On the Syntax of the It-Cleft Construction: A Construction-based Perspective

( Jong Bok Kim ) 경희대학교 언어연구소 2012 언어연구 Vol.29 No.1

Kim, Jong-Bok 2012, On the Syntax of the It-Cleft Construction: A Construiction-based Perspective. Linguistic Research 29(l), 4548, The English it-cleft construction displays ambivalent structural properties: restrictive relative clause and non-relative clause properties. This paper reviews its main grammatical properties and then sketches a uniform analysis for different types of the construction. This direction departs from the traditional ternary analysis in which the copula takes two complements, focus and cleft clause. In this paper, we suggest that the copula be in the cleft, as in other canonical environments, projects a binary structure, forming a cleft construction, This way of viewing the it-cleft construction as forming an independent grammatical entity brings us several welcoming consequences.

All-cleft constructions in English: A corpus-based approach

Youn-Gyu Park,Jong-Bok Kim 한국영어학회 2023 영어학 Vol.23 No.-

The English all-cleft construction, consisting of an all-cleft clause with a gap, a copula and an element licensed in the post-copula position, displays a filler-gap dependency with connectivity effect. In addition, previous literature asserts, unlike the pseudo-clef, the all-cleft construction cannot be predicational, casting several analytical and empirical questions. Key research questions include if the construction is derived from derivational processes or base-generated, what grammatical properties distinguish the construction from the related cleft constructions, and so forth. To answer some of these research questions, we have performed a comprehensive corpus investigation. Based on our corpus data, we suggest a construction-based approach to the English all-cleft that can account for its syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties, while capturing its shared properties with related cleft constructions like the pseudo-cleft.

Revisiting Cleft(-like) Constructions in Korean

( Jung-min Jo ) 대한언어학회 2021 언어학 Vol.29 No.4

This paper examines two putative cleft constructions in Korean: Kes-construction and Ki-construction. Since both constructions denote the same truth-conditional meaning along with the similar information structure of topic and focus, it could be conjectured that similar morphosyntactic processes are responsible for deriving the two constructions. Park and Kim (2019) pursued this possibility and claimed that the two constructions are derived from distinct movement processes: Kes-construction from movement to clause-external topic and focus projections, and Ki-construction from movement to clause-internal topic and focus projections. In doing so, they claimed the existence of clause-internal topic and focus projections in Korean, independently of the clause-external topic and focus projections often posited in the analysis of Kes-construction in the literature. This paper closely examines the morphosyntactic and semantic properties of the two constructions and critically reviews Park and Kim’s claim. Providing a variety of empirical evidence, this paper refutes Park and Kim’s claim and shows that Ki-construction is not involved with any movement regarding topic and focus information structure and the topic information in Ki-construction is simply base-generated.

Syntactic and Semantic Parallels between All-cleft and The Only Thing Construction in English

전주현 한국현대영어영문학회 2024 현대영어영문학 Vol.68 No.2

This study demonstrates the syntactic and semantic similarities between all-cleft and the only thing construction in English, aiming to provide a comprehensive analysis of their properties. Through careful analysis, we highlight how each construction manipulates information and discourse structures for emphasis, topic introduction, and topicalized presupposition. Especially, this investigation observes distinct effects in terms of focus and scope, especially when emphasizing the verb phrase (VP) in what-cleft, all-cleft and the only thing constructions. Subsequently, we discuss the parallels between all-cleft and the only thing construction, aiming to determine whether they share syntactic and semantic similarities. Additionally, we revisit the assertion that the all-cleft is a subset of the wh-cleft, proposing a systematic examination of their underlying structures from a minimalist perspective. Hence, this study posits that the all-cleft and the only thing constructions are accomplished through DP topicalization rather than conventional clefting operation. Overall, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of all-cleft constructions in English.

