Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts: Redefining the Field of Clefts 303132269X, 9783031322693

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Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts Redefining the Field of Clefts Kristin Davidse Ngum Meyuhnsi Njende Gerard O‘Grady

Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts

Kristin Davidse · Ngum Meyuhnsi Njende · Gerard O’Grady

Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts Redefining the Field of Clefts

Kristin Davidse Linguistics Department KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium

Ngum Meyuhnsi Njende Linguistics Department KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium

Gerard O’Grady English, Communication and Philosophy Cardiff University Cardiff, UK

ISBN 978-3-031-32269-3 ISBN 978-3-031-32270-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32270-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Melisa Hasan This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

This study is the result of a long gestation process, during which we received support from various funding bodies and many people. For all this support we express our sincere gratitude. Core funding was granted by the FWO (Research Foundation Flanders) with the project G065116N “Putting specificational there-clefts on the map: a data-based study of their syntax, semantics, prosody and pragmatics” (promoters Kristin Davidse and Gerard O’Grady, researcher: Ngum Meyuhnsi Njende). Prior to this, foundational research had been made possible by the postdoctoral fellowship (2016–2017) which the research council of the University of Leuven granted to Ditte Kimps to study the prosody and information structure of it-clefts, there-clefts and have-clefts. Further support also came from the research grant “Beyond the clause: encoding and inference in clause combining” (C14/18/034) (promoter: Jean-Christophe Verstraete, copromoters: Bert Cornillie, Kristin Davidse and Elwys De Stefani), awarded by the research council of the University of Leuven. For many years, the issues dealt with in this study have been a topic of discussion with colleagues. For their valuable comments, we thank Holger Diessel, Gunther Kaltenböck, Ekkehard König and Margaret Winters as well as our Leuven colleagues Charlotte Bourgoin, Karen Lahousse and Lena Karssenberg. We also thank the Leuven students who wrote research papers about specificational and presentational clefts with all types of matrices, providing extensive data analyses. We are very grateful for the perceptive and helpful feedback of the two anonymous reviewers. We have v

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tried to follow their suggestions wherever possible. We take full responsibility for any errors or lack of clarity that remain. Finally, we thank Cathy Scott and Bhavya Rattan for smoothly helping along the publication process and we express our utmost gratitude to Melvin Lourdes for his patient and painstaking work on the proofs and index. Kristin Davidse Ngum Meyuhnsi Njende Gerard O’Grady

Contents

1

Introduction References

1 19

2

Natural Grammar References

23 30

3

Compilation and Prosodic Analysis of Data 3.1 Compilation of Dataset 3.2 Prosodic Analysis of the Data References

33 34 35 38

4

Existential there versus Demonstrative there References

41 47

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Paradigms of Relative Markers References

49 54

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Different Antecedent–Relative Clause Relations 6.1 Antecedent of Non-Restrictive Relative Clauses 6.2 Antecedents of Restrictive Relative Clauses Versus Relative Clauses in Clefts Introduction Restrictive Relative Clauses Versus Relative Clauses in It-Clefts

55 56 56 56 58

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Restrictive Relative Clauses Versus Relative Clauses in There-Clefts References 7

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Structural Assemblies and Semantics of the Four Existential Constructions with Relative Clause 7.1 Existential Clauses with Restrictive Relative Clause 7.2 Existential Clauses with Non-Restrictive Relative Clause 7.3 There-Clefts Lambrecht’s Structural Analysis of Presentational and Specificational There-Clefts as Secondary Predication Constructions General Differences Between Lambrecht’s and Our Structural Analysis of There-Clefts Specificational Clefts as Secondary Specification Constructions Presentational Clefts as Secondary Predication Constructions References Determiners of Existent NPs in the Four Existential Constructions with Relative Clause 8.1 Hypotheses About Determiner Distribution in the Existent NP Deriving from the Semantics of the Four Constructions 8.2 Determiner Distribution in Existent NPs: Results and Discussion References Prosodic Patterns in the Four Existential Constructions with Relative Clause 9.1 The Meaning of Intonation in English Grammar Prosodically Coded Information Structure Prosodically Coded Tactic Meanings 9.2 Hypothesized Prosodic Patterns in the Four Constructions

64 71 75 76 82 84

84 86 94 112 117 123

125 126 133 135 136 136 141 142

CONTENTS

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9.3

Results and Interpretation of Our Prosodic Study Prosodic Patterns Relating to Taxis Information Structure References

144 144 147 152

Conclusion References

155 167

References

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Index

181

List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 7.1 Fig. 7.2 Fig. 7.3 Fig. 7.4

Praat image of there was the girl behind me did that Internal dependency structure of NP with restrictive relative clause (RRC) (Langacker, 1991: 430–432) Structural assembly of existential clause with restrictive relative clause (RRC) Structural assembly of existential clause with appositional Non-Restrictive Relative Clause (NRRC) Structural assembly of existential clause with continuative non-restrictive relative clause (NRRC) Structural assembly of there-clefts

37 60 77 83 84 89

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 3.3 Table 5.1 Table 6.1 Table Table Table Table Table Table

7.1 8.1 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4

Table 9.5 Table 9.6 Table 10.1 Table 10.2 Table 10.3

Main semantic oppositions in field of cleft constructions Types of relative clauses in dataset Criteria for the identification of an intonation unit (Dehé & Braun, 2013: 137) Contexts sampled from London Lund Corpus Relative markers in the four types of relative clauses Form-meaning contrasts between restrictive (RRC) and cleft relative clauses (CRC) Subtypes of clefts Determiner types associated with antecedent NPs Prosodic integration of antecedent and relative clause Incidence of tone concord (TC) Focus placement in specificational there-clefts Focus placement in it-clefts (Bourgoin, O’Grady & Davidse 2021) Focal quantifiers in the four construction types Focus placement in presentational there-clefts Form-meaning contrasts between restrictive relative clauses (RRC) and relative clauses in clefts (CRC) Main semantic and pragmatic oppositions in field of cleft constructions Distribution of focus assignment over antecedent and relative clause in LLC-datasets

16 35 36 36 53 64 91 128 146 147 148 149 150 150 160 161 165

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Abstract Reference works on English tend to recognize only clefts introduced by it + be, which are viewed as focus marking constructions, with an assumption of form-meaning mismatch. On both empirical and theoretical grounds, we take issue with this view. In some spoken examples, there is no way of viewing the postverbal NP as a ‘focal phrase’. Moreover, our cognitive-functional approach assumes that form (grammar and prosody) symbolizes meaning naturally. We preview our claim that a whole field of cleft constructions has to be recognized. The matrices may contain, besides identifying be, existential be, have or an opaque verb. The main semantic opposition is between specificational and presentational clefts. With specificational clefts, speakers seek to match a role defined by the situation in the relative clause with a concrete value. With presentational clefts, speakers put an entity on stage on which a new situation is predicated by the relative clause. Keywords It-clefts · There-clefts · Have-clefts · Opaque verb-clefts · Specificational clefts · Presentational clefts

The focus of this study is on English clefts whose matrix has existential there as subject, which we will refer to as there-clefts. Whereas there is a long and extensive tradition of studies on clefts with it as subject, i.e. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Davidse et al., Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32270-9_1

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it-clefts, scant attention has been paid to there-clefts so far. Almost inexplicably, there are no comprehensive accounts of there-clefts in reference works on English (e.g. Aarts et al., 2019; Biber et al., 1999; Huddleston & Pullum, 2002; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014; Quirk et al., 1985). In more specialized studies, some observations about the form and meaning of there-clefts could be found (e.g. Collins, 1992; Davidse, 1999b; Davidse, 2000; Davidse & Kimps, 2016; Davidse & Njende, 2019; Halliday, 1967a; Hannay, 1985), but none of these discussions were comprehensive. The most important respect in which the literature on English there-clefts is non-comprehensive is revealed when we compare it with the literature on their French counterpart, il y a clefts. In this tradition (e.g. Jullien, 2007, 2008, 2014; Karssenberg, 2017, 2018; Lambrecht, 1986, 1988a, 1988b, 2001, 2002), two types of il y a clefts are distinguished: specificational ones, as in (1) and presentational ones, as in (2). (1) Y a moi qui fume, y a Marie-Paule, y a la jeune fille … There’s me, who smokes, there’s Marie Paule, there’s the girl … (Lambrecht 2002: 177) (2) Il y avait (une fois) une jeune fille qui fumait. There (once) was a girl who smoked. (Lambrecht, 2002: 177) Put simply (and in terms that we will refine and modify in this study), specificational il y a-clefts like (1) specify one or more values for the missing element in the presupposed open proposition (Lambrecht, 2001: 485): me, Marie-Paule, and the young girl are specified as values for the gap in ‘x smokes’. Lambrecht (2001: 497) characterizes such il y a-clefts as non-exhaustive specificational constructions because their postverbal NP “denote[s] one or more members of an open set” (ibid.) that fill the gap in the open proposition. Presentational il y a clefts like (2) introduce a whole event as new to the discourse, i.e. ‘a girl smoked’ (Lambrecht, 2001: 507). In the literature on English there-clefts, studies have tended to restrict themselves to either the specificational type (e.g. Davidse, 1999b; Davidse, 2000; Halliday, 1967a) or the presentational type (e.g. Collins, 1992; Huddleston, 1984). Our own more recent work (Davidse & Kimps, 2016; Davidse & Njende, 2019) offered a personal account of specificational there-clefts only, but we referred to Lambrecht’s (1988a, 2001) views on presentational there-clefts. Kaltenböck (2023) offers a

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corpus-based analysis of there-clefts with zero subject relativizer,1 paying equal attention to both types. In this study, we develop a comprehensive cognitive-functional account of specificational and presentational there-clefts. The descriptive account we will propose differs in important ways from the existing analyses in the French tradition. Two factors play a role in this: firstly, the specific theoretical tenets we assume, and secondly, the fact that we ground our account in detailed study of spoken data and their intonation. In terms of assumed theoretical tenets, almost all existing descriptions of clefts assume some kind of form-meaning mismatch. What this entails can be best explained with the extensively studied it-clefts. The dominant approach to it-clefts holds that their syntax codes information structural meaning, not propositional meaning (e.g. Akmajian [1973] 1979; Chomsky, 1971; Halliday, 1967a; Hedberg, 2000, 2013; Kiss, 1998; Lambrecht, 1994, 2001; Prince, 1978). More specifically, their bi-clausal syntax is assumed to unpack a simple proposition into an unambiguous focus–presupposition structure.2 For instance, in (3a), the postverbal complement, the inside, is said to be the ‘focal’ phrase, which according to Lambrecht (2001: 493) is “necessarily accented”. The relative clause contains the presupposition, which in (3a) is ‘x matters’. Because it is established as matter of current concern in the preceding discourse by ‘care about’, it is unaccented (Lambrecht, 2001: 469). However, Lambrecht (ibid.) notes that the relative clause may sometimes carry an accent, when the presupposition is insufficiently ‘ratified’ by the preceding discourse, as in (3b). Lambrecht marks accented words in capitals. (3) a. Nobody cares about envelopes. It is the INSIDE that matters. (Lambrecht, 2001: 480) b. Nobody keeps the envelopes. It is the INSIDE that MATTERS. (Lambrecht, 2001: 480)

1 The issue of the zero subject relativizer in there-clefts is touched on further down in this introduction. 2 The other—minority—view is that clefts code topic-comment or theme-rheme structure. For instance, according to Halliday (1967a: 238), the postverbal complement in clefts marks the theme.

