Cleft Constructions in Arabic and English: A Contrastive Study

Abstract

This paper aims at investigating cleft constructions in both Arabic and English to see how elements and entities of a sentence are connected through many different focus devices. The results reveal that English, as well as Arabic, use different strategies to form focus constructions. In English, for instance, It-cleft and the Wh-cleft constructions are the most frequently used devices for highlighting a certain element. It has been claimed that the underlying structure of the Arabic nominative sentences is the VSO pattern from which fronting or topicalization is used as a process of highlighting a certain element in the sentence. It has been further claimed that focus constructions in Arabic can be achieved by further devices like the particle [Ɂinna] and the pronouns of separation. Keywords: It-cleft, Wh-cleft, focus, Arabic.