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SUMMARY:Predication and specification in the syntax of cleft sentences - P
 rof. Marcel den Dikken\, The Graduate Center of The City University of New
  York
DTSTART:20091126T170000Z
DTEND:20091126T183000Z
UID:TALK20197@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Catherine Davies
DESCRIPTION:Predication and specification assert themselves in the syntax 
 of cleft sentences on a variety of planes. The\ndistinction between predic
 ational and specificational cleft sentences has been commonplace in the re
 alm of\npseudoclefts at least since Higgins’s seminal work\; it is less 
 familiar perhaps but equally significant in the\ndomain of 'it'-clefts (cf
 . esp. Declerck’s work). The examples in (1a\,b) and (2a\,b) illustrate 
 the two readings.\n\n(1) what John doesn’t eat is food for the dog\na. P
 REDICATIONAL — ‘the food items John doesn’t eat are fed to the dog
 ’\nb. SPECIFICATIONAL — ‘John doesn’t eat the following: food for 
 the dog’\n(2) it was an interesting meeting that I went to last night\na
 . PREDICATIONAL — ‘the meeting I went to last night was interesting’
 \nb. SPECIFICATIONAL — ‘I went to the following last night: an interes
 ting\nmeeting’\n\nPredication arguably underlies the syntax of both pred
 icational and specificational cleft sentences. In predicational (1a)\, 'fo
 od for the dog' is straightforwardly predicated of 'what John doesn’t ea
 t'\; in predicational (2a)\, 'an interesting meeting' is predicated of 'it
 '\, which here is used as a\nreferential pronoun. In specificational (1b)\
 , 'food for the dog' serves as the subject of the underlying predicate 'wh
 at John doesn’t eat'\; and likewise\,\nin specificational (2b)\, 'an int
 eresting meeting' is the subject of a small clause\, this time with 'it' b
 eing the predicate. In both (1b) and (2b)\, the\nunderlying predicate inve
 rts with its subject in the course of the derivation (à la Moro)\, forcin
 g the presence of a form of the copula in contexts in which\nthe copula is
  otherwise optional.\n\n(3) I consider what John doesn’t eat (to be) foo
 d for the dog\na. PREDICATIONAL — 'to be' is optional\nb. SPECIFICATIONA
 L — 'to be' is obligatory\n(4) I consider it (to be) an interesting subj
 ect that they are discussing\ntonight\na. PREDICATIONAL — 'to be' is opt
 ional\nb. SPECIFICATIONAL — 'to be' is obligatory\n\nThe gross syntax of
  predicational and specificational cleft sentences is taken care of by the
  above. But several questions remain. One is what the semantics of 'specif
 icationality' emanates from. Since specificational pseudoclefts are well k
 nown to oscillate in most cases between two alternative\nword orders ('wha
 t John doesn’t eat is food for the dog'\; 'food for the dog is what John
  doesn’t eat')\,\nit is unlikely that the semantics of 'specificationali
 ty' is uniquely the result of predicate raising to SpecIP. For specificati
 onal 'it' clefts\, this question does not arise in the case of English —
  because\, for reasons that remain to be properly understood\, English pre
 dicate-'it' must generally raise to the structural subject position\n(*'Jo
 hn was it who kissed Sue' contrasts sharply with 'it was John who kissed S
 ue'). But in languages like Dutch and German\, the counterpart of 'it' in\
 n'it' clefts can and sometimes must remain in situ\, with the semantics of
  'specificationality' arising nonetheless.\n\nIn addition to this fundamen
 tal question about the nature of 'specificationality'\, specificational 'i
 t' clefts also raise the question of how to integrate the wh-/'that' claus
 e into the structure. With the predicate and subject positions of the copu
 lar clause being taken by 'it' and the focused constituent\, respectively\
 , I argue in detail that the wh-/'that'-clause is a null-headed relative c
 lause in right-dislocated position — with the null-headed relative claus
 e and the material preceding it entertaining a relationship of asyndetic s
 pecification mediated\nby a functional head. The null head of the relative
  clause is shown to have to be formally licensed via a strict concord rela
 tionship with the relative operator\, and content-licensed via a strict co
 ncord relationship with the focused constituent. Both specificational 'it'
 -clefts and specificational pseudoclefts feature a null-headed relative cl
 ause. In 'it' clefts\, the null\nhead is radically empty (i.e.\, devoid of
  both phonological and semantic features)\, hence dependent for its licens
 ing on a concord relation with the relative operator and the focused XP.\n
LOCATION:GR05\, English Faculty\, 9 West Road (Sidgwick Site)
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