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The syntactic form of it-clefts is claimed to convey purely information structural meaning “at the expense of semantic compositionality” (Lambrecht, 2001: 471–472), with the subject and predicator of the matrix devoid of any lexical meaning. Lambrecht calls this claim “unproblematic” (2001: 468) for be and for empty, or ‘expletive’, subjects like it and there. In this approach, a number of descriptive problems can be identified. A first set of problems is shown up by empirical spoken data for the claim that the postverbal NP codes argument focus and is necessarily accented. This cannot be maintained in the light of authentic spoken data such as (4) and (5), contexts extracted from the London Lund Corpus (Bourgoin, 2022).3 In the clefts, pitch accents are indicated by \ for a fall and / for a rise.4 (4) that’s Tony Dunn—Dunn down the line now—aiming for Best— or Aston—missed them both and it’s Derby that take up the c\ount (LLC) (5) because there’s not the same pressure on the material it’s the p\op material that counts (LLC) Examples like (4), in which the postverbal complement does not carry a pitch accent, are problematic for the claim that this constituent codes the necessarily accented information focus (Lambrecht, 2001: 46). In a number of more empirically-based articles, the existence of such counterexamples is acknowledged, but they tend to be accommodated within a mitigated information structure-marking view of clefts, recognizing more informational types, as in Collins (2006: 1710) and Hedberg (2013). An example like (5) more fundamentally undermines the idea that the postverbal NP and the relative clause code focus and presupposition. In (5), it is only the premodifier pop, not the whole postverbal NP, that is focal and the presupposition is ‘x material counts’, which extends 3 All examples of it-clefts from the LLC quoted in this study were extracted and prosodically analysed by Bourgoin (2022). 4 The compilation and prosodic analysis of the data is described in Chapter 3. Examples cited in this study were extracted with the proper licences. For corpus examples, we indicate the corpus from which they were taken with the following abbreviations: London Lund Corpus, as included in ICE-GB-2: LLC; WordbanksOnline: WB; Oxford English Dictionary: OED. For Internet examples we provide the url.

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beyond the syntactic constituent of the relative clause. This issue has received hardly any attention so far, even though Bourgoin & Davidse (forthc.) found that 9.2% of their LLC-dataset of it-clefts have this type of ‘selective’ focus (Velleman et al., 2012) on an element of the postverbal NP. Secondly, if the field of clefts is recognized to include there-clefts besides it-clefts, then the claim that their matrices are semantically empty loses plausibility. It is counterintuitive to reject any link between semantic features of the matrix of it-clefts and their generally recognized exhaustiveness implicature and between semantic features of the matrix of there-clefts and the absence of an exhaustiveness implicature. In fact, Lambrecht, in spite of his programmatically stated expletive position (2001: 468), notes elsewhere: The use of the “existential” subject there instead of it conveys the notion that among the things capable of specifying the value of the variable there “exists ” the one denoted by the FP [focal phrase]. […] in IT clefts, the FP denotatum is equated with the value of the variable. (Lambrecht, 2001: 505, italics ours)

These observations point in the direction of the position we will advocate, viz. that it-clefts have an identifying clause as matrix, and there-clefts an existential clause, which add their semantics to the representational meaning of the clefts. Our position that the matrices of it- and there-clefts are meaningful has to be understood within our main theoretical thesis about clefts. We will make the case that the lexicogrammatical structure of clefts does code representational meaning and does so largely compositionally. The information structural functions of focus and non-focus (defined differently by us than in the Lambrecht tradition) are also coded—not by grammatical structure, but by the diverse intonation patterns that are mapped onto the linear order5 of the speech signal. Clefts, we hold, are like any other 5 The cognitive-functional constructional tradition that our work is situated in has always insisted on the distinction between structure and linear order (see e.g. Halliday, 1961: 254–258; Langacker, 1991: 157). In this tradition, structure is understood to refer to syntagmatic relationships such as modification and complementation integrating component units into larger wholes (McGregor, 1997). The linear progression, or order, of elements is only the linear phonological or graphological manifestation of spoken or written communication (Halliday, 1961: 250–255). For further discussion see Chapter 2.

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construction in that they code representational meaning lexicogrammatically and signal information structure by the prosodic modulation of the linear speech signal. Certain focus-assignment patterns are common and distinctive of cleft usage, and may as such be entrenched as default informational patterns in speakers’ minds. But we reject the view that clefts are an exceptional construction expressing only information structure through form-meaning mismatch. The theoretical tenets within which we describe clefts like any other construction type will be outlined in Chapter 2. Assuming these tenets, we will develop an alternative description of clefts. As our account differs in important respects from the received description in the literature, discussed for examples (1) and (2) above, we preview it in this introduction and then set out our argumentation in the following chapters. This preview is necessary to avoid that our grammatical-semantic analyses of the component structures of clefts be read with the received assumptions that clefts are constructions dedicated to the expression of information structure. We start our preview with the specificational there-clefts in (6) and (7) and the presentational there-clefts in (8) as illustrations. (6) A: it‘s just one qu\estion that they have to do /isn‘t it B: well there were \/one or tw\o we‘ve got on th/ere (LLC) (7) he‘s been given special leave and will also attend some of the festivities during the next three days—there‘s quite a large party travelling in the royal train—there‘s the British su/ite that will be in att/endance on the royal g/uests—the Nepalese ambassador as well as the Duke of Kent and the Crown Prince (LLC) (8) there was an undergraduate who did absolutely no work at \all in his history sch\ools (LLC) We will make the case that specificational there-clefts like (6) and (7) are, like it-clefts (which are always specificational), secondary specification constructions and that presentational there-clefts like (8) are secondary predication constructions. The notion of ‘secondary predication’ constructions was introduced for examples like (9), in which the process described by the main verb, consider in (9), establishes a ‘secondary’ predicative relation between this text and a forgery.

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(9) We considered this text a forgery. (McGregor, 1997: 172) Verbs in secondary predication constructions are three-place verbs6 subcategorizing for two non-agentive elements which are construed as standing in a predicative relation to each other. In (9) the specific process of ‘considering’ involves a conscious agent, coded explicitly by the subject we, and it is this agent who is represented as predicating a forgery on this text (McGregor, 1997; Nichols, 1978). We propose that it-clefts, as in (4) and (5), and specificational thereclefts, as in (6) and (7), are secondary specification constructions. In a nutshell, this entails the following. Identifying and existential be are construed as three-place predicates, viz. as conveying cognitive states involving a secondary specificational relation between the postverbal complement and the relative clause. These cognitive states imply a cognitive act whose conceptualizer remains ‘offstage’ (Langacker, 2002: 9), but is invoked by the deictic centre that forms the reference point for the subject pronouns it and there (see Chapters 4 and 7). In support of the claim that the verbs of specificational clefts are threeplace predicates, we point out the possibility of coding the relative clause as a NP, as in (10a), yielding a variant that has the same basic structure as generally recognized constructions with ‘secondary’ relation like (9) We considered this text a forgery. Importantly, and in contrast with (9), the ‘secondary’ relation in (10a) is not predicative (i.e. between NPs with predicand and predicate role) but specificational (i.e. between NPs with value and variable role). The context of (10a) does not have Colin Farrell as the matter of current concern, of whom attributes are predicated. Rather, it is about identifying the current gay icon. For this abstract definition, i.e. the variable, Colin is specified as the concrete value corresponding to it. (10) a. Now it’s Colin the gay icon. 05 February 2005 […] Hollywood hell-raiser Colin Farrel has been named third sexiest man OF ALL TIME by a top gay magazine. The Dublin-born actor was beaten only by screen legends Marlon Brando and Paul Newman. (WB) b. Now it’s Colin who’s the gay icon. c. Now the gay icon is Colin. 6 When used in other construction types consider may have different meanings and be a two-place verb, e.g. He considered the possible disadvantages (WB), as pointed out by one of the referees.

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The notion of specification has been studied most for specificational copular clauses like (10c), in which specification is coded as the ‘primary’ relation by the copular verb. Following Austin’s ([1952–1953] 1970) semantic analysis of specificational copulars, we hold that they express a matching operation, seeking to identify the value(s) qualifying for the definition expressed by the variable (Davidse & Van Praet, 2019). We (Davidse & Kimps, 2016; Davidse & Njende, 2019) had posited the same matching semantics, i.e. looking for values corresponding to the criterial definition provided by the variable, for specificational clefts. In the itcleft in (10b) Colin is specified as the value qualifying for the variable “x who’s the gay icon”, with the identifying matrix triggering an implicature of exhaustive specification to the effect that Colin is now the only qualifying value. In the there-cleft in (7), there‘s the British suite that will be in attendance on the royal guests, the British suite is specified as qualifying for the variable “x that will be in attendance on the royal guests ” but no exhaustiveness implicature is triggered because the existential matrix enumerates a value, rather than identifying the value. In the there-cleft in (6) there were one or two we‘ve got on there, the existential matrix quantifies the entities corresponding to “x we‘ve got on there” as numbering one or two. Onto the specificational ‘matching’ semantics coded by the lexicogrammatical structure, speakers can map very diverse focus assignments marked by pitch accents. As we will see in Chapters 3 and 9, we view focus assignment as involving the speaker in making moment-by-moment, hearer-oriented choices regarding which parts of the unfolding speech signal to represent as focal and which as non-focal with a view to creating common ground and taking the communication forward (O’Grady & Bartlett, 2019). The earlier quoted examples (4)–(7) give a first idea of the diversity of focus assignments found in clefts: – (4) it’s Derby that take up the c\ount non-focal value NP + focus on last element of variable – (5) it’s the p\op material that counts selective focus on one element of value NP + no focus on variable – (6) A: it‘s just one qu\estion that they have to do focal value NP + no focus on variable

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B: there were \/one or tw\o we‘ve got on th/ere foci on quantifiers of value NP + focus on last element of variable – (7) there‘s the British su/ite that will be in att/endance on the royal g/uests focal value NP + foci on two elements of variable The great variety of focus assignments found in it- and there-clefts in the LLC-data will be interpreted and incorporated in our overall description of clefts. Presentational there-clefts as in (8) there was an undergraduate who did absolutely no work at all in his history schools, we analyse as secondary predication constructions. In them, existential be is a three-place predicate depicting ‘occurrence’ and establishing a secondary predicative relation between the postverbal complement and the relative clause. From the reference point invoked by there, a perspective is inferred within which the entity designated by the postverbal NP, an undergraduate in (8), is put on stage. On this entity, the relative clause predicates the situation referred to by the relative clause, who did absolutely no work at all in his history schools in (8). Presentational clefts thus first put the entity designated by the postverbal NP on the scene, and this entity is then related to the situation referred to by the relative clause. For presentational clefts, we likewise make a principled distinction between the representational meaning coded by their lexicogrammar, and the variety of information structural patterns that may be mapped onto it. This variety is greater than predicted by Lambrecht (2002), who ascribes purely information structural meaning to presentational clefts. He holds that their syntax marks the postverbal NP as a focus, which is hence necessarily accented, whilst the predicative relative clause contains its own focus. He illustrates this with the following invented example: (11) There is [a LINGUIST] [who wants to explain CLEFTS]. (Lambrecht, 2001: 507) We can note immediately that attested example (8), there was an undergraduate who did absolutely no work at \all in his history sch\ools, does not