구어에서 유의미하게 나타나는 어떤 통사구성에 대하여: 준분열문

최윤지 ( Choi Yoon-ji ) 국어학회 2016 국어학 Vol.79 No.-

자연발생 구어에서는 다소 비표준적인 성격을 가지지만 일정한 형식과 기능의 쌍으로 빈번히 사용되는 통사 구성들이 존재하는데, 그 중 준분열문이라고 할 수 있는 구성이 있다. 이는 분열문과 형식적․의미적으로 밀접히 관련된 구성으로, 중복 분열문과 열린 분열문의 두 유형으로 나뉜다. 이들은 분열문과 마찬가지로 주어인 ‘것’절에 결합하는 조사가 ‘이/가’인지 ‘은/는’인지에 따라 다른 정보구조를 가진다. ‘이/가’ 형의 경우 중복 분열문은 ‘것’절이 상대적 신정보를 나타내지 않지만 열린 분열문은 상대적 신정보이자 단언을 표현할 수 있다. 자연발생 구어 말뭉치에 기반해서 준분열문을 분열문과 비교하면, 준분열문은 ‘것’절의 후행부분의 길이가 길고, 출현 빈도가 더 높으며, ‘은/는’보다 ‘이/가’ 형이 많이 나타난다. 준분열문은 자연발생 구어 사용역의 일반적인 특성을 보이는데 중복 분열문은 통사 융합이고 열린 분열문은 구어의 통사 단위를 반영한다. 준분열문은 단순한 발화 오류가 아니며 자연발생 구어의 문법적 구성으로 볼 가능성이 있다. In spontaneously spoken language there often emerges non-standard but quasi-grammatical constructions which can be seen as certain pairings of form and meaning, among which we focus on Quasi-clefts in Korean. Quasi-clefts are similar to regular clefts in terms of meanings and functions, but show more or less differences in forms, according to which the constructions can be subdivided into Duplicative Quasi-clefts and Independent Quasi-clefts. Quasi-clefts have different information structures depending on the use of the different particles attached to the kes-clause, that is un/nun and i/ga, as in regular clefts. As for the constructions with i/ga, kes-clause in Duplicative types does not express relationally new information, while that in Independent types often represents not only relationally new information but even an assertive proposition. In comparison with regular clefts based on the analysis of the corpus comprised of spontaneously spoken language, Quasi-clefts are characterized by the following properties: the specifying value of the variable tends to be longer, the total frequency of use is higher, and i/ga rather than un/nun are preferred. Some features of Quasi-clefts can be explained in terms of the general properties of the spoken language: Duplicative types are a kind of syntactic blends and Independent types are seen as reflecting the different kinds of syntactic unit of spoken language in contrast with one of written language. Finally, Quasi-clefts are not a mere speech error but considered as a potential grammatical construction of the spontaneously spoken language.

Where does Pseudo-cleft Construction Come from in Taiwan Southern Min?

( Yan Chian Wang ) 한국언어정보학회 2007 학술대회 논문집 Vol.2007 No.-

In this paper, I use Taiwan Southern Min, a dialect of Mandarin Chinese, as the data to argue that pseudo-cleft construction is derived from cleft construction.

English there-clefts: A construction-based extraposition analysis

김종복 경희대학교 언어정보연구소 2022 언어연구 Vol.39 No.2

In addition to prototypical clefts (e.g., it-clefts), English also employs non-prototypical there-clefts (e.g., There is Sydney who wants to experience every good thing). This squib reviews key grammatical properties of there-clefts, referring to it-clefts. It also discusses the authentic data extracted from the corpus COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English). It then sketches a construction-based analysis in which the head copula verb in there-clefts is a lexical-class construction derived from the specificational copula. This specificational copula places a cleft clause in the extraposed position, together with assigning a focus value to its second argument. This analysis could pave a new way to license there-clefts in a systematic way.

On the Syntax of the It-Cleft Construction: A Construction-based Perspective

김종복 경희대학교 언어정보연구소 2012 언어연구 Vol.29 No.1

The English it-cleft construction displays ambivalent structural properties: restrictive relative clause and non-relative clause properties. This paper reviews its main grammatical properties and then sketches a uniform analysis for different types of the construction. This direction departs from the traditional ternary analysis in which the copula takes two complements, focus and cleft clause. In this paper, we suggest that the copula be in the cleft, as in other canonical environments, projects a binary structure, forming a cleft construction. This way of viewing the it-cleft construction as forming an independent grammatical entity brings us several welcoming consequences.

“것” 분열 구문에서의 “것”의 유정성

홍용철 한국생성문법학회 2017 생성문법연구 Vol.27 No.3

In Korean, kes, a [-animate] noun like thing, is known to be insensitive to animacy in kes cleft construction. On the other hand, kes cleft construction is a specificational copular clause; the suject kes clause introduces a variable, and the complement serves to provide a value for that variable. This squib claims (i) that kes in kes cleft construction functions as a variable requiring its value, (ii) that as a variable, its animacy feature is unspecified, and (iii) that its unspecified feature [animate] is compatible with predicates selecting [+animate]. So we can say that kes in kes cleft construction is actually sensitive to animacy contrary to its appearance. This apparent insensitivity takes place only in kes cleft construction because only this construction, which is a specificational clause, allows kes as a variable.

On the Derivational Ambiguity of Cleft Constructions in English

Lee, Chang-Su 한국중앙영어영문학회 2010 영어영문학연구 Vol.52 No.2

This paper argues that the extraposition account cannot be a proper option for the derivation of English clefts. This point is clarified by showing that the extraposition account cannot provide satisfactory explanations for the empirical problems involving the unavailability of predicational copular sentences for clefts, scope ambiguity facts, the behavior of idiom chunks, the wh-blocking phenomena, and VP-ellipsis. Inversely, these empirical problems suggest that the raising account is the proper option for the derivation of English clefts since they receive satisfactory explanations under the raising account. Although this reasoning is in line with Pinkham and Hankamer (1975), this paper does not agree with them on the following two points; the range of derivationally ambiguous clefts and another derivational option for them. Based on their finding on subextraction facts, they suggest that English DP-clefts may be derived by the way of the extraposition account or by the way of the raising analysis. But contra their suggestion, this paper claims that, besides DP-clefts, some instances of PP-clefts are also derivationally ambiguous. Additionally, this paper also argues that not the extraposition account but the (null) operator-movement account should be adopted as another viable option for the derivationally ambiguous English clefts.