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<div>Here's a summary of the replies to my query regarding clefts and
related constructions. Thank-you Bob Borsley, Eun-Jung Yoo, Anna
Feldman, Gosse Bouma, Mary Dalrymple, Ash Asudeh, and Lyne Da Sylva,
for your responses. </div>
<div><br></div>
<div>--Steve</div>
<div>--------------</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Yoo, Eun-Jung. 2003. Specificational psuedoclefts in English.
In<i> Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on HPSG</i>,
397-416. CSLI Publications.</div>
<div>http://csli-publications.stanford.edu/HPSG/4/yoo.pdf</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Yoo, Eun-Jung. 2005. Pseudocleft Sentences in English,<i> Korean
Journal of Linguistics</i> 30.1, 115-147.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Yoo, Eun-Jung. 2006. Connectivity Effects and Questions as
Specificational Subjects.<i> Language and Information</i> 10.2, 21-45.
The Korean Society for Language and Information.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Daphna Heller 1999: The Syntax and Semantics of Specificational
Pseudoclefts in Hebrew. MA thesis, Tel Aviv
University
http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/dheller/download/HellerMA1999.pdf</div
>
<div><font size="+1"><br>
</font>L. van der Beek, 2003, <a
href="http://cslipublications.stanford.edu/LFG/8/lfg03-toc.html"><i
>The Dutch cleft constructions</i></a>, in Miriam Butt and Tracy
Holloway King (eds.), Proceedings of the LFG '03 Conference, CSLI
Publications.</div>
<div><a
href="http://cslipublications.stanford.edu/LFG/8/lfg03-toc.html"
>http://cslipublications.stanford.edu/LFG/8/lfg03-toc.html</a></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>See also chapter 2 of her dissertation (see <a
href="http://irs.ub.rug.nl/ppn/288277333"><font
size="+1">http://irs.ub.rug.nl/ppn/288277333</font></a><font
size="+1">)</font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>From the LFG Bib:</div>
<div><br>
@inproceedings{VanderBeek03,<br>
year = 2003,<br>
title = "The
Dutch it-cleft Constructions",<br>
author = "Leonoor van
der Beek",<br>
booktitle = "The Proceedings of the LFG
'03 Conference",<br>
address = "University at
Albany, State University of New York",<br>
url =<br>
<span
></span>
"http://csli-publications.stanford.edu/LFG/8/lfg03.html",<br
>
editor = "Miriam Butt
and Tracy Holloway King",<br>
}<br>
<br>
This paper also has some discussion of clefts:<br>
<br>
@inproceedings{Mohanan99,<br>
year = 1999,<br>
author = "Tara Mohanan and K P
Mohanan",<br>
title = "Two Forms of BE in
Malayalam",<br>
booktitle = "The Proceedings of the LFG
'99 Conference",<br>
address = "University of Manchester",<br>
url =<br>
<span
></span>
"http://csli-publications.stanford.edu/LFG/4/lfg99.html",<br
>
editor = "Miriam Butt and Tracy Holloway
King"<br>
}<br>
</div>
<div>There was a discussion of clefts on the LFG List a while ago,
e.g.:<br>
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0311&L=lfg&<span
></span>P=1086<br>
</div>
<div>Also, Kris Halvorsen's UT dissertation was on clefts, but I think
it was mainly</div>
<div>semantics, not syntax.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>---------------</div>
<div>From Lyne Da Sylva:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>My thesis in Computational Linguistics (finished in 1998)
examined, among other constructions in the grammar of French, the
syntax of clefts and pseudo-clefts (clivées et pseudo-clivées). It
is available (in French only) at the following address :</div>
<div>http://www.theses.umontreal.ca/theses/pilote/dasylva/these.pdf</div
>
<div><br></div>
<div>---------------</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>From: Bob Borsley:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Your Indonesian example looks a bit like Welsh clefts, which are
of interest to me. Here is an example:</div>
<div><br>
Dillad a bryniais i<br>
clothes PRT bought I<br>
"It was the clothes that I bought."<br>
<br>
I have glossed 'a' as PART but it occurs in relative clauses and so
could be gossed as REL. One reason these are of interest to me is that
you get certain person mismatches. The following is a relevant
example:<br>
<br>
Fi mae Gwyn wedi 'i ddewis/*fy newis.<br>
I is Gwyn PERF 3SGM choose 1SG choose<br>
'It's me that Gwyn has chosen.'<br>
<br>
When there is a gap following a non-finite verb the verb is preceded
by an agreeing clitic. The important point is that the clitic here is
third person singular masculine and not first person singular. This
suggests to me that the initial constituent is not a filler but one
term of a hidden dentity predication. Here is a related sentence in
which the identity predication is explicit:<br>
<br>
Fi ydy 'r un mae Gwyn wedi 'i
ddewis<br>
I is the one is Gwyn PERF 3SGM
choose</div>
<div>'The one that Gwyn has chosen is me.'</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>---------------</div>
<div>From Ash Asudeh:</div>
<div><br>
Irish has clefts like the Indonesian one below. McCloskey calls them
'reduced clefts'. I was tangentially interested in them for resumptive
pronouns, as in the following:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Teach<x-tab> </x-tab>beag<x-tab>
</x-tab>seascair<x-tab>
</x-tab>a-r<x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>mhair<x-tab> </x-tab>muid<x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>ann</div>
<div>house<x-tab> </x-tab>little<x-tab>
</x-tab>snug<x-tab>
</x-tab>COMP-PAST<x-tab>
</x-tab>lived<x-tab>
</x-tab>we<x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>in.it</div>
<div>'It was a snug little house that we lived in.'<br>
<br>
They're mentioned briefly with respect to resumptive pronouns in his
2002 paper in the Epstein and Seely volume (see e.g., example (11))
and also in his 1979 Kluwer (Foris?) book.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>---------------</div>
<div>From: Helge Dyvik:</div>
<div><br>
I cannot refer to a publication, but the analysis provided by our
Norwegian LFG grammar can be inspected in our web application
XLE-web:<br>
<br>
http://decentius.aksis.uib.no/logon/xle.xml<br>
<br>
(Your web browser needs SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) in order to
display the c-structure - there is a link to a free download in the
Documentation in case you need it.)<br>
<br>
An example sentence would be:<br>
<br>
Det var studentene som løste problemet.<br>
it was the-students who solved the-problem<br>
<br>
As you will see from the relevant analysis (the first one displayed),
we analyze the relative clause as a separate constituent of the
sentence, filling the role of topic (called GVN-TOP for 'given
topic'), while the predicative complement (PREDLINK) "studentene"
is also functioning as FOCUS. Thus, we see the construction as
grammaticalizing the topic and focus relations. The subject of
"løste" ('solved') is not identified as "studentene"
in the f-structure, but the identification is captured in our semantic
representation MRS (Minimal Recursion Semantics), which can also be
inspected.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>---------------</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<x-sigsep><pre>--
</pre></x-sigsep>
<div>Stephen Wechsler<br>
Associate Professor<br>
Linguistics Department, University of Texas<br>
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~wechsler/<br>
"Know your boundaries. Cross them."</div>
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