Contents

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Acknowledgements v
3. Contents vii
4. Chapter 1. Introduction and background 1
5. Chapter 2. A model of language structure and language change 16
6. Chapter 3. Specificational copular constructions 27
7. Chapter 4. It-clefts as specificational copular sentences 71
8. Chapter 5. Other varieties of it-cleft 120
9. Chapter 6. The it-cleft and earlier periods of English 148
10. Chapter 7. The it-cleft’s development over time 184
11. Chapter 8. The it-cleft and constructional change 212
12. Chapter 9. Conclusions 243
13. Corpora and data sources 248
14. References 249
15. Index 266