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comply with this prediction as there is no pitch accent on the postverbal NP. This short preview of our account of specificational and presentational clefts is not exhaustive of either their semantics or their grammatical structure. It is meant simply to give a first idea of the new view on clefts that we propose in this study. We propose different representational semantics than posited in the mainstream because we assume these semantics are ‘naturally’ symbolized by the lexicogrammar. We will build up a “full structural description—characterizing the elements and connections at multiple levels—[which] is also a functional description” (Langacker, 2021: 9) in Chapters 4–8. Functional-structural analysis of there-clefts crucially involves disentangling the ambiguity between there-clefts and existential clauses followed by a relative clause. Non-awareness of this ambiguity leads to the collapsing of specificational and presentational there-clefts with simple existential clauses with restrictive (12) and non-restrictive relative clauses (13), as in Quirk et al. (1985: 1406–1408), who subsume these different constructions under the unitary description of a “type of existential sentence … which consists of there + be + noun phrase + relative clause” (ibid.). (12) they know that there \/are certain arguments which w/ork and certain arguments which w\on‘t work (LLC) (13) there were three en\ormous fires in the r/oom which if you were within t/en feet of them you s\inged (LLC) The precise units involved in the structural assembly at different levels, which code the different semantics of these four constructions, are not captured by the surface string “there + be + noun phrase + relative clause”. What more precise functional-structural description entails can be illustrated with Langacker’s (1991: 430–434) analysis of restrictive relative clauses. He points out that the antecedent of a restrictive relative clause is only the nominal head. This designates a type of entity, which the relative clause narrows down semantically. The head and its relative clause modifier together build composite type specifications, e.g. [arguments [which work]] versus [arguments [which won’t work]] in (12). This structure is then scoped over by the determiner, which in (12) is certain used

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in the sense of quantifier ‘some’.7 The NPs in (12) thus denote subsets of the superordinate set ‘arguments’. By contrast, a non-restrictive relative clause as in (13) has a full NP as antecedent, which refers to determined instances, e.g. the set three enormous fires. The relative marker of a nonrestrictive relative clause and its full NP antecedent, as in [three enormous fires], [which], denote identical sets. In specificational and presentational there-clefts, the relative clauses and their antecedents integrate with each other and into the overall structure in yet again different ways to code their specific representational semantics. The structural assembly of clefts cannot be analysed in terms of the features of restrictive or non-restrictive relative clauses. Nor can these features be used to develop grammatical recognition criteria for the relative clauses in clefts. By entering the debate via the hitherto largely undescribed specificational and presentational there-clefts, we give a new impetus to the study of the whole field of clefts. We thus break away from the near-exclusive focus on it-clefts that has hitherto dominated the study of clefts. The final step that we take in our new analysis of clefts is the proposal that the structural assemblies and general semantics of specificational and presentational clefts characterize even more types than it-clefts and there-clefts. In fact, there has been some recognition in the literature of a third type, viz. have-clefts, which, like there-clefts, have both a specificational subtype (Davidse, 2000; Jullien, 2014; Karssenberg, 2018; Lambrecht, 2001) and a presentational subtype (Lambrecht, 1986, 1988a, b, 2002; Karssenberg, 2018). In Lambrecht (2001) we find constructed examples of respectively specificational have-clefts (14) and presentational have-clefts (15). (14) District attorney to potential juror in the trial of a black man. A: Do you think you might have any bias that would prevent you from reaching a finding of not guilty, given that the defendant is a black man. B: Why no. I have [my NEIGHBOUR] (who’s black). (Lambrecht, 2001:505–506)

7 This is the meaning of some glossed in the Oxford English Dictionary, under 1.c. With plural n., often (like some) referring to number.

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(15) presentational HAVE cleft J’al mon PIED qui me fait MAL. (Lambrecht, 2001: 487) “I’ve my foot that hurts”. The occurrence of the two types in spontaneous dialogue can be illustrated with attested examples (16) and (17). (16) A: you have a member of staff working for each department? B: Well I ’ve got erm as I say John Ø does the presses. […] I’ve got Brian Ø looks after machine shop polishing. (WB) (17) A: It’s a big house isn’t it. B: Four bedrooms. A: Is that ‘cos you’ve got such a big family is that why you needed it? B: I’ve got one sister that’s married Ø just had a little boy. I’ve got one sister Ø is getting married next year. I had a brother Ø left two years ago. I had a sister Ø just left. (WB) B’s utterance in (16) contains two specificational have-clefts. In reaction to the question whether B has a member of staff working for each department, B specifies the value John as qualifying for the variable “x does the presses ” and the value Brian as qualifying for the variable “x looks after machine stop polishing ”. Whereas specificational it- and there-clefts imply a cognitive agent specifying values for the variable, this cognitive agent is expressed by the main clause subject in have-clefts such as I in (16). The presentational have-clefts in (17) occur in a context in which A brings up B’s big family. B answers with four presentational have-clefts, each of which introduces a different sibling, and predicates new information about them. Again, whereas the perspective from which the new event is introduced is implied in presentational there-clefts, it is made explicit by the subject of have-clefts, I in (17). The have-clefts in (16) and (17) are striking in that they all feature the zero relative marker (symbolized by Ø) for elements with subject function in their relative clauses. The zero subject relative is generally accepted as a recognition criterion of relative clauses in it-clefts, like (18) (e.g. Collins, 1991: 52; Huddleston, 1971: 324; Quirk et al., 1985: 1387).

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(18) now where did I hear that from … may have been Ivor B\ond Ø told me (LLC) In restrictive relative clauses, the zero relative marker is not possible for the subject function, as shown by the ungrammaticality of *there \/are certain arguments Ø w/ork and certain arguments Ø w\on‘t work (12). We found in our data that the zero subject relative is also attested in specificational there-clefts, as illustrated by (19). (19) there was not one of them th\ere Ø could j\ustify the disp\arity between the way Britain‘s being tr\eated and the tr\eatment of the members of the S\ix (LLC) In English presentational there-clefts, as in (20), the zero relative with subject function has been pointed out as a distinctive feature by Huddleston (1984) and Collins (1992).8 (20) there were three little bl\ack boys Ø were g\oing along (LLC) Generalizing from these observations about it-clefts, there-clefts and haveclefts, we can conclude that the subject zero relative is a distinctive feature of English clefts, both specificational and presentational ones. When we discuss the subject zero relative in more detail in Chapter 5, we will comment on its occurrence in the main varieties of English, but we can already note here that it is less marginal than is sometimes assumed. The subject zero relative marker provides us with a link to the fourth subtype which, we argue, has to be added to the field of clefts, viz. clefts

8 Huddleston (1984) and Collins (1992) recognize the existence of presentational, but not of specificational, there-clefts. Collins (1992: 432) claims that the meaning of both (i) and (ii) is to present the postverbal NP and its ‘extension’ as new information. Intriguingly, Collins (1992: 428) observes that (ii) is a possible answer to Who’s helping you with your eyes? However, he does not draw the conclusion that, on this reading, it contains a presupposed open proposition for which a value, Dr. Smith, is specified. This makes (ii) a specificational there-cleft on our analysis.

(i) There was an old man got injured here yesterday. (Collins, 1992: 425) (ii) There’s Dr Smith helping me with my eyes. (Collins, 1992: 428)

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with verbs like know, look for, want, meet, etc., as illustrated in (21)–(24) which all feature the zero subject relative marker. (21) I’m looking for somebody Ø can speak Irish well. (Doherty, 1993: 157) (22) We want someone Ø knows John. (Doherty, 1993: 160) (23) I know a man Ø lives in St. Louis. (Elgin & Haden, 1991: 9) (24) I met a man Ø can speak five languages (Henry, 1995: 125) In the literature, examples like (21)–(24) have been studied under the heading of subject ‘contact’ relative clauses in constructions with opaque verbs (e.g. Doherty, 1993). Opaque verbs are traditionally defined as verbs able to take complements with either specific or non-specific reference. Complements with specific reference are illustrated with the proper names Clooney in (25a) and Adrian in (26a). Complements with nonspecific reference designate an ‘arbitrary’ member of the type described by the head noun and lacking a presupposition of existence (Zimmermann, 2006), like the indefinite NPs a Tory in (25b) and a boyfriend (26b). (25) a. 17 August 2001. The on–off girlfriend of movie hunk George Clooney is set to interview him for the Beeb on her OWN chat show. […] BBC chiefs want Clooney, 40, to be among the MTV babe’s guests. (WB) b. 20 September 2001. New BBC boss Gavyn Davies wants a Tory as his deputy, it emerged last night. The PM’s Labour-voting millionaire pal has been stung by Tory claims that the Beeb is now run by “Tony’s cronies”. (WB) (26) a. Vicky […] met Adrian soon after he returned from the exotic TV game show. (WB) b. Then you can get out and about with your friends and have a chance to meet a boyfriend. (WB) In other words, the semantic structure of opaque verbs motivates two types of non-agentive complement. Importantly, these two types of nonagentive complement can co-occur in one sentence. This, we argue, is the case in examples like (21)–(24), in which the opaque verbs function as three-place predicates. We analyse examples like (22) and (21) I’m looking for somebody Ø can speak Irish well as specificational clefts, and

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examples like (23) and (24) I met a man Ø can speak five languages as presentational clefts. We cannot yet give the full argumentation for this analysis here, but, to create some common ground with the reader for this perhaps surprising analysis, we indicate its main points. In specificational clefts, we find threeplace opaque verbs like look for (21) and want (22). Such verbs have the crucial semantic components of a cognitive agent looking for an entity matching (Austin, [1952–1953] 1970) the semantic gap in the situation construed definitionally (Donnellan, 1966) by the relative clause. That is, the relative clauses function as variables, “x Ø can speak Irish well” (21) and “x Ø knows John” (22), and the postverbal complements as the values qualifying for the variables. The meaning of the variable can be thought of as the role defined by the relative clause situation for its semantic gap. If the variable is expressed by a NP, as in (10a) Now it’s Colin the gay icon, this NP expresses the role the value is matched with. In (21) and (22), the value NPs somebody and someone have indefinite non-specific reference, as these particular examples describe the search for, not the finding of, matching values. The relative clause realizes weak reference to a situation conceived of definitionally, as is particularly clear when the value is negatively quantified, as in (27). (27) I found nobody Ø can speak Irish well. (cf. Doherty, 1993: 156) In presentational clefts, the opaque verbs explicitly describe the cognitive state or process from whose perspective a new event is introduced in the discourse. In (23) I know a man Ø lives in St. Louis this is the speaker’s knowledge state, whilst in (24) I met a man Ø can speak five languages it is the cognitive encounter in which the speaker was involved. In both (23) and (24), the postverbal NP a man introduces a specific referent into the discourse. The relative clause does not have weak reference to a situation lacking an argument, but rather refers to a real situation. For instance, the man introduced in (23) does live in St. Louis. We have thus arrived at a survey of the whole field of clefts, which looks quite different from the mainstream view in which clefts are restricted to it-clefts. In this traditional view, it-clefts are sui generis (Huddleston, 1984: 462): their component structures, e.g. their matrices and antecedent–relative clause structures, do not function as they do in other constructions, but can only be derived transformationally. The alleged

