The pragmatics of it-clefts and WH-clefts

Negotiating identity

“…Furthermore, by asserting one specific item in preference to all other possible candidates that might satisfy the variable, the wh-cleft implies a contrast between the value selected and the potential ones that are not. As has been noted earlier by Halliday (1967Halliday ( : 225, 1994, <LINK "her-r9"> Declerck (1984Declerck ( : 271, 1988Declerck ( : 25f., & 1994, Huddleston (1988: 462), Delin <LINK "her-r5"> <LINK "her-r12"> <LINK "her-r6"> (1990: 19f. ), M. Johansson (2002: 33) and Huddleston andPullum (2002: 1416) <LINK "her-r14"> <LINK "her-r12"> among others, the semantic function of specifying a value for a variable creates an exclusive and exhaustive implicature, i.e.…”

“…2 The relation of identity which is specified between the value and the variable is represented by the verb be. The semantic purpose of the wh-cleft is thus "to pick out the value that satisfies the definition in the variable" (Declerck 1984: 252, 1988: 3f. & 10, <LINK "her-r5"> 1994.…”

Cleft constructions in a contrastive perspective

“…Thus, in the first place, the main distinction to be made is between these two types of clefts. In a second step, a distinction is made between two types of Pseudo-clefts: Pseudo-clefts proper (or non-inverted, according to the characterization of Declerck 1984 andGeluykens 1988) and Reverse pseudo-clefts.⁴ The classic taxonomy of Cleft constructions is recalled in Figure 1. In both steps of the distinction, the decisive criteria are formal: Cleft sentences and Pseudo-cleft sentences are distinguished on the basis of the form that introduces the whole structure (it vs. what); in turn, the two types of pseudo-clefts are distinguished on the basis of the location of the wh-clause in the structure: it is found in initial and final position, respectively.⁵ These three subtypes of clefts differ on the basis of a number of other formal properties, such as the form that introduces the cleft clause (that vs. what), and the position of the cleft constituent (in medial, final and initial position in Cleft sentences, Pseudo-clefts proper and Reverse pseudo-clefts, respectively).⁶ In the following paragraphs, these 5 The element taken as a reference point in accounting for the linear order of Reverse pseudoclefts is not always the same.…”

(Pseudo)cleft constructions in old Romanian

“…Most of the studies are dedicated to the syntax of clefts (Akmajian, 1970;Gundel, 1977;Higgins, 1979;Boškovic, 1997;Iatridou & Varlokosta, 1998;Reeve, 2011Reeve, , 2012Hartmann & Tonjes, 2013;Hedberg, 2013), but also to their semantic and pragmatic properties (see Prince, 1981;Declerck, 1984Declerck, , 1988Halliday, 1985;Lambrecht, 2001). This paper focuses on the distinction in the current syntactic theory between clefts and pseudo-clefts.…”