expression of the speaker's angle, enabling it to serve as the theme.
2023. Changes in Research Abstracts: Past Tense, Third Person, Passive, and Negatives. Written Communication 40:1 ► pp. 210 ff.
Jiang, Yi & Jing Chen
2022. Understanding Chinese Ma Students' Interpersonal Stance of Anticipatory it Patterns: Using Corpus Results to Guide the Questionnaire and Discourse-Based Interview. SSRN Electronic Journal
Wang, Jiaojiao & Jiangping Zhou
2022. A Corpus-Based Study of Semantic Categorizations of Attracted Adjectives to the it BE ADJ clause Construction. SAGE Open 12:2 ► pp. 215824402210912 ff.
Wang, Zhong, Weiwei Fan & Alex Chengyu Fang
2022. Lexical Input in the Grammatical Expression of Stance: A Collexeme Analysis of the INTRODUCTORY IT PATTERN. Frontiers in Psychology 12
2019. SUBJECT IT-EXTRAPOSITION IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS RESEARCH ARTICLES: SEMANTIC AND SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS. Discourse and Interaction 12:1 ► pp. 29 ff.
Yoon, Choongil
2019. Stance in the Introductory it Construction: A Comparative Study of Argumentative Writing by Korean EFL and English L1 Students. Lanaguage Research 55:3 ► pp. 601 ff.
LEE SEUNG HAN
2018. English Sentential Subject Extraposition: A Constraint-Based Approach. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal 26:3 ► pp. 71 ff.
Wiliński, Jarosław
2018. Adjectives in extraposed constructions with that-clauses: a quantitative corpus-driven analysis. Brno studies in English :1 ► pp. [83] ff.
Wiliński, Jarosław
2021. Nouns in the Be of N-Construction: A Corpus-Based Investigation. Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 66:3 ► pp. 747 ff.
Pham, Teresa
2017. “Hard to Beat Dickens’ Characters”: Non-Canonical Syntax in Evaluative Texts. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 65:3 ► pp. 247 ff.
이승한 & UhmChuljoo
2017. English Sentential Subject Extraposition: Toward a ‘How Far' and ‘Why' View. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal 25:3 ► pp. 69 ff.
2015. It is suggested that…or it is better to…? Forms and meanings of subject it-extraposition in academic and popular writing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 ► pp. 1 ff.
2011. Between emergence and sedimentation: Projecting constructions in German interactions. In Constructions: Emerging and Emergent, ► pp. 156 ff.
Myung-Hye Huh & 황인영
2011. Actual Use of that-clauses in EFL Writing. The New Korean Journal of English Lnaguage & Literature 53:1 ► pp. 267 ff.
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth & Sandra A. Thompson
2008. On assessing situations and events in conversation: `extraposition' and its relatives. Discourse Studies 10:4 ► pp. 443 ff.
Jong-Bok Kim
2008. Grammatical Interfaces in English Object Extraposition. Linguistic Research 25:3 ► pp. 117 ff.
Mindt, Ilka
2008. Appropriateness in discourse: The adjectives surprised and surprising in monologue and dialogue. Journal of Pragmatics 40:9 ► pp. 1503 ff.
Collins, Peter
2006. It-clefts and wh-clefts: Prosody and pragmatics. Journal of Pragmatics 38:10 ► pp. 1706 ff.
Hyland, Ken & Polly Tse
2005. Hooking the reader: a corpus study of evaluative that in abstracts. English for Specific Purposes 24:2 ► pp. 123 ff.
PÉREZ-GUERRA, JAVIER
1998. INTEGRATING RIGHT-DISLOCATED CONSTITUENTS: A STUDY ON CLEAVING AND EXTRAPOSITION IN THE RECENT HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE1. Folia Linguistica Historica 32:Historica vol. 19,1-2
Banks, David
1995. There is a cleft in your sentence: Less common clause structures in scientific writing. ASp :7-10 ► pp. 3 ff.
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