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transformation is the information structurally motivated ‘cleavage’ of a simple proposition into a bi-clausal structure. The term ‘cleft’ testifies to the transformational origin of the mainstream view. The term is less than felicitous for the whole set of constructions that we are considering, which are more appropriately labeled secondary specification constructions and secondary predication constructions. The latter terms are also more in line with our position that all these constructions, including it-clefts, do not serve as counterexample to the principle of a natural coding relation between grammar and meaning. However, so as not to lose touch with the existing debate, it seems that at this stage there is nothing for it but to continue using the term ‘clefts’. On our view, the field of clefts is defined by two main (coded) semantic oppositions: (i) The matching of value to variable (secondary specification) versus the presentation of an entity and a situation it is involved in (secondary predication), (ii) The impersonal versus personal construal of the matching or presentation. In it- and there-clefts, the conceptualizer involved in the matching or presentation operation remains offstage in the coding. Have- and opaque verb-clefts overtly represent the conceptual agent doing the matching or the on-the-scene-setting. Table 1.1 classifies the subtypes of clefts in terms of these parameters. Table 1.1 Main semantic oppositions in field of cleft constructions

Impersonal construal

Personal construal

Matching

Presentation

It-clefts (18) It was Ivor Bond Ø told me Specificational there-clefts (19) There was not one of them Ø could justify the disparity Specificational have-clefts (16) I’ve got John Ø does the presses

–

Specificational opaque verb-clefts (21) I’m looking for somebody Ø can speak Irish well

Presentational there-clefts (20) There were three boys Ø were going along Presentational have-clefts (17) I’ve got one sister Ø just had a little boy Presentational opaque verb-clefts (23) I know a man Ø lives in Saint Louis

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By putting the neglected specificational and presentational there-clefts on the map within our specific theoretical tenets, we also redefine the whole field of clefts. Whilst we will offer arguments for this redefinition of the field of clefts, our main focus remains on specificational and presentational there-clefts and providing a closely argued and empirically grounded description of them. The development of our account of specificational and presentational there-clefts will be structured as follows. In Chapter 2, we outline the theoretical tenets of a ‘natural’ grammar in more detail, in particular with regard to the type of argumentation and descriptive heuristics they motivate. In Chapter 3, we describe the spoken data from the London Lund Corpus of Spoken English in which our description of there-clefts is grounded. Netting potential instances of there-clefts required extracting all tokens of the surface string “there + be + NP (+ overt relative marker) + finite relative clause”. As we explained on the basis of examples such as (6), (12), (13) and (20) above, under this identical surface there lurk four different constructions with different structural assemblies: – specificational there-cleft, e.g. (6) there were \/one or tw\o we’ve got on th/ere – presentational there-cleft, e.g. (20) there were three little bl\ack boys Ø were g\oing along – existential clause with NP-internal restrictive relative clause, e.g. (12) there \/are certain arguments which w/ork and certain arguments which w\on‘t work – existential clause followed by non-restrictive relative clause, e.g. (13) there were three en\ormous fires in the r/oom which if you were within t/en feet of them you s\inged In Chapters 4–8, we thrash out a close analysis of the distinct semantics coded by the different structural assemblies of the four constructions. We thus lay out the grammatical and semantic recognition criteria—the two always go together—that can be used to distinguish specificational and presentational there-clefts from existential clauses with restrictive or non-restrictive relative clauses. In Chapter 4, we address the difference between existential there versus demonstrative there and develop a grammatical-semantic description of existential there, located in the tradition of Bolinger (1973) and Langacker (1991), who have always viewed

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existential there as a meaningful element. In Chapter 5, we describe the different paradigms of relative markers found in the four construction types, including the possible realization by zero subject relative markers in English clefts. In Chapter 6, we identify and describe the different antecedent–relative clause relations found in the four constructions. We have already touched on this issue for restrictive versus non-restrictive relative clauses in the context of examples (12) and (13) above. We will reveal the ways in which relative clauses in clefts are fundamentally different—structurally and semantically—from restrictive and nonrestrictive relative clauses. Particular attention will go to the way in which the meaning computed for quantified antecedent NPs and their relative clauses in specificational clefts like (6) there were \/one or tw\o we’ve got on th/ere differs from that of quantified NPs containing restrictive relative clauses as in (12) there \/are certain arguments which w/ork and certain arguments which w\on‘t work. Chapter 7 addresses the different structural integration of antecedent and relative clause into the larger structures of the four constructions. It is also in this chapter that we relate specificational and presentational there-clefts to the other subtypes of specificational and presentational clefts visualized in Table 1.1 above. We will argue that this broad view of specificational and presentational clefts is justified by their identical structural assemblies and comparable general semantics. In Chapter 8, the proposed semantics of the four constructions form the basis from which we derive hypotheses about selection restrictions on, and quantitative tendencies of, the determiners in the postverbal NPs. We verify these predictions in qualitative and quantitative corpus study of our dataset. Having shown that the lexicogrammar of specificational and presentational there-clefts compositionally codes representational—not information-structural—meaning, we turn to the meanings encoded by the prosody of the four constructions in Chapter 9. We first examine to what extent tone units and tones mark the different para- and hypotactic relations between existential and relative clause in the four constructions. We then turn to our main interest, the information structural patterns coded by the tone units and pitch accents of the four constructions. We will confront our empirical findings with claims made about tone and accent in the four constructions in the literature. In the concluding chapter, we summarize our proposals and findings. We indicate the relevance of our study to the field and suggest paths for further research.

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References Aarts, B., Bowie, J., & Popova, G. (2019). The Oxford handbook of English grammar. Oxford University Press. Akmajian, A. ([1973] 1979). Aspects of the grammar of focus in English. PhD thesis, MIT. Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Longman. Bolinger, D. (1973). Ambient it is meaningful too! Journal of Linguistics, 9(2), 261–270. Bourgoin, C. (2022). A corpus-based study of the prosody and information structure of English it-clefts and French c’est-clefts [Ph.D. thesis. Linguistics Department, University of Leuven]. Bourgoin, C., & Davidse, K. (forthc.). Making the case for distinguishing information structure from specification in English it-clefts. In C. Bonan & A. Ledgeway (Eds.), It-clefts: Empirical and theoretical surveys and advances. De Gruyter Mouton. Chomsky, N. (1971). Deep structure, surface structure, and semantic interpretation. In D. D. Steinberg & L. A Jacobovits (Eds.), Semantics (pp. 183–216). Cambridge University Press. Collins, P. (1991). Cleft and pseudo-cleft constructions in English. Routledge. Collins, P. (1992). Cleft existentials in English. Language Sciences, 14, 419–433. Collins, P. (2006). It-clefts and wh-clefts: Prosody and pragmatics. Journal of Pragmatics, 38, 1706–1720. Davidse, K. (1999b). Are there sentences that can be analyzed as there-clefts? In G. Tops (Ed.), Thinking English grammar: To honour Xavier Dekeyser, Professor Emeritus (pp. 177–193). Peeters. Davidse, K. (2000). A constructional approach to clefts. Linguistics, 38(6), 1101–1131. Davidse, K., & Kimps, D. (2016). Specificational there-clefts: Functional structure and information structure. English Text Construction, 9(1), 115–142. Davidse, K., & Njende, N. (2019). Enumerative there-clauses and there-clefts: Specification and information structure. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, 51(2), 160–191. Davidse, K., & Van Praet, W. (2019). Rethinking predicative clauses with indefinite predicate and specificational clauses with indefinite variable: A cognitive-functional account. Leuven Working Papers in Linguistics, 6(38). Doherty, C. (1993). The syntax of subject contact relatives. In K. Beals et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 29th Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 55–65. University of Chicago Press. Donnellan, K. (1966). Reference and definite descriptions. Philosophical Review, 75(3), 281–304.

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Elgin, S., & Haden, R. (1991). A celebration of Ozark English: A collection of articles from the Lonesome Node–1980 to 1990. OCLS Press. Halliday, M. A. K. (1961). Categories of the theory of grammar. Word, 17 (3), 242–292. Halliday, M. A. K. (1967a). Notes on transitivity and theme in English: Part 2. Journal of Linguistics, 3(2), 199–244. Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. (2014). Halliday’s introduction to Functional Grammar (4th ed.). Arnold. Hannay, M. (1985). English existentials in Functional Grammar. Foris. Hedberg, N. (2000). The referential status of clefts. Language, 76(4), 891–920. Hedberg, N. (2013). Multiple focus and cleft sentences. In K. Hartmann & T. Veenstra (Eds.), Cleft structures (pp. 227–250). John Benjamins. Henry, A. (1995). Belfast English and Standard English: Dialect variation and parameter setting. Oxford University Press. Huddleston, R. (1971). The sentence in written English: A syntactic study based on an analysis of scientific texts. Cambridge University Press. Huddleston, R. (1984). Introduction to the grammar of English. Cambridge University Press. Huddleston, R., & Pullum, G. (2002). The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge University Press. Jullien, S. (2007). Prosodic, syntactic and semantico-pragmatic parameters as clues for projection: The case of “il y a.” Nouveaux Cahiers de Linguistique Française, 28, 279–297. Jullien, S. (2008). La construction présentative clivée dans la gestion des tours de parole: Le cas des interactions adulte – enfant. Revue Tranel, 49, 101–118. Jullien, S. (2014). Syntaxe et dialogue. Les configurations syntaxiques impliquant “il y a” [Universite de Neuchatel, Universite Paris III—Sorbonne Nouvelle PhD thesis]. Kaltenböck, G. (2023). On the use of there-clefts with zero-subject relativizer. In C. Gentens, L. Ghesquière, W. McGregor, & A. Van linden (Eds.), Reconnecting form and meaning. In honour of Kristin Davidse (pp. 17–43). John Benjamins. Karssenberg, L. (2017). Ya les oiseaux qui chantent. A corpus analysis of French il y a clefts [Ph.D. thesis. University of Leuven: Linguistics Department]. Karssenberg, L. (2018). Non-prototypical clefts in French: A corpus analysis of “il y a” clefts. De Gruyter Mouton. Kiss, K. (1998). Identificational focus versus information focus. Language, 74, 245–273. Lambrecht, K. (1986). Pragmatically motivated syntax. Presentational cleft constructions in spoken French. In 22nd Conference of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Papers from the Parasession on Pragmatics and Grammatical Theory (pp. 115–126). Chicago Linguistic Society.

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Lambrecht, K. (1988a). There was a farmer had a dog: Syntactic amalgams revisited. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (pp. 319–339). Berkeley Linguistics Society. Lambrecht, K. (1988b). Presentational cleft constructions in spoken French. In J. Haiman & S. Thompson (Eds.), Clause combining in grammar and discourse (pp. 135–179). John Benjamins. Lambrecht, K. (1994). Information structure and sentence form. Cambridge University Press. Lambrecht, K. (2001). A framework for the analysis of cleft constructions. Linguistics, 39, 463–516. Lambrecht, K. (2002). Topic, focus and secondary predication: The French presentational relative construction. In C. Beyssade, R. Bok-Bennema, F. Drijkoningen, & P. Monachesi (Eds.), Romance languages and linguistic theory 2000: Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 2000, Utrecht, 30 November–2 December (pp. 171–212). John Benjamins. Langacker, R. (1991). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 2, Descriptive application. Stanford University Press. Langacker, R. (2002). Deixis and subjectivity. In F. Brisard (Ed.), Grounding: The epistemic footing of deixis and reference (pp. 1–27). Mouton de Gruyter. Langacker, R. (2021). Functions and assemblies. In K. Kodama & T. Koyama (Eds.), The forefront of Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 1–54). Hituzi Syobo. McGregor, W. (1997). Semiotic Grammar. Clarendon. Nichols, J. (1978). Secondary predicates. Proceedings of the 4th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 4, 114–127. O’Grady, G., & Bartlett, T. (2019). Linearity and tone in the unfolding of information. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, 51(2), 192–221. Prince, E. (1978). A comparison of wh-clefts and it-clefts in discourse. Language, 54, 883–906. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartik, J. (1985). A comprehensive grammar of the English language. Longman. Velleman, D., Beaver, D., Destruel, E., Bumford, D., Onea, E., & Coopock, L. (2012). It-clefts are IT (inquiry terminating) constructions. Proceedings of SALT, 22, 441–460. Zimmermann, T. (2006). Monotonicity in opaque verbs. Linguistics and Philosophy, 29(6), 715–761.

