The cleft pronoun and cleft clause in English

In this paper I argue against both ‘specificational’ and ‘expletive’ analyses of English clefts. I provide new evidence that the cleft pronoun it is non-expletive, and that the cleft clause is interpreted as a discontinuous definite description with it, as under specificational analyses. On the other hand, I argue that specificational analyses are mistaken in positing a syntactic modification relationship between the cleft clause and it. Rather, the evidence shows that the cleft clause behaves in all relevant ways as if it is a syntactic modifier of the clefted XP. Keywords: cleft constructions; relative clauses; copular sentences; definite descriptions.

Published online: 28 November 2013
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.208.06rev