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4.4.6 分裂句(cleft sentence)在語篇中的作用
Ron Cowan在The Teacher’s Grammar of English (© Cambridge University press 2008) P524-525指出：
The basic function of cleft sentences is to make certain element more prominent. However, in filling this basic function, cleft sentences have more specific uses in discourse.
The focused element in an it cleft may contain old information or new information. Depending on whether the focused element old information or new information, the it cleft will be used by speakers and writers for different purposes.
1. Contradict
It clefts are often used to contradict something that has been said or written. In the following sentence, speaker B’s response contradicts the information by speaker A— that a particular person is going to be fired as a result of a scandal. Notice that here the focused element in new information, whereas the information in the clause beginning with who is old information.
A: This has blown up into an enormous scandal. I hear that they are going to fire the secretary of state.
B: No, it’s the secretary of defense who they want to fire, not the secretary of state.
2. Argue a Point
In persuasive writing, it clefts are frequently used to argue a point. In the following sentence, the writer wants to make the point that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between wing shape and the maximum speed that a jet airplane can attain. The writer does this by first asking a question about shape and then answering in a new sentence containing an it cleft. Here the focused element (the shape) is the old information, and new information —the reason why the shape of the wing is important—follows in the clause beginning with that.
But why is the shape of the wing is so important? It is the shape that determines the maximum speed that can be attained by a jet airplane.
3. Establish a Topic
An it cleft sentence may severe to establish the writer’s topic, for example, as a lead-in sentence to an article. In such cases, all of information in the sentence is new. Thus, in the following sentence, the material following that and the focused time adverbial establish the topic—that the concept “the weekend” began with Henry Ford about 90 years ago. The writer goes on to elaborate this topic in the following sentence and the rest of paragraph.
It was just 90 years ago that Henry Ford gave us the weekend. On September 25, 1926, in a somewhat shocking move for that time, he decided to establish a 40-hour work week, giving his employees two days off instead of one.
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