CHAPTER 2

Natural Grammar

Abstract The theory of natural grammar views grammars as language specific semiotic systems that naturally symbolize semantics by structural assembly. The analyst has to decode the largely compositional semantics encoded by the integration of component structures into more elaborate composite structures. The meanings of constructions can be derived from the modification and complementation of heads at different levels of structural assembly. Natural grammar is incompatible with the idea of semantically empty elements and form-meaning mismatches. It is the whole construction, such as the cleft construction, that defines the meaning of its elements of structure. In their turn, the elements of structure have a motivated relation to the grammatical paradigms realizing them or to the sets of lexical items attracted to such elements as the matrix verb. Keywords Compositional semantics · Structural assembly · Grammatical paradigms · Lexical sets

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Davidse et al., Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32270-9_2

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Theoretically, we align with the traditions assuming that grammatical meaning is naturally symbolized by the syntax and prosody of a language (Bolinger, 1977; Halliday, 1967a, 1994; Langacker, 1987, 1991, 2021; McGregor, 1997). The meaning and form of a grammar cannot be separated from each other. They constitute the two sides of the same symbolic relation. The ‘semantics of grammar’ (Wierzbicka, 1988) is languagespecific, not universal. In this chapter, we will spell out the implications of this theoretical tenet for the grammatical—or more precisely lexicogrammatical1 —description we pursue of there-clefts. In Chapter 3, we turn to the meanings conveyed by prosody, which involve ‘inherent iconism’ (Bolinger 1985). Halliday and Langacker both approach syntax as ‘natural grammar’.2 As Halliday (1985) put it, “the form of the grammar relates naturally to the meanings that are being encoded” (id.: xvii) so that “[t]here is no sense in asking which determines which; the relation is a symbolic one” (id.: xx). Langacker likewise stresses that “grammatical structures naturally symbolize semantic structures” (Langacker, 1987: 3), which entails that “structures … and functions … are not distinct but represent alternate perspectives on the same assemblies” (Langacker, 2021: 9). Hence, “[a] full structural description—characterizing the elements and connections at multiple levels—is also a functional description” (Langacker, 2021: 9). The fundamental direction of interpretation of a natural functional grammar is “how are these meanings expressed?” (Halliday, 1985: xiv). However, as noted by Halliday (1985: xxxv), “our understanding of the meaning system itself is very deficient” and “the face of the grammar that is turned towards the semantics is hardly illuminated at all”. Therefore, at this stage of linguistic knowledge, the question “what do these forms mean?” is often the more practicable direction of interpretation (1985: xx). In this respect, Halliday’s view aligns with Bolinger’s (1968:

1 The term ‘lexicogrammar’ was coined by Halliday (1985: xiv) to make explicit the fact that “grammar consists of syntax and vocabulary, plus—in languages which have word paradigms—also morphology”. Langacker (1987: 3) likewise stresses that lexicon, morphology and syntax form a continuum of symbolic structures. 2 As to their respective theories of language, Langacker’s (e.g. 1999, 2009) approach is cognitive, further elucidating the semantics of grammar in terms of cognitive mechanisms such as figure–ground, sequential versus summary scanning, etc. Halliday’s (e.g. 1978, 2007) theory has a strongly social orientation, which seeks to link grammatical choices to context and social structure.

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27) heuristic principle that “a difference in form spells a difference in meaning”. What emerges from the above quotes is a specific view on how grammatical form is coupled to meaning in constructions. All current construction grammars hold that grammatical constructions are formmeaning couplings, but in some variants the coupling itself seems to be presented as resulting mainly from conventionalization, with little or no attention being paid to the meaning-making force of grammatical assembly. The view we adhere to is that it is the way in which component structures are combined into the composite structure of the whole construction that is meaning-making. In the introduction to his Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Part II. Descriptive Application, Langacker (1991: viii) pointed out that grammatical-semantic description of this type has already been carried out by “substantial numbers of scholars whose diverse and often lonely research efforts and self-conscious movement fit comfortably under the rubrics of cognitive and/or functional linguistics” [original bolding]. He singles out Bolinger “for his long-term commitment to elucidating the subtle detail of linguistic data and explicating the semantic value of grammatical morphemes and constructions” (Langacker, 1995: 3). Langacker also stresses that the envisaged cognitive-functional description addresses ‘standard grammatical concerns’, including notions such as “head, complement and modifier”, adding that “[a]nother fundamental concern is distribution: the problem of specifying which elements are allowed to occur in particular constructions” [original bolding] Langacker (1991: 6). Grammatical structure is thus, in this semiotic approach to grammar, not ‘mere linear contiguity’ (McGregor, 1997: 47) of elements of grammatical classes. Rather, grammatical constructions involve composite structures, some of whose component structures are transparently assembled, whilst others may be “only partially discernible (or even indiscernible) within the composite whole” Langacker (1999: 152). Structural analysis seeks to identify, firstly, which precise units are involved in the structures at different levels. Secondly, the analyst has to identify “the order in which component structures are successively combined to form progressively more elaborate composite structures” (Langacker, 1987: 310). The proposed order of assembly has to account for the composite semantics of the structure, as conceptual dependencies between elements

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are “largely responsible, in the final analysis, for their combinatory behaviour” (Langacker, 1987: 305). We have so far concentrated on the theoretical views Halliday and Langacker share about the place of grammar in the linguistic sign. Whilst they share the commitment to ‘natural grammar’, they posit different types of grammatical structure. Put simply, Langacker (1987, 1991, 2021) conceives of grammatical structures as basically dependency structures, to which the distinction between modification and complementation is central. No differences are posited for the conceptual dependencies they symbolize, e.g. whether these are in the domains of representational or speaker-related meaning. Halliday (1978) holds that such distinct types of functional meanings are realized by different types of structure. Representations of our experience of the world are coded compositionally by ‘particulate’ structures, either constituent or dependency structures, whereby dependency is equated with modification. Halliday does not recognize complementation structures. Informational configurations such as focal–non-focal information are modelled as periodic, wave-like structures involving peaks and troughs with fluid boundaries. Speaker-related meanings such as modality are coded by yet a different type of structure, in which the interpersonal element, such as the modal marker, overlays the domain it scopes over, rather than being compositionally added to it (see McGregor [1997] for important clarifications of interpersonal structures in this tradition). In this study, we focus on the representational semantics and information structure of there-clefts. Our analysis thus incorporates complementary and sometimes overlapping features of various approaches to grammar.3 We analyse the coding of representational semantics in terms of the complementation and modification of heads at different structural levels (Langacker (1987, 1991), as spelt out below. For the analysis of the prosodic coding of information structure, we follow Halliday (1963, 1967b, 1994), as summarized in Chapter 3. Langacker (1987: 277f) provides the following conceptual motivation of the traditionally recognized dependency structures of complementation and modification. In a complementation structure, the head is conceptually incomplete and has to be completed by complements. In a modification structure, the modifier is conceptually incomplete and

3 We thank one of the anonymous referees for formulating the eclectic nature of our approach so clearly.

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requires a head. With both, the head determines the semantic profile of the whole structure. The lexical verb of a clause is a prototypical case of a conceptually incomplete, and hence complement-taking, head. Verbs, like want in (28), are conceptually incomplete. (28) We want someone Ø knows John. (Doherty, 1993: 160) One cannot conceive of the meaning of want without mentally picturing someone wanting someone or something. The reference made by verb meanings to entities participating in the process is traditionally referred to as their ‘valence’. According to Langacker (1987: 304), valence relations are motivated by semantic correspondences between schematic aspects of meaning present in the valence head and the more specific semantic profile of the elements that enter into a valence relation with it. As pointed out by Laffut and Davidse (2002), this entails that the lexical meaning of the verb (V) overlays the NPs participating in the process such that they do not simply refer to entities but to entities V-ing or being V-ed. For instance, (29) contains the identifying verb be, which is elaborated by an entity being identified, the gay icon, and an entity doing the identifying, Colin (cf. Halliday, 1967a). (29) Now it’s Colin the gay icon. In (28) above, We want someone Ø knows John, we are the agents who want something and someone makes non-specific reference to a person being wanted. Ø knows John is an indirect complement of the verb with a relational meaning (cf. Langacker, 1991: 359). This complement is conceptually motivated by the main verb because the meaning of want construed in (28) makes the someone wanted conditional on him or her matching the criterial state of ‘knowing John’. Its complementation relation to the verb is indirect because it is mediated by the antecedent– relative anaphor relation between someone and the zero relative marker Ø. In modification relations, the modifier is inherently relational and conceptually incomplete, and selects a head (Langacker, 1987: 277f). Restrictive relative clauses are prototypical instances of modifiers. In Chapter 1, we discussed the restrictive relative clauses in examples (11),

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which we reproduce here as (30). It was pointed out that the antecedent of a restrictive relative clause is the nominal head only, which designates a type of entity and which the relative clause narrows down semantically, e.g. [arguments [which work]] in (30). (30) there \/are certain arguments which w/ork and certain arguments which w\on‘t work. (LLC) We can now add that the relation between antecedent and restrictive relative clause is one of modification. The relative clause is the dependent unit modifying the conceptually autonomous head. The complete structural assembly of constructions results from the integration of smaller component structures into progressively larger composite structures of either the modification or complementation type (Langacker, 1987: 310). And the representational semantics of constructions can be derived from the modification and complementation of heads at the different levels of structural assembly. It is in this way that we will analyse the structural assemblies and semantics of specificational and presentational there-clefts, as well as of existential clauses with restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses, which all manifest as the same surface syntagm. How can we identify the precise elements of structure and the relations between them? We hold that an important heuristic is formed by the different possible and impossible alternations characterizing elements of structure at various levels of structural integration. The (im)possibility of eliding elements of structure or replacing them by specific alternates has long been a staple of grammatical argumentation. Different possible alternations of whole constructions may also reveal their different overall structural integration (Davidse, 1998; Gleason, 1966; Halliday, 1968). We will apply this type of argumentation, offering text examples or relying on native speaker competence for alternations claimed to be possible. This view of grammatical structure entails that, and explains why, constructions, not grammatical categories, are primitives (Croft, 2001; Halliday, 1961; Langacker, 1987). The whole construction defines the meaning of its elements of structure, which in turn have a motivated relation to the grammatical categories realizing them. This motivational relation between function and grammatical class includes both what Halliday (1985: 322) calls the ‘congruent’ grammatical category for a specific

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grammatical function and one ‘coerced’ into serving that function. For instance, the adjective great in (31) is an element from the congruent category to realize the degree-modifier of beauty, whereas the number ten in (32) has the necessary semantic features to be coerced from measuring quantity into heightening the degree of beauty. (31) No one was inclined to call her a great beauty. (WB) (32) Make Me a Ten Beauty. (Beauty Makeover—O’s Make Me a Ten Makeovers (oprah.com)) Lexical elements of structure also have a motivated relation to the sets of lexical items they can be ‘filled’ by. For instance, the clausal head of ditransitive constructions has been shown to strongly attract such verbs as give, tell, teach, allow (Stefanowitsch & Gries, 2003), whose meaning and valency is very compatible with the ditransitive construction, which, by the same token, can also press less likely verbs such as shoplift into service, as in (33). (33) He’d shoplifted me a WEB—Mongoose Open (charliefish.co.uk))

dictionary. (FICTION Season by Aongus

on the Murtagh

Consequently, lexical sets associated with a specific function in a structure are revealing about the semantics of this structure. Grammatical elements of structure in constructions may be uniquely associated with specific grammatical paradigms, or may favour certain grammatical paradigms. Both types of distributional pattern may be very revealing about the semantics of the construction. Importantly, within a natural grammar, the idea is rejected of purely formal ‘dummy’ elements, according to which existential there, for instance, is “a meaningless element inserted for purely grammatical purposes in specifiable environments” (Langacker, 1991: 65). Rather, the assumption is that existential there, to quote Bolinger (1973: 261), “is meaningful too!”. To approach the meaning of existential there, we will argue, we have to take into account its function in the existential clause as well as the whole paradigm realizing this function, which includes it as a historical variant/ relic (Chapter 4).

