Cleft sentence

In English, it-clefts consist of the pronoun it, followed by a form of the verb to be, a cleft constituent, and a complementizer, which introduces a relative clause that is attributed to the cleft phrase.[1] It-clefts introduce two meanings parts: (1) a presupposition that the property in the clause following the complementiser holds of some entity; and (ii) an assertion that this property holds of the entity denoted by the cleft constituent.[1]

• English it-cleft: It was John that Mary saw.[2]

In English, pseudo-clefts consist of an interrogative clause in subject position, and a focused element appears at the end of the sentence – this is followed by a form of the verb be.[3] For many speakers, pseudo-cleft construction is only possible with what (as opposed to who, where...).[3] Pseudo-clefts are tools for presenting and highlighting new information, serving as the building blocks of a coherent discourse progression, and a rhetorical toolkit to construct an authorial stance, being a grammatical resource for making evaluative meaning.[4]

• English wh-cleft/pseudo-cleft: What Mary bought was a first edition.[3]

In English, an inverted pseudo-cleft consists of the identical structure to pseudoclefting, however, the two strings around the verb be are inverted.[3] The focus element has been brought to the front of the sentence, and the clause is sentence final.[5]

• English reversed wh-cleft/inverted pseudo-cleft:

1. A Fiat is what he wanted to buy.[6]
2. Alice was who John was talking to.[3]

In English, all-cleft sentences are related to pseudo-clefts in which they are constructed with the subject of the sentence embedded in the phrase and expressed with the verb "to be".[7] Where pseudo-clefts begin with a wh-phrase (what, where, who), all-clefts begin with the use of the word "all".[7]

All Cleft sentence: "All they want is a holiday."

• English all-cleft:

1. All he wanted to buy was a Fiat.[8]
2. All they want is a holiday.[7]

In English, inferential clefts involve a subordinate clause that is embedded as a complement of the verb "to be", and the sentence begins with the subject "it".[9] Oftentimes, an inferential cleft will include an adverb such as only_, simply or just.[9] While they are analyzed in written text, data on inferential clefts are often found in spoken language and act as a subordinate clause of the subject they are inferring.[10]

• English inferential cleft:
  

  Inferential Cleft sentence: "It was just that it was raining."

1. It is not that he loves her. It's just that he has a way with her that is different.[8]
2. It was just that it was raining.[9]

Looking at existential sentences, in all languages, they are understood to belong to a grammatically distinct construction, which is utilized to express existential positions. Cleft-sentences in English contain existential sentences that have a dummy there as a subject, be as a main verb, and an NP in the post-verbal complement position. To elaborate, dummy there can be distinguished as an adverbial, pronoun, and subject. Likewise, be can be distinguished as a main verb, and may contain other intransitive verbs such as come, remain, exist, arise, and stand. Lastly, post-verbal NP depends on the discourse of the entity or entities that refer to the novel information it is expressing.[11]

There-Cleft sentence: "And then there's a new house he wanted to build."

• English dummy there-cleft:

1. There's nobody there.[11]
2. There seemed to be nothing he couldn't do.[11]

• English be there-cleft: There comes a stage when a player should move on.[11]
• English post-verbal NP there-cleft: There was George Talbot and there was Ted.[11]
• English there-cleft: And then there's a new house he wanted to build.[12]

If-Because Cleft sentence: "If he wants to be an actor it's because he wants to be famous."

Traditional accounts of cleft structures classify these according to the elements involved following English-centric analyses (such as wh-words, the pronoun it, the quantifier all, and so on). This makes it difficult to conduct cross-linguistic investigations of clefts since these elements do not exist in all other languages, which has led to a proposal for a revision of existing cleft taxonomy (see Calude 2009).

However, not all languages are so rich in cleft types as English, and some employ other means for focusing specific constituents, such as topicalization, word order changes, focusing particles and so on (see Miller 1996). Cleftability in Language (2009) by Cheng Luo presents a cross-linguistic discussion of cleftability.

