Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang

or with a ‘specificational’ object:
(3) it is I/me you saw on the balcony last night
Cleft and identificational constructions 205
IdCCs are attested from Old English (OE) onwards since we luckily find this typical
interactional formula in biblical translations, e.g.,
(4) But he saith vnto them, It is I, be not afraid. (John VI.20, Authorized Version 1611)
ClCs, with their biclausal structure, are a syntactic device to express focus, and
their development in a language is intertwined with the fixing of word order.
Hence ClCs of the form it is X who did it only emerge in the 13th century according
to Ball (1991), who has written the only historical study of ClCs in English.
If we assume that the Early Modern English (EModE) expression it is me was
as colloquial in the late 16th-century when it putatively emerged as it is in the
present, then we would expect to find it in texts and genres that are less prone to
standardization and more open to variation, that is, in “texts with potential dialect
features (entertainment and private writings; written by men of middle ranks, or
by women)” (Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg 1993: 68). This quote from the
compilers of the Helsinki Corpus already indicates helpful parameters of variation
to be investigated in any study of it is I/me. The chronological structure of the
Helsinki Corpus also provides a convenient frame to study the diffusion of change
in the EModE period since it is further subdivided into three subperiods with
respect to incipient standardization of the language (see Table 1).
Table 1. The EModE period of the Helsinki Corpus: A quantitative overview
(Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg 1993: 54)
Subperiod Words %
EModE1 1500–1570
“before the acceleration of changes” 190,160 34.5
EModE2 1570–1640
“period of their culmination” 189,800 34.5
EModE3 1640–1710
“eventual stabilization of the state of affairs” 171,040 31.0
Total 551,000 100
For our purpose, however, the Helsinki Corpus proved disappointing: we
found exactly two examples for it is I, both from the New Testament in different
versions (Tyndale’s Bible from 1534 and the Authorized Version from 1611, cf.
ex. (4) above). Apart from that, there is one further example of ’tis I (in the play
The Relapse (1696) by Sir John Vanbrugh), but no instances of it is me/’tis me.
As a result, we decided to focus on plays as the genre which provides ample opportunities
for using it is I/me. This ‘speech-based register’ in the sense of Biber