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In this chapter we have discussed how, in a natural grammar approach, the lexical and grammatical structures and paradigms of a language ‘form’ its semantics, “just as an open net casts its shadow down an undivided surface” (Hjelmslev, 1961: 57). In Chapters 4–8, we present our analysis of the different component structures of there-clefts and existential clauses with restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses, and how these are integrated into the respective constructions. We also examine the different distribution of elements such as the relative marker in each construction type. We elucidate how the different semantics of the constructions are computed from their different lexicogrammatical organization.

References Bolinger, D. (1968). Entailment and the meaning of structures. Glossa, 2, 119– 127. Bolinger, D. (1973). Ambient it is meaningful too! Journal of Linguistics, 9(2), 261–270. Bolinger, D. (1977). Meaning and form. Longman. Bolinger, D. (1985). The inherent iconism of intonation. In J. Haiman (Ed.), Iconicity in syntax (pp. 97–108). John Benjamins. Croft, W. (2001). Radical Construction Grammar. Syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford University Press. Davidse, K. (1998). Agnates, verb classes and the meaning of construals: The case of ditransitivity in English. Leuven Contributions in Linguistics and Philology, 87 (3), 281–313. Doherty, C. (1993). The syntax of subject contact relatives. In K. Beals et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 29th Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 55–65). University of Chicago Press. Gleason, H. A. (1966). Linguistics and English grammar. Holt, Reinhart and Winston. Halliday, M. A. K. (1961). Categories of the theory of grammar. Word, 17 (3), 242–292. Halliday, M. A. K. (1963). Intonation in English grammar. Transactions of the Philological Society, 62, 143–169. Halliday, M. A. K. (1967a). Notes on transitivity and theme in English: Part 2. Journal of Linguistics, 3(2), 199–244. Halliday, M. A. K. (1967b). Intonation and grammar in British English. Mouton. Halliday, M. A. K. (1968). Notes on transitivity and theme in English: Part 3. Journal of Linguistics, 4(2), 179–215.

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Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). An introduction to Functional Grammar (1st ed.). Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd ed.). Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. (2007). Language and society. Collected works. Continuum. Hjelmslev, L. (1961). Prolegomena to a theory of language (revised English ed. of original Danish version 1943). University of Wisconsin Press. Laffut, A., & Davidse, K. (2002). English locative constructions: An exercise in neo-Firthian description and dialogue with other schools. Functions of Language, 9(2), 169–207. Langacker, R. (1987). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 1, Theoretical preliminaries. Stanford University Press. Langacker, R. (1991). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 2, Descriptive application. Stanford University Press. Langacker, R. (1995). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 1, Theoretical preliminaries. Stanford University Press. Langacker, R. (1999). Grammar and conceptualization. De Gruyter Mouton. Langacker, R. (2009). Cognitive (Construction) Grammar. Cognitive Linguistics, 20(1), 167–176. Langacker, R. (2015). How to build an English clause. Linguistics Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, 2(2). Langacker, R. (2021). Functions and assemblies. In K. Kodama & T. Koyama (Eds.), The forefront of Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 1–54). Hituzi Syobo. McGregor, W. (1997). Semiotic Grammar. Clarendon. Stefanowitsch, A., & Gries, S. T. (2003). Collostructions: Investigating the interaction of words and constructions. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 8(2), 209–243. Wierzbicka, A. (1988). The semantics of grammar. John Benjamins.

CHAPTER 3

Compilation and Prosodic Analysis of Data

Abstract In this chapter we set out the functional phonological principles that have informed our transcription of the data compiled from the first London Lund Corpus. We sampled tokens of the surface string there + form of be (+ relative marker) + finite relative clause, taking care to also net the instances with zero relative marker. By working with sound files, we can couple the grammatical-semantic disambiguation of these ‘lookalike’ expressions to possible prosodic differences. The original auditive analyses of the LLC sound files, rooted in the British School of Intonation just like our more recent approach, were re-analysed with a mix of auditive and instrumental methods, focusing on the identification of tone units, tonic accents and tones. We explain how this methodology and theoretical updates led us to make changes to the original transcription of about half of the dataset. Keywords Intonation · Tone units · Tonic accents · Tones

In this chapter, we first describe how we compiled our spoken data (Sect. 3.1), and then how we analysed them prosodically (Sect. 3.2).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Davidse et al., Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32270-9_3

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3.1

Compilation of Dataset

For this study, we compiled a dataset from the complete first London Lund Corpus which comprises sound files and transcriptions of monologues and conversations in British English.1 Given our aim of sorting out the different structural assemblies that manifest as the same surface string of an existential clause and a finite relative clause, we first retrieved all instances of the sequence there + form of lexical verb be. This very general query ensured we also netted all instances with zero relative marker. We removed non-restrictive relative clauses with a clausal antecedent like (34) because these are not potentially ambiguous with the other three construction types. (34) he seemed to assume that people got all their lectures together like getting a bag of material so that by the time they got to the summer there was no more w\ork to do which isn‘t m\y system at /\all (LLC) We then subjected each potential instance to close grammatical-semantic analysis in context, distinguishing demonstrative from existential there (Chapter 4) and applying the recognition criteria and tests of the four constructions as set out in Chapters 5–8. This yielded 349 contexts, a number of which featured multiple relative clauses (involving coordination or subordination within one complex sentence). We made a random sample of 200 contexts, from which we discarded 8 contexts because of poor quality of the sound files. We were left with 192 contexts containing 224 relative clauses. Table 3.1 gives the classification of the relative clauses in our dataset into restrictive relative clause, non-restrictive relative clause, specificational relative clause in specificational there-clefts and predicative relative clause in presentational there-clefts.

1 At the time our study was carried out, the second London Lund Corpus had not yet been made publicly available.

3

Table 3.1 Types of relative clauses in dataset

COMPILATION AND PROSODIC ANALYSIS OF DATA

Relative clause type Restrictive In specificational cleft In presentational cleft Non-restrictive Total

3.2

35

N

%

77 61 51 35 224

34.37 27.23 22.77 15.63 100

Prosodic Analysis of the Data

LLC includes prosodic annotation of the sound files based on auditive analysis by the original compilers, who followed the annotation system of Crystal (1969). The second and third author carried out inter-rater re-coding of our dataset, combining auditive analysis with instrumental analysis of the sound waves in Praat (Boersma, 2001), which visualizes variations in pitch, intensity, volume and duration. The grammatical-semantic description and the phonological study were carried out separately according to the principles of their own domains. Operating within the framework developed by Halliday (1963, 1967a, b), Tench (1990), Halliday and Greaves (2008) and O’Grady (2013), this inter-rater analysis coded: i. the tone contours overlaying the existential there-clauses and the relative clauses, indicating the boundaries of the tone units by //, ii. the tonic syllables, i.e. the syllables carrying the most prominent pitch changes, which typically also have greater amplitude and extended duration, marked by bold font, iii. the tones, i.e. fall (\), rise (/), level/low rise (=), fall-rise (\/) or rise-fall (/\). Besides definition by a tone contour, a number of other features can be used for the identification of tone units. Cruttenden (1997: 34) suggests that pitch discontinuities on accented syllables following the main pitch accent may be evidence for a tone unit boundary. According to Keisanen (2006: 19) and Du Bois et al. (1992), words at the end of a tone unit are usually spoken at a slower pace and hence lengthened, and may also

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Table 3.2 Criteria for the identification of an intonation unit (Dehé & Braun, 2013: 137) (a)

Domain-internal criteria a.1 a.2 a.3

Complete tonal contour (CTC) Domain across which declination applies Creaky voice Criteria at a potential boundary

b.1 b.2 b.3 b.4

Presence and nature of pauses (structure-related vs. hesitation) Pitch on unaccented syllables following a nuclear tone Domain final lengthening Presence or absence of segmental processes

(b)

be uttered with creaky voice. Pauses as evidence of tone units have to be handled with caution. On the one hand, there may, but need not, be pauses, or ‘breaks’, between tone units. On the other hand, spontaneous speech often features breaks within tone units, when the speaker hesitates or is looking for words. These do not interfere with the hearer’s perception of the tone, as the speaker will pick up the tone at the pitch where s/he paused. However, if there are pauses at the tone unit boundary, it has been suggested that they tend to be longer, and can be perceived as intended for structural purposes. Dehé & Braun (2013: 137) propose the criteria summarized in Table 3.2 for identifying the domain of an intonation unit. The second and third author then compared their analysis with the original analysis. This is possible because Halliday’s (1963, 1967a, b) and Crystal’s (1969) approach are both rooted in the British School of intonation. Of the 192 contexts retained from our sample of 200 contexts from the LLC, the original prosodic analysis was kept for 98 contexts and changed for 94 contexts. Table 3.3 indicates how the contexts in our dataset were processed and analysed prosodically. Table 3.3 Contexts sampled from London Lund Corpus

Total Transcription kept Transcription changed

N

%

192 98 94

100 51 49

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Fig. 3.1 Praat image of there was the girl behind me did that

The changes made to the original are of three types. Firstly, the analysis of the tones was corrected in a number of cases. For instance, in (35a) the original coding had a fall on m\e, which was changed into a fall-rise on m\/e in (35b). In the Praat image, the fall-rise is clearly shown by the blue pitch line (Fig. 3.1). (35) a. there was the girl behind m\e did that // (LLC) b. there was the girl behind m\/e did that // In other cases, the location of the tonic syllable was recoded, as illustrated in (36), where the tone unit-final constituent fixed rate was annotated as fixed r\ate in the LLC transcription but as f\ixed rate in ours. (36) a. there is this h\ost of {cheap hot\els//}// which all have a fixed r\ate // (LLC) b. there is this h\ost of // cheap hot\els // which all have a f\ixed rate // Secondly, the LLC transcription assumes the existence of subordinate tones. In view of the flat nature of phonological patterning, O’Grady (2013) argues against the idea that a secondary tone unit can be

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embedded in a primary tone unit. Hence, where LLC marked a subordinate tone, one of two options was followed. The secondary tone unit was removed if it was considered not prominent enough, i.e. if the difference in pitch, volume and intensity between the tonic element and its surroundings was not significant enough to be considered a major tone movement. For example, in (37a) below, the there-clause is analysed in LLC as featuring a subordinate tone unit (marked by braces) for \Andrew and a primary tone unit with tonic on w\/ife. This example was recoded as in (37b) with only one tonic on w\ife. (37) a. cos there was there was {\Andrew‘s} w\/ife // (LLC) b. cos there was there was Andrew‘s w\ife // Alternatively, if the tone contour was judged to be sufficiently prominent according to both the auditive and instrumental analysis, the subordinate tone, e.g. (36a) above, was recoded as a primary tone, adding a boundary, as in (36b). The third and final type of change pertains to compound tones. They were defined by Halliday (1967a) as involving two fused tones each with a tonic between which no pre-tonic material can be inserted. However, Tench (1990) shows contra Halliday (1967a) that a pre-tonic segment can in fact be inserted before the second tonic, which justifies adding a tone unit boundary breaking the compound tone into two. O’Grady (2017) also points out the contradiction between the postulate that one tone unit codes one ‘presentation unit’ (Cruttenden, 1997) and the very existence of compound tones. We therefore recoded compound tones as sequences of two distinct tones. In the remainder of this study, we will reproduce examples from the LLC with their prosodic coding as adapted by us. The prosodic annotation of the examples considered for their grammatical organization in Chapters 4–8 lays the basis for the discussion of their intonation in Chapter 9.

