This paper investigates the communicative use ofit-extraposition (e.g.It is surprising that John went to London) in texts, based on a corpus analysis of 1,701 instances in the British component of theInternational Corpus of English. Contrary to the wayit-extraposition is often treated in the literature, it does not represent a uniform functional category whose communicative purpose arises mainly from its status as the stylistically unmarked counterpart of non-extraposition. An analysis of the information status of the extraposed subject shows that it is possible to distinguish two basic types (Given Complement Extraposition and New Complement Extraposition) which differ fundamentally in their communicative potential and distribution in different (spoken and written) text types. For each of the two informational types a number of specific uses in texts are identified taking into account thematic structure (topic-comment) and the semantic nature of the matrix predicate.
2023. The Pragmatics and Discourse Functions of MM. In A Constructional Approach to Interpersonal Metaphor of Modality [Peking University Linguistics Research, 7], ► pp. 105 ff.
Hu, Jian
2023. The Lexical and Syntactic Properties of MM. In A Constructional Approach to Interpersonal Metaphor of Modality [Peking University Linguistics Research, 7], ► pp. 67 ff.
Kaltenböck, Gunther
2014. Processibility. In Corpus Pragmatics, ► pp. 117 ff.
2016. The introductory it pattern: Variability explored in learner and expert writing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 22 ► pp. 64 ff.
Larsson, Tove
2017. A functional classification of the introductory it pattern: Investigating academic writing by non-native-speaker and native-speaker students. English for Specific Purposes 48 ► pp. 57 ff.
Larsson, Tove
2018. Is there a correlation between form and function? A syntactic and functional investigation of the introductory it pattern in student writing. ICAME Journal 42:1 ► pp. 13 ff.
2020. Speaking and Writing English. In The Handbook of English Linguistics, ► pp. 547 ff.
Namgeun Lee
2015. A Data Driven Learning Approch to English Extraposition Constructions. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal 23:3 ► pp. 69 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.
Suethanapornkul, Sakol & Sarut Supasiraprapa
2023. Usage events and constructional knowledge: A study of two variants of the introductory-it construction. Studies in Second Language Acquisition► pp. 1 ff.
2023. Referential accessibility as an index of the discourse functions of predicative and specificational clauses. Text & Talk 43:1 ► pp. 113 ff.
Van Praet, Wout & Gerard O'Grady
2018. The prosody of specification: Discourse intonational cues to setting up a variable. Journal of Pragmatics 135 ► pp. 87 ff.
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
Wiliński, Jarosław
2018. Adjectives in extraposed constructions with that-clauses: a quantitative corpus-driven analysis. Brno studies in English :1 ► pp. [83] ff.
Zhou, Jiangping
2023. A corpus-based study of explicit objective modal expressions in English. Studia Neophilologica 95:1 ► pp. 100 ff.
Zhou, Jiangping
2023. A corpus-based study of congruent and metaphorical patterns of modality in English. Studia Neophilologica 95:3 ► pp. 351 ff.
Ädel, Annelie
2014. Selecting quantitative data for qualitative analysis: A case study connecting a lexicogrammatical pattern to rhetorical moves. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 16 ► pp. 68 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 february 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
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