• English if-because cleft: If he wants to be an actor it's because he wants to be famous.[8]

The shì...de construction in Mandarin is used to produce the equivalent of cleft sentences. However, in traditional grammar, shì...de clefts were seen as a construction with a function in reference to the construction as a whole. Both shì, the copula, and de can occur in other contexts that express information-structural categories, but they are sometimes hard to distinguish from shì...de clefts.[16] In addition, certain constructions with relative clauses have been referred to as "pseudo-cleft" constructions. See Chinese grammar § Cleft sentences for details.

Mandarin Cleft sentence (ex.1): "Zhāngsān shì zuótiān lái-de."

Examples:[16]

There exist several constructions which play the role of cleft sentences. A very common resource is the adding of "es que" (time-dependent). Similar to English cleft sentences, time-dependent cleft constructions in Spanish also share a temporal relationship between the verb of the relative clause and the copula.[17]

From uncleft ¿Adónde fuiste?

Another mechanism is the use of the identificating structure, or relative pronouns, "el/la que", "el/la cual" as well as the neuters: "lo que" and "lo cual". This form of cleft construction highlights an importance between the entity and the number and gender of said entity that is uttered in a cleft sentence.[17]

Spanish Cleft sentence (ex.3): "El que va es Juan."

Possible uncleft variants: No quiero ir, Ir no quiero

Furthermore, one can also utilize "cuando" and "donde" when one wants to refer to "that" in a frame of time or place.

"Fue en Londres donde nací" (It was in London that I was born), possible uncleft variants Nací en Londres

In French, when a cleft is used to reply to a wh-question, it can either appear in a complete form: Matrix 'C'est XP' + relative clause 'que/qui YP' or in a reduced one, Matrix 'C'est XP'.

Example:

• "C'est Jean que je cherche" (It's Jean whom I'm looking for)
• "C'est à Paris que j'habite" (It's in Paris where I live)

Example with Gloss:[18]

Cleft sentences are the most natural way to answer a wh-question in French.[18] For example, if one were to ask:

a.

French Cleft sentence (ex.b): "C'est Ella qui a mangé un biscuit."

It would be answered with the following it-cleft:

b.

The X no wa (ga) construction in Japanese is frequently used to produce the equivalent of cleft sentences. In addition, a gap precedes its filler in both subject cleft (SC) constructions and object cleft (OC) constructions. Japanese speakers have reported that there is an object gap preference in Japanese cleft constructions due to temporal structural ambiguities in subject clefts.[19]

Example:[20]

Japanese Cleft sentence (ex.1): "Watashi-tachi ga sagashite iru no wa Joey da." – Adapted from Hiraiwa & Ishiwara (2012)

Example of a subject cleft construction:[19]

Example of an object cleft construction:[19]

The construction is frequent in the Goidelic languages (Scottish Gaelic, Irish, and Manx), much more so than in English, and can be used in ways that would be ambiguous or ungrammatical in English: almost any element of a sentence can be clefted. This sometimes carries over into the local varieties of English (Highland English, Lowland Scots, Scottish English, Hiberno-English).

The following examples from Scottish Gaelic are based on the sentence "Chuala Iain an ceòl a-raoir", "Iain heard the music last night":

• ’S e Iain a chuala an ceòl a-raoir ("It's Iain who heard the music last night" e.g. as opposed to Mary)
• ’S e an ceòl a chuala Iain a-raoir ("It's the music that Iain heard last night" e.g. as opposed to the speech)
• ’S ann a-raoir a chuala Iain an ceòl ("It's last night that Iain heard the music" e.g. as opposed to last week)
• ’S ann a chuala Iain an ceòl a-raoir ("It's heard that Iain the music last night" e.g. as opposed to making the music)

Tagalog Cleft sentence (ex.1): "Ang babae and bumili ng bahay."

Cleft sentences are copula constructions in which the focused element serves as the predicate of the sentence.

In the examples in (1) and (2), the foci are in bold. The remaining portions of the cleft sentences in (1) and (2) are noun phrases that contain headless relative clauses. (NB: Tagalog does not have an overt copula.)

This construction is also used for WH-questions in Tagalog, when the WH-word used in the question is either sino "who" or ano "what", as illustrated in (3) and (4).