| Acknowledgements | 第1-6页 |
| Abstract | 第6-9页 |
| 摘要 | 第9-13页 |
| Chapter Ⅰ Introduction | 第13-18页 |
| ·Needs for the Study | 第13-14页 |
| ·Significance of the Study | 第14-15页 |
| ·Theoretical significance | 第14页 |
| ·Practical significance | 第14-15页 |
| ·Approaches of the Study | 第15页 |
| ·Objectives of the Study | 第15-16页 |
| ·Organizations of this Thesis | 第16-18页 |
| Chapter Ⅱ Literature Review | 第18-31页 |
| ·Definitions of Cleft Sentence | 第18-21页 |
| ·Classification of Cleft Sentence | 第21-23页 |
| ·Prince’s classification | 第21页 |
| ·Collins’classification | 第21页 |
| ·Biber’s classification | 第21-22页 |
| ·Lambrecht’s classification | 第22页 |
| ·Andreea S. Calude’s classification | 第22-23页 |
| ·Previous Analysis of Cleft Sentence in English | 第23-29页 |
| ·Cleft sentence studies in the West | 第23-28页 |
| ·The Extraposition approach | 第24-26页 |
| ·The Expletive approach | 第26-28页 |
| ·Cleft sentence studies in China | 第28-29页 |
| ·Definition and Classification of Clefts in the Present Study | 第29-31页 |
| Chapter Ⅲ Theoretical Framework: Figure-Ground Theory | 第31-40页 |
| ·Gestalt Psychology | 第31-32页 |
| ·The Prominence View | 第32-35页 |
| ·Langacker’s viewpoint on prominence | 第32-33页 |
| ·Figure/Ground segregation | 第33-35页 |
| ·Definitions of Figure and Ground | 第35-36页 |
| ·Characteristics of Figure and Ground | 第36-37页 |
| ·Figure and Ground in Complex Sentence | 第37-38页 |
| ·Some Related Key Terms | 第38-40页 |
| ·Word order | 第38-39页 |
| ·The precedence principle | 第39-40页 |
| Chapter ⅣAn Analysis of Cleft Sentences within a Figure-Ground Theory Framework | 第40-60页 |
| ·Basic Components of Cleft Sentence in English | 第40-42页 |
| ·Basic components of it-clefts | 第40-41页 |
| ·Basic components of wh-clefts | 第41-42页 |
| ·Basic components of reversed wh-clefts | 第42页 |
| ·A Cognitive Approach to Syntactic Structure of Cleft Sentence | 第42-50页 |
| ·The Figure-Ground alignment in it-clefts | 第44-46页 |
| ·The focused component and the clause in it-clefts | 第46-48页 |
| ·Sentence analysis of subject and object acting as Figure | 第47页 |
| ·Sentence analysis of adverbial acting as Figure | 第47-48页 |
| ·The Figure-Ground alignment in wh-clefts | 第48-49页 |
| ·The Figure-Ground alignment in reversed wh-clefts | 第49-50页 |
| ·The Information Structure of Cleft Sentence . | 第50-52页 |
| ·The information structure of it-clefts | 第51页 |
| ·The information structure of wh-clefts | 第51-52页 |
| ·The information structure of reverse wh-clefts | 第52页 |
| ·Semantics Constraints | 第52-56页 |
| ·Semantics constraints in it-clefts | 第52-56页 |
| ·Semantics constraints in wh-clefts | 第56页 |
| ·Cognitive Principles of Cleft Sentence | 第56-57页 |
| ·Motivation of Cleft Sentence | 第57-60页 |
| Chapter V Conclusions | 第60-63页 |
| ·Major Findings of this Study | 第60-61页 |
| ·Limitations of this Study | 第61-62页 |
| ·Suggestions for Further Research | 第62-63页 |
| References | 第63-66页 |
| 在读期间公开发表论文（著）及科研情况 | 第66页 |