References Boersma, P. (2001). Praat, a system for doing phonetics by computer. Glot International, 5(9–10), 341–345. Cruttenden, A. (1997). Intonation (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.

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Crystal, D. (1969). Prosodic systems and intonation in English. Cambridge University Press. Dehé, N., & Braun, B. (2013). The prosody of question tags in English. English Language & Linguistics, 17 (1), 129–156. Du Bois, J., Schuetze-Coburn, S., Paolino, D., & Cummings, S. (1992). Discourse transcription, Santa Barbara Papers in Linguistics, 4, Department of Linguistics, University of California. Halliday, M. A. K. (1963). Intonation in English grammar. Transactions of the Philological Society, 62, 143–169. Halliday, M. A. K. (1967a). Notes on transitivity and theme in English: Part 2. Journal of Linguistics, 3(2), 199–244. Halliday, M. A. K. (1967b). Intonation and grammar in British English. Mouton. Halliday, M. A. K., & Greaves, W. (2008). Intonation in the grammar of English. Equinox. Keisanen, T. (2006). Patterns of stance staking: Negative yes/no interrogatives and tag questions in American English conversation. Acta Universitatis Ouluensis, B71. Oulu University Press. O’Grady, G. (2013). Key concepts in phonetics and phonology. Palgrave MacMillan. O’Grady, G. (2017). Intonation and Systemic Functional Linguistics. The way forward. In T. Bartlett & G. O’Grady (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics (pp. 146–162). Routledge. Tench, P. (1990). The roles of intonation in English. Peter Lang.

CHAPTER 4

Existential there versus Demonstrative there

Abstract To develop a natural grammar account of existential constructions, it is crucial to describe the formal properties and semantics of existential there as distinct from those of demonstrative there. Together with here demonstrative there forms a paradigm of phonetically salient locative adverbs whose congruent function in the clause is that of adjunct. By contrast, existential there and existential it form a grammatical paradigm which originated in Old English, with it surviving in dialects. We argue that they are non-salient, clitic definite pronouns associated with the subject position of existential clauses. Semantically, we propose, they convey general exophoric or ‘ambient’ reference to what is perceived as obvious in the reality or implications of the context. By virtue of their reference point in the deictic centre, they index the awareness of the speech participants, who are thus evoked as conceptualizers of the existential relation. Keywords Clitic subject pronoun · Ambient reference · Demonstrative adverb · Deictic locative reference

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Davidse et al., Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32270-9_4

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The first distinction that had to be drawn clearly to compile our dataset of the four constructions with existential main verb was that between demonstrative there and existential there. In this chapter, we discuss their different phonological, grammatical and semantic properties. Demonstrative there, phonologically represented as [ðEꝰ], is an adverb that stands in semantic opposition to here. Both identify a specific location, either removed from or proximate to the speaker. The deictic adverbs always have some form of phonological prominence, either the nuclear accent that “carries the main pitch movement” (Halliday, 1994: 296), like th\ere in (38a) and h\ere in (39a), or a non-nuclear accent, e.g. ^there in (40a). (38) a. th\/at number // isn‘t anywhere \on it // […] ah th\ere it is // (LLC) b. Th\ere it is, \isn’t it. (39) a. what have I done with ah the priced c\opy I had // ah y\es // h\ere it is // (LLC) b. H\ere it is, \isn’t it. (40) a. this /auntie // does an awful lot of kn\itting // and she brought with her a s\uitcase // full of wool and kn\itting // it got on my mother‘s n/\erves // ^there was my auntie /Elsie // sitting on the sett\/ee // kn\itting // (LLC) b. ^there was my auntie /Elsie, w\asn’t she. The adverbs there and here are almost always used as adjuncts, also when in clause-initial position as in (38a)–(40a), as shown by the alternates with interrogative tags in (38b)–(40b), which pick up the subject (Halliday, 1994: 73, 130) and thus identify it in (38)–(39) and my Aunty Elsie in (40) as subject. In examples (38a) to (39a), there and here are used as locative, adjuncts with the ‘relational’ meaning of “location in a specific place relative to the speaker” (Langacker, 1993: 16). Lakoff (1987) refers to examples like (38)–(40) as deictic presentational constructions, which he emphatically distinguishes from existential constructions. Exceptionally, demonstrative adverbs can be used as subject if they are coerced into a NP meaning “the place here/there relative to me”, as in (41). The semantically specific adverbial under the bed in (42) is coerced into subject position with a similar semantic reclassification into “the place under the bed”. Langacker (1993: 16) observes about the subject under

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the bed in (42) that it can only be viewed as “naming … a … ‘thing’— rather than a relationship (a relationship per se can hardly be dusty)”. (41) Here/There is nice and warm. (42) Under the bed is dusty. (Langacker, 1993: 16) Existential there differs from demonstrative there in terms of phonology, meaning, word class and grammatical behaviour (Breivik, 1981, 1989; Davidse, 1999a, 2020). Existential there is phonologically represented as [ðꝰ(r)].1 Unlike demonstrative there, it cannot carry a nuclear accent. If we change the original example (43a) there were three en\ormous fires in the r/oom (LLC) by putting a nuclear accent on th\ere, as in (43b), then it can only be interpreted as identifying a specific location removed from the speaker, contrasting with the specific location close to the speaker pointed at by h\ere in (43c). We agree with Breivik (1981: 4–8) that this shows that existential there does not participate in the ‘proximity’ contrasts expressed by the spatial demonstratives here and there and therefore cannot be substituted by them. (43) a. there were three en\ormous fires // in the r/oom // b. th\ere // were three en\ormous fires // in the r/oom // c. h\ere // were three en\ormous fires // in the r/oom // Breivik’s (1981: 4–8) next point is that existential there is excluded from adjunct function and restricted to subject function, as shown by its being picked up as subject in the tag (Halliday, 1994: 73, 130) in (17d). d. there were three en\ormous fires // in the r/oom // w\eren’t there // This point is confirmed by its appearance in other structures as what can only be the subject—of a raising construction (Lakoff, 1987: 546–549),

1 Whereas in British English the [r] is heard only if there is followed by a vowel, it is always present in rhotic variants like American and Irish English.

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as in (43e), and of gerundial and infinitival non-finite clauses, as in (43f) and (43 g). e. There were said to be three enormous fires in the room. f. There being three enormous fires in the room, we were not cold. g. We hoped there to be fires in the room. The restriction of existential there to the subject function, Breivik (1981: 4–8) then concludes, makes a strong case for it being a nominal element, i.e. a pronoun.2 For its specific status, we follow Halliday (1967a: 238) in viewing existential there as an inherently non-accented subject clitic. The final question is then what the meaning of existential there is. Jespersen (1924: 154f) stressed the functional-structural difference between spatial [ðEꝰ] and existential [ðꝰ], and ascribed “indefinite signification” to existential [ðꝰ], which he viewed as the place-holder of the indefinite postverbal NP. Bech (1952) is not convinced by what he views as Jespersen’s ‘projection’ of the indefiniteness of the postverbal NP onto there, which Bech claims is definite. Like Jespersen, Halliday (1967a: 238) views clitic subject there as an indefinite cataphoric clitic announcing the typically indefinite postverbal NP. Later semantic characterizations in the cognitive tradition have tended to attribute Bolinger’s (1977: 93) ‘abstract location’ meaning to existential there. As observed by Langacker (1991: 353), “Lakoff (1987) describes it as referring to a mental space (but does little to clarify the nature of that space)”. We advocate analysis of existential there as a clitic pronoun but with definite reference. We invoke as an important argument that the subject function in existential clauses in Old and Middle English could also be realized by the subject clitic it , as in (44). Existential it still survives in certain regional varieties of English,3 e.g. (45). 2 Contra adverbial analyses of existential there as in Lyons (1975). 3 The use of the definite clitic as subject in existential clauses is also found in other

Germanic languages. In Dutch, the standard existential subject is er but some Dutch dialects such as West Flemish have existential het /’t (reduced it ) (Haegeman & Weir, 2015), as in (i). (i) ‘t Is veel volk geweest.—Ja-t. it’s many people been—yeah-t. (“There was a great crowd. Yes, there was”.) (Haegeman & Weir, 2015: 182). For spoken German, it has been pointed out by Weinert (2013) that existentials may, besides es gibt, also have es ist/sind as in (ii).

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(44) Bot hit ar ladyes innoze. (“But there are ladies enough”.) (Sir Gawain 1252, quoted by Breivik [1989]) (45) It ain’t nobody here … It ain’t nobody in the shop. (OED, Buford [2004]) In Old English, there- and it-less existential clauses formed by far the majority (Breivik, 1989, Traugott, 1992: 217–219). The variants with it and there as grammatical subjects of existential be emerged in the period 850–950 as minor variants, but gained ground in Middle English. In Modern English there won out from it. The fact that, when the existential clitic subject emerged, it could be realized by either it or there suggests that this pronominal paradigm is associated with definite meaning (for more detailed argumentation of this point, see Davidse [2020]). As to its semantics, we propose to analyse existential there as a definite exophoric pronoun with a type of ‘ambient’ reference very similar to that conveyed by subject it in clauses describing meteorological and other atmospheric phenomena (Bolinger, 1973) as in (46) and (47). In the following paragraphs, we first indicate the observations in the literature that inspired this analysis, and then sum up our position in the concluding paragraph. Halliday and Hasan (1976: 53) made the point that it in examples (46) and (47) is a general exophoric operator. (46) It was hot, so hot. (WB) (47) It is five to twelve. (WB) Bolinger (1977: 84–85) proposed the notion of ‘ambient’ reference for these uses of it. He defined ambient reference as having “almost the greatest possible generality of meaning … embrac[ing] weather, time, circumstance, whatever is obvious by the nature of reality or the implications of context”. It is these notions of general exophoric and ambient reference that we also ascribe to existential there (which neither Bolinger (1977) nor Halliday and Hasan (1976) did). Examples like (48) and (49), in which we find either (Bolinger, 1977: 262), can be taken as an illustration of their ambient meaning. By the same token, we emphatically

(ii) Es ist ein Gewitter im Anmarsch. “There’s a thunderstorm on the way”. (Weinert, 2013: 71).

