Cover not available
Part of
Focus Realization in Romance and Beyond
Edited by Marco García García and Melanie Uth
[Studies in Language Companion Series 201] 2018
► pp. 287–310

Chapter 10
Cleft sentences in the history of French and English

A case of pragmatic borrowing?

| Universität Mannheim
| Universität Stuttgart

This paper addresses the question of whether certain types of cleft constructions found in earlier stages of English can be interpreted as instances of pragmatic borrowing from French. According to Prince (1988) this type of borrowing can be assumed if (i) a syntactic form in the recipient language is construed in an analogous fashion to a syntactic form in the source language; (ii) the discourse functions of the syntactic form in the source language are borrowed and associated with the syntactic form in the recipient language. Based on a corpus study of Anglo-French (AF) and Middle English (ME) we will show that both languages exhibited a number of different types of cleft constructions some of which seem to have had similar, and some seem to have had different functions. By identifying the nature of clefts in AF as being ambiguous between clefts and predicative constructions, we will discuss in how far this ambiguity could be seen as an accelerating factor of contact-induced change leading to pragmatic borrowing into ME.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Language contact in medieval Britain
  • 3.Clefts in French and English
    • 3.1The development of French cleft sentences
    • 3.2Types of cleft sentences in Old and Middle French
    • 3.3The informative presupposition it-cleft in Old English
    • 3.4The pronoun it-cleft in Middle English
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 28 November 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.201.10car
References
Andersen, Gisle
2014 Pragmatic borrowing. Journal of Pragmatics 67: 17–33.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anglo-Norman On-line Hub
2001 Universities of Aberystwyth and Swansea. [URL]
Ball, Catherine N.
1991 The Historical Development of the it-Cleft. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
1994a The origins of the informative-presupposition it-cleft. Journal of Pragmatics 22: 603–628.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1994b Relative pronouns in it-clefts: The last seven centuries. Language Variation and Change 6: 179–200.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baugh, Albert C. & Cable, Thomas
2005 A History of the English Language, 5th edn. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Blake, Norman
(ed.) 1992 The Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol. 2, 1066–1476. Cambridge: CUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bouchard, Jacynthe, Dupuis, Fernande & Dufresne, Monique
2007 Un processus de focalisation en ancien français: Le développement des clivées. In Actes du Congrès annuel de l’Association canadienne de linguistique (ACL) 2007, Milica Radišić (ed.). Ottawa: Association Canadienne de Linguistique.Google Scholar
Collins, Peter
1991 Cleft and Pseudo-cleft Constructions in English. London: Routledge.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Combettes, Bernard
1999 Thématisation et topicalisation: Leur rôle respectif dans l’évolution du français. In La thématisation dans les langues. Actes du colloque de Caen, 9–11 octobre 1997, Claude Guimier (ed.), 231–245. Paris: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Dufter, Andreas
2008 On explaining the rise of c’est-clefts in French. In The Paradox of Grammatical Change [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 293], Ulrich Detges & Richard Waltereit (eds), 31–56. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Filppula, Markku
2009 The rise of it-clefting in English: Areal-typological and contact-linguistic considerations. English Language and Linguistics 13(2): 267–293.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goria, Eugenio
2013 Towards a taxonomy of Latin cleft sentences. Journal of Latin Linguistics 12(2): 147–172.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gradon, Pamela
(ed.) 1965[1866] Dan Michel’s Ayenbite of Inwyt or Remorse of Conscience, Vol. 1 [The Early English Text Society 278]. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Halmari, Helena & Regetz, Timothy
2011 Syntactic aspects of codeswitching in Oxford. MS Bodley 649. In Code-switching in Early English [Topics in English Linguistics 76], Herbert Schendl & Laura Wright (eds), 115–155. Berlin: De Gruyter.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haugland, Kari E.
2006 Old English Impersonal Constructions and the Use and Non-use of Nonreferential Pronouns. Bergen: Department of English, University of Bergen.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd & Kuteva, Tania
(eds) 2005 Language Contact and Grammatical Change. Cambridge: CUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Higgins, Roger Francis
1979 The Pseudo-cleft Construction in English. New York NY: Garland.Google Scholar
Hunt, Tony
1991 Teaching and Learning Latin in Thirteenth-Century England, Vol. I: Texts. Cambridge: Brewer.Google Scholar
Ingham, Richard
2009 Mixing languages on the manor. Medium Aevum 78(1): 107–124.Google Scholar
(ed.) 2010 The Anglo-Norman Language and its Contexts. Martelsham, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Judith A. & Putter, Ad
(eds) 2013 Multilingualism in Medieval Britain (c. 1066–1520). Sources and Analysis. Turnhout: Brepols.Google Scholar
Kaluza, Max
(ed.) 1891 Geoffrey Chaucer. The Romaunt of the Rose from the unique Glasgow ms, parallel with its original, Le Roman de la Rose, Vol. 83. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred
2007 Basic notions of information structure. In The Notions of Information Structure [Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure 6], Caroline Féry, Gisbert Fanselow & Manfred Krifka (eds), 13–55. Potsdam: Universitätsverlag Potsdam.Google Scholar
Kroch, Anthony
1989 Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change. Language Variation and Change 1: 199–244.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kroch, Anthony & Taylor, Ann
(eds) 2000 The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, 2nd edn (PPCME2). Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud
2001 A framework for the analysis of cleft constructions. Linguistics 39: 463–516.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lerch, Eugen
1934 Historische französische Syntax. Leipzig: Reisland.Google Scholar
Löfstedt, Bengt
1966 Die Konstruktion ‘c’est lui qui l’a fait’ im Lateinischen. Indogermanische Forschungen 71: 253–277.Google Scholar
Marchello-Nizia, Christiane
1999 Le français en diachronie: Douze siècles d’évolution [Collection L’essentiel Français]. Paris: Ophrys.Google Scholar
Martineau, France
(ed.) 2009 Le corpus MCVF. Modéliser le changement: Les voies du français. Ottawa: Université d’Ottawa.Google Scholar
Matras, Yaron
2009 Language Contact. Cambridge: CUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McIntosh, Angus, Samuels, M. L. & Benskin, Michael
2013 Electronic Version of the Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Meurman-Solin, Anneli, Lopez-Couso, Maria Jose & Los, Bettelou
(eds) 2012 Information Structure and Syntactic Change in the History of English. Oxford: OUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Bruce & Robinson, Fred C.
2003 A guide to Old English, 6th edn. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Muller, Charles
2003 Naissance et évolution des constructions clivées en c’est… que…: De la focalisation sur l’objet concret à la focalisation fonctionnelle. In La cognition dans le temps. Études cognitives dans le champ historique des langues et des textes, Peter Blumenthal & Jean-Emmanuel Tyvaert (eds), 101–120. Tübingen: Niemeyer.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Myers-Scotton, Carol
1993 Duelling Languages: Grammatical Structure in Codeswitching. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Patten, Amanda
2012 The English it-Cleft: A Constructional Account and a Diachronic Investigation [Topics in English Linguistics 79]. Berlin: De Gruyter.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pilch, Herbert & Tristram, Hildegard
1979 Altenglische Literatur. Heidelberg: Carl Winter’s Universitätsverlag.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana
1980 Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en Español. Linguistics 26: 581–618.Google Scholar
Prince, Ellen
1978 A comparison of wh-clefts and it-clefts in discourse. Language 54: 883–906.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1988 On pragmatic change: The borrowing of discourse functions. Journal of Pragmatics 12: 505–518.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Prévost, Sophie
2009 Topicalisation, focalisation et constructions syntaxiques en français médiéval: Des relations complexes. In Les linguistiques du détachement, actes du colloque international de Nancy, Denis Apothéloz, Bernard Combettes & Franck Neveu (eds), 427–439. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Putter, Ad
2011 Code-switching in Langland, Chaucer and the Gawain poet: Diglossia and footing. In Code-switching in Early English [Topics in English Linguistics 76], Herbert Schendl & Laura Wright (eds), 281–303. Berlin: De Gruyter.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ramisch, Heinrich
1989 The Variation of English in Guernsey, Channel Islands [Bamberger Beiträge zur englischen Sprachwissenschaft 24]. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Rooth, Mats
1985 Association with Focus. PhD dissertation University of Massachusetts at Amherst.Google Scholar
Rothwell, William
1968 The teaching of French in Medieval England. Modern Language Review 63: 37–46.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1975 The role of French in thirteenth century England. Bulletin of the John Rylauds Library 58: 445–66.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1993 The ‘Faus franceis d’Angleterre’: Later Anglo-Norman. In Anglo-Norman Anniverary Essays [Occasional Publications 310], Ian Short (ed.), Anglo-Norman Text Society.Google Scholar
2001 The teaching and learning of French in later Medieval England. Zeitschrift für Französische Sprache und Literatur 111: 2–18.Google Scholar
Rouquier, Magali
2007 Les constructions clivées en ancien français et en moyen français. Romania 125(1–2): 167–212.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 Quelques éléments de description de la construction clivée en ancien français. In Pragmatique historique et syntaxe, Barbara Wehr & Frédéric Nicolosi (eds), 223–242. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Sankoff, David & Poplack, Shana
1981 A formal grammar for codeswitching. Papers in Linguistics 14(1–4): 3–45.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schendl, Herbert & Wright, Laura
(eds) 2011 Code-switching in Early English. Berlin: De Gruyter.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sebba, Mark, Mahootian, Sharzad & Jonsson, Carla
(eds) 2012 Language Mixing and Code-switching in Writing. London: Routledge.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Ann
2008 Contact effects of translation: Distinguishing two kinds of influence in Old English. Language Variation and Change 20(2): 341–365.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Ann, Warner, Anthony & Pintzuk, Susan
2003 The York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE). Heslington, York: University of York.Google Scholar
Thomason, Sarah Grey & Kaufman, Terrence
1988 Language Contact, Creolization and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Trotter, David
(ed.) 2000 Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.Google Scholar
Wehr, Barbara
2005 Focusing strategies in Old French and Old Irish. In Opening Windows on Texts and Discourses of the Past [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 134], Janne Skaffari, Matti Peikola, Ruth Carroll, Risto Hiltunen & Brita Wårvik (eds), 354–379. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 Phrase clivée et phrase à copule identificationnelle en ancien français. In Pragmatique historique et syntaxe, Barbara Wehr & Frédéric Nicolosi (eds), 289–318. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Weinreich, Uriel
1953[1968] Languages in Contact. Findings and Problems. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Uth, Melanie & Marco García García
2018. Chapter 1. Introduction. In Focus Realization in Romance and Beyond [Studies in Language Companion Series, 201], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.