É (d)isso (de) que eu gosto

In this paper, we investigate canonical cleft constructions (CLIV) in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) whose focal constituent is represented by the neuter demonstratives (DEMNT) isso, isto, and aquilo, especially in occurrences where this constituent functions as an oblique complement. We aim to examine the functional and formal properties of this construction and propose its representation based on Croft's (2001) constructional model. Our theoretical support is the Usage-Based Functional Linguistics (LFCU, in Portuguese), following da Cunha and Bispo (2016, 2023), and employs a predominantly qualitative approach with quantitative support. Our data consists of 850 tokens extracted from the Corpus do Português (Davies, 2018), News on the Web section. The results show that CLIV with neuter demonstratives operate, at the semantic level, by expressing propositional content in the presupposed VP and serving a contrastive function. Regarding discourse-textual properties, we highlight relationships of summary, support for referent recategorization, and closure (Mafra, 2024), with a predominance of anaphoric reference. At the pragmatic level, we find that these constructions serve functions of focusing, emphasis, clarification, and commentary. From a formal perspective, the examined CLIV constitutes a biclausal structure, with the verb SER in the non-person form and the presupposed VP headed by transitive verbs. Isso is the most frequent neuter demonstrative in the focal constituent, which may or may not be preceded by a preposition. The QU- element following the neuter pronoun may also be preceded by a preposition. Given these characteristics, the CLIV with a neuter demonstrative is represented by [SERNPS (PREP) DEMNT (PREP) QUE SVPRESS]CLIV.