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distinguish ambient it and existential there from the definite pronoun it in it-clefts, which forms a paradigm with that.4 (48) It/There’s brewing a storm. (Bolinger, 1977: 262) (49) It/There’s blowing a gale. (Bolinger, 1977: 262) In Bolinger’s (1977: 84–85) semantic gloss of ambient reference, the phrase “whatever is obvious [italics ours] by the nature of reality or the implications of context” invokes, in our view, a consciousness to which phenomena in the context are obvious. Here we see an element that is also present in Bolinger’s (1977: 93) understanding of the meaning of existential there, which, he holds, ultimately refers to the mental awareness of the speech participants. Langacker (1991: 353) assesses Bolinger’s characterization as follows: “he [Bolinger] is certainly correct that a there-clause brings an element into awareness”, but his “characterization fails with a sentence like Susan believes there to be several flaws in the new design, for the belief does not pertain to the speaker’s or the hearer’s awareness”. In this example, quoted in (50), existential there occurs in reported thought, indexing the awareness of the represented cognizant Susan. (50) Susan believes there to be several flaws in the new design. (Langacker, 1991: 353) We can now sum up our position on existential there. We analyse it as a clitic subject pronoun, which diachronically and in synchronic dialectal variation, forms a paradigm with existential it. Existential there expresses general exophoric reference, which more specifically can be characterized as ‘ambient’ reference to “what is obvious in the context or the implications of the context”. Existential there evokes the presence of a consciousness, typically that of the actual speaker but in contexts of reported speech or thought that of the represented speaker, who has also been called the internal speaker, as in (51). 4 This point is important for our rejection of Halliday’s (1967a: 238) position that

there in there-clefts and it in it-clefts form a grammatical paradigm of cataphoric clitics, with there the indefinite and it the definite pronoun. We argue that existential there is a definite pronoun with generalized exophoric, not cataphoric, reference. The different semantic-pragmatic contributions of existential there to there-clefts and definite cataphoric it to it-clefts are spelt out in Chapter 7.

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(51) they know that there \/are // certain arguments which w/ork // (LLC) In this sense, we can say that existential there evokes the conceptualizer of the existential relation. We motivate this by our analysis of existential there as a referring exophoric pronoun. Exophorically referring pronouns inherently evoke a deictic centre as reference point. Existential there expresses ambient exophora tied to the implied location of the conceptualizer central to the ambient experience. In other words, we do not simply posit a feature of speaker-related meaning as part of an intuitive semantic analysis, but on the basis of inherent characteristics of deictic pronouns. In Chapter 7, we will discuss the precise representational role construed for there in its relation to existential be.

References Bech, G. ([1952]1968). Über das niederländische Adverbialpronomen er. In J. Hoogteijling (Ed.), Taalkunde in artikelen. Een verzameling artikelen over het Nederlands (pp. 147–174). Wolters-Noordhoff. Bolinger, D. (1973). Ambient it is meaningful too! Journal of Linguistics, 9(2), 261–270. Bolinger, D. (1977). Meaning and form. Longman. Breivik, L. (1981). On the interpretation of existential there. Language, 57 , 1–25. Breivik, L., et al. (1989). On the causes of syntactic change in English. In L. Breivik (Ed.), Language change: Contributions to the study of its causes (pp. 29–70). Walter de Gruyter. Davidse, K. (1999a). The semantics of cardinal versus enumerative existential constructions. Cognitive Linguistics, 10, 203–250. Davidse, K. (2020). The ideational semantics of the canonical existential clause in English. In G. Tucker, G. Huang, L. Fontaine & E. McDonald (Eds.), Approaches to Systemic Functional Grammar. Convergence and divergence (pp. 293–312). Equinox. Haegeman, L., & Weir, A. (2015). The cartography of yes and no in West Flemish. In J. Bayer, R. Hinterholzl, & A. Trotzke (Eds.), Discourse-oriented syntax (pp. 175–210). John Benjamins. Halliday, M. A. K. (1967a). Notes on transitivity and theme in English: Part 2. Journal of Linguistics, 3(2), 199–244. Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd ed.). Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. Longman. Jespersen, O. (1924). The philosophy of grammar. George Allen & Unwin.

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Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire and dangerous things. University of Chicago Press. Langacker, R. (1991). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 2, Descriptive application. Stanford University Press. Langacker, R. (1993). Reference-point constructions. Cognitive Linguistics, 4, 1–38. Lyons, J. (1975). Deixis as the source of reference. In E. Keenan (Ed.), Formal semantics of natural language (pp. 61–83). Cambridge University Press. Traugott, E. C. (1992). Syntax. In R. Hogg (Ed.), Cambridge history of the English language. Vol. I: The beginning to 1066. Cambridge University Press. Weinert, R. (2013). Presentational/existential structures in spoken versus written German: Es gibt and sein. Journal of Germanic Linguistics, 25(1), 37–79.

CHAPTER 5

Paradigms of Relative Markers

Abstract This chapter is concerned with the paradigms of relative markers found in English in restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses and relative clauses in specificational and presentational clefts. We confront observations and hypotheses in the literature with our data of existential constructions featuring the four types of relative clause. These confirm the general distribution posited in the literature. Non-restrictive relative clauses take wh-relative markers only. Restrictive relative clauses can take members from either the wh- or th-paradigm, with the latter subsuming zero markers for non-subject functions. Relative clauses in specificational and presentational clefts also take members from either the wh- or th-paradigm, but with the latter subsuming zero markers for all clausal functions, including the subject. As for the quantitative distribution in there-clefts, we found that the th-paradigm predominates in specificational there-clefts but the wh-paradigm in presentational there-clefts. Keywords Wh-paradigm · Th-paradigm · Zero relativizer

In this chapter, we make a descriptive inventory of the paradigms of relative markers associated with the four types of relative clause in the existential constructions studied: restrictive relative clause, non-restrictive © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Davidse et al., Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32270-9_5

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relative clause, relative clause in specificational there-clefts and relative clause in presentational there-clefts. The distribution of relative markers in restrictive versus non-restrictive relative clauses in English is well-established (e.g. Huddleston & Pullum, 2002; Quirk et al., 1985). Non-restrictive relative clauses feature relative markers from the wh-paradigm only, i.e. who, whose, whom and which. Restrictive relative clauses can take relative markers from either the wh-paradigm or the th-paradigm, in which the functions of object and prepositional complement may be realized by zero [Ø], as in (52). (52) should \ask him // if there are any seminars Ø you ought to g\o to. (LLC) We view the zero relative as an option with a recognizable functional value, which stems from contrast with the other members of the thparadigm. As argued by McGregor (2003), a distinction has to be made between ‘nothing’, where there is nothing in either form or meaning, and ‘zero’. A zero-element can be posited if it is a member of a paradigm of elements realizing the same function in a particular grammatical environment and occupying a distinct and constant semantic value in the paradigm.1 This principle applies to the zero relative marker, which in restrictive relative clauses has the semantic value of object or prepositional complement. We now turn to the much less studied distribution of relative markers in English clefts. The study of relative markers in clefts has remained largely restricted to those occurring in it-clefts, which are always specificational clefts.2 There is agreement that relative clauses in it-clefts, like restrictive relative clauses, can take relative markers from either the wh-paradigm or the th-paradigm. According to Quirk et al. (1985) and Huddleston and Pullum (2002), relative clauses in it-clefts favour the thparadigm over the wh-paradigm (Quirk et al., 1985). Importantly, zero

1 McGregor (2003) signals his indebtedness to Haas (1957) for this position. 2 Some authors, e.g. Declerck (1988), have argued that ‘predicative’ clefts like it was

a coot that he saw in the open space before him (WB) are not specificational. However, this type can be argued to be specificational as well as it alternates with the specificational pseudocleft What he saw in the open space was a coot.

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can also be used with the subject function, as in (53). Zero subject relatives are taken as a recognition criterion of relative clauses in it-clefts (e.g. Collins, 1991: 52; Huddleston, 1971: 324; Quirk et al., 1985: 1387). Relative clauses in specificational and presentational there-clefts can take either wh-relative markers or that. As already flagged in Chapter 1, the zero subject relative marker is also attested in specificational thereclefts, e.g. (54), and presentational there-clefts (Collins, 1992; Lambrecht, 1988) e.g. (55). (53) now where did I hear that from … may have been Ivor B\ond Ø told me // (LLC) (54) there was not one of them th\ere // Ø could j\ustify // the disp\arity // between the way Britain’s being tr\eated // and the tr\eatment // of the members of the S\ix // (LLC) (55) there were three little bl\ack boys // Ø were g\oing along // (LLC) Such examples have consistently been labelled ‘substandard’ in the literature, but Kaltenböck (2023) nuances this assessment with his study of specificational and presentational there-clefts with zero-subject relativizer in data extracted from the Spoken British National Corpus (2014). With a total of 170 instances, i.e. a normalized frequency of 14.88 per 1,000,000 tokens, he finds the zero-subject in there-clefts “firmly attested in this reference corpus for contemporary spoken British English, which puts into perspective the description as ‘non-standard’ […] and suggests only a moderate degree of markedness”. In his summary of the characterizations ranging from substandard/dialectal over very colloquial to merely familiar in the literature, Kaltenböck (2023: 18) notes that his own assessment converges with Lambrecht’s (1988: 320) observation that the construction “is used by speakers of standard American English” and was “uttered spontaneously by university professors, all of whom were convinced that the construction did not exist in their dialect or speech pattern”. Importantly, the possibility of the zero subject relative marker can be implemented as a recognition test of there-clefts that have an overt subject relative if it can be replaced by a zero marker, as with (56) and (57).

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(56) a. there’s the British su/ite // that will be in att/endance // (LLC) b. there‘s the British suite Ø will be in attendance. (57) a. there was an undergraduate who did absolutely no w\ork // at \all // in his history sch\ools // (LLC) b. there was an undergraduate Ø did absolutely no work at all in his history schools Conversely, subject relative markers cannot be replaced by zero in restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses, as illustrated by (58) and (59) respectively. (58) a. there \/are // certain arguments which w/ork // and certain arguments which w\on‘t work // (LLC) b. *they know that there are certain arguments Ø work and certain arguments Ø won‘t work (59) a. there were three en\ormous fires // in the r/oom // which if you were within t/en feet of them // you s\inged // (LLC) b. *there were three enormous fires in the room Ø if you were within ten feet of them you singed In conclusion to this chapter, Table 5.1 provides the numbers and relative frequencies of the relative markers attested in the four types of relative clauses in our data. The results confirm that the subject zero marker is distinctive of specificational and presentational there-clefts. The results for specificational there-clefts are in line with the hypothesis formulated for specificational it-clefts in the literature: the th-paradigm, which subsumes Ø, is the most common choice (62.3%). By contrast, in the restrictive relative clauses in our data, the wh-paradigm predominates (71.43%). In presentational there-clefts, the wh-paradigm also predominates and this by 72.55%. The distribution of th- and wh-relative markers thus differs from that found in specificational there-clefts. Non-restrictive relative clauses have markers from the wh-paradigm only.

whthat Ø – DO/Prep Com Ø – Su Total

55 18 4 0 77

71.43 23.38 5.19 0 100

23 23 8 7 61

37.7 37.7 13.1 11.5 100

%

n

n

%

Specificational there-cleft

Restrictive relative clause

37 10 2 2 51

n 72.55 19.61 3.92 3.92 100

%

Presentational there-cleft

Relative markers in the four types of relative clauses

Relative marker

Table 5.1

35 0 0 0 35

n

100 0 0 0 100

%

Non-restrictive relative clause

150 51 14 9 224

n

Total

67 22.75 6.25 4 100

% 5 PARADIGMS OF RELATIVE MARKERS

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References Collins, P. (1991). Cleft and pseudo-cleft constructions in English. Routledge. Collins, P. (1992). Cleft existentials in English. Language Sciences, 14, 419–433. Declerck, R. (