Making impersonal comments via it-extraposition: Perspectives of syntactic structure, semantic denotations and pragmatic aspects via literature, magazines and applied linguistics articles in English
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Abstract
This study examined it- extraposition with adjectives followed by to-infinitive clauses (i.e., it is important to note that this research paper excludes that-clauses) via the perspectives of syntactic structure, semantic denotations, and pragmatic aspects. While most previous studies have focused on using it- extraposition in selected academic articles, the current study contributes to the views of English literature, magazines and applied linguistics articles. The entire 450,000 words contain 34 extracted tokens in the three datasets. This study shows that the use of it- extraposition occurs mostly in applied English linguistics articles at 64.71 percent. The use of it- extraposition in English magazines and literature is 23.53 percent and 11.76 percent, respectively. Extended projection principle could explain the lower use of it- extraposition in this study via the expletive. The semantic denotations between the three datasets appear to be different. The three datasets show similarities in that they apply the pragmatic aspects of the end-weight principle. It is hoped that this research will be useful for those learners of English as a second language and learners of English as a foreign language in making impersonal comments in different text varieties.
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