Correction by Focus: Cleft Constructions and the Cross-Linguistic Variation in Phonological Form

A challenging issue of cross-linguistic variation is that the same syntactic construction may appear in different arrays of contexts depending on language. For instance, cleft constructions appear with contrastive focus in English, but in a larger array of contexts in French. A part of the cross-linguistic variation may be due to prosodic differences, since prosodic possibilities determine the array of focus structures that can be mapped onto one and the same syntactic configuration. In the present study, we compare languages with flexible nuclear-accent placement (English, German), with languages that do not use this prosodic strategy (French, Mandarin Chinese). In a speech production experiment, we examine the prosodic realization of contrastive focus and identify prosodic reflexes of focus in all languages. The presence of different phonetic reflexes of focus suggests that – anything else being equal – the same syntactic constructions should be possible in the same array of contexts. In an acceptability study with written questionnaires, we examined the felicity of cleft constructions in contexts licensing a focus within the cleft clause. This focus structure is orthogonal to the preferred focus structure of cleft constructions and can appear in cases of second-occurrence foci (in contexts of correction). The obtained judgments reveal a distinction between languages with flexible nuclear-accent placement (English, German) and languages with other types of reflexes of focus (French, Chinese): languages of the former type have an advantage in using cleft constructions with a focus within the cleft clause, which shows that the array of contexts of using clefts in English and German is not a proper subset of the array of contexts applying to the same constructions in French and Chinese. The obtained differences can be explained by the role of prosodic devices and corroborate the view that prosodic reflexes of focus have different semantic-pragmatic import: it is easier to establish a focus structure that is orthogonal to the syntax in a language with flexible nuclear-accent placement (English, German); this does not hold for prosodic correlates of focus that reinforce the articulation of prosodic constituents (French) or the articulation of lexical tones (Chinese).

Specification predication: Unexpectedness and cleft constructions in Tagalog

English exhibits a large number of cleft constructions. Out of these constructions, the English it-cleft construction, which may express more than one information-structural packaging (Declerck 1988), is often taken to translate syntactically rather different constructions in other languages. In this paper, I will explore the morphosyntactic make-up and functional range of a construction in Tagalog that is often equated with, or translated by, but vastly more frequent, than the English it-cleft in our corpus. In a first step, the notion of cleft construction will be reviewed and critically investigated with respect to how appropriate it is for a language like Tagalog. In a second step, the discourse function of the ang-inversion construction in contrast to the English cleft constructions is explored on the basis of examples taken from the Tagalog version of the trilogy The Hunger Games Trilogy (Collins, 2008-2010; translated into Tagalog by Janis de los Reyes, 2012). A crucial goal is to gain a better understanding of those cases, in which the Tagalog ang-construction is used, but the English cleft construction is ruled out or at least dispreferred.

A corpus-based description of cleft constructions in Persian

This paper presents a corpus-based description of cleft constructions in Persian showing that they display more diversity and complexity than currently described in the literature. Previous studies have only focused on constructions that echo one of the three main classes of clefts (IT-clefts, pseudoclefts and reversed pseudoclefts), and generally use Persian data in parallel to their English counterparts in order to contribute to the ongoing theoretical debates on the analysis of clefts. In order to achieve a more accurate picture of Persian clefts, we annotated and studied cleft and cleft-like sentences in a sample of about 550 relative clauses extracted from a journalistic corpus. Our study revealed new categories of cleft constructions that have not been reported previously; in particular, the lexically headed pseudoclefts whose usage is straightforwardly linked to the abundance of noun-verb light verb constructions in Persian. Moreover, we take issue with some claims made in prior work on the nature of the demonstrative in Persian IT-clefts based on empirical arguments.

Cleft constructions and focus strategies in Modern Armenian

Cleft constructions are one of the possible focus strategies available in Modern Armenian alongside prosody and specific syntactic constructions. Cleft constructions in Modern Armenian are biclausal constructions with a matrix clause and a relative-like clause, with an identificational clause as a matrix clause headed by a copula (in present or past), while in the relative-like clause introduced by the main subordinator, the relativized argument is coindexed with the argument of the copula. Though typologically cleft constructions are considered typical of languages with rigid word order, they are common in Modern Armenian, a language with flexible word order. It is argued that the intensity of focalization depends on the strategy used, with simple prosody marking associated with the lowest level of intensity, and preverbal position and clefts associated with intermediate and high-intensity focalization respectively. The corpus-based data show an unequal distribution of clefted pronouns as predicate clefts (impersonal with no agreement) and subject clefts (copular verb coindexed with personal pronouns as a subject) depending on the person and the polarity. The existence of cleft-like constructions in Classical Armenian and both Modern Armenian standards is argued to be evidence of diachronic continuity and a possible grammaticalization path from cleft constructions to the auxiliary movement focus strategy.

From a corpus-based to a corpus-driven definition of clefts in Kabyle (Berber): Morphosyntax and prosody

Prosody is often conceived of as an important but surface realization of morphosyntactic constructions that are otherwise deemed complete. This paper challenges that view of prosody as a disambiguating, highlighting or scope-marking device, and provides evidence for the inclusion of prosody as a core formal means for the coding of cleft constructions in Kabyle, in interaction with morphosyntax. The demonstration is conducted through the recursive analysis of an annotated corpus of spontaneous data, and results in a precise formal definition of Kabyle clefts constructions, whose function is shown to be the marking of narrow focus.

An unusual cleft construction in Lakhota (Siouan, North America)

This paper investigates a construction in Lakhota (Siouan, North America) to ascertain whether it has the properties of a cleft construction. The construction in question is marked by čha, a word-form that has numerous functions in the grammar. It is shown that the čha-construction in question has the properties of a cleft construction, even though the distribution of the focussed and presupposed material is the opposite of that in the usual cleft constructions. It is suggested that it is an inverted cleft construction.

Remarks on the grammaticalization of identificational clefts

Identificational clefts dissociate the assertion of the exclusive identification of a participant in an event from the rest of the information about the event. In all languages, this can be achieved by combining equative predication and participant nominalization, but in the evolution of languages, the routinization of such a construction as the usual way of expressing participant focalization may result in its grammaticalization as a specific type of construction. After proposing to reformulate the usual distinction between ‘pseudo-clefts’ and ‘clefts’ as a distinction between ‘plain clefts’ and ‘grammaticalized clefts’, this article discusses successively the relationship between cleft constructions and the notion of subordination, the changes that may convert plain clefts into grammaticalized clefts, the emergence of focus markers from cleft constructions, semantic aspects of the evolution of clefts, and the trend towards monoclausality in the evolution of clefts.

The syntax and prosody of focus in Northern Amis (Formosan)

This article outlines the strategies for expressing focus in Northern Amis (Formosan). Three types of focus constructions are examined: cleft constructions, focus markers and emphatic lengthening. Focus by clefting is subject to the well-known nominative-only constraint on extraction and relativization found in Formosan and Philippine type languages (Keenan & Comrie 1977), such that a clefted constituent must be the syntactic pivot of the verb in the relative clause containing the presupposition, and its semantic role is co-indexed by the appropriate voice marker on the verb. The other strategies of focus marking do not involve any syntactic restructuring; the focus markers determine the focus domain by their placement on the right side of the focus, while emphatic lengthening is merely a prosodic device locally marking the focused entity. The prosodic examination of these constructions reveals that narrow focus is signaled by a sharp rise, that is aligned with the onset of the stressed syllable of the focus and is optionally accompanied by postfocal de-accenting. These prosodic properties apply to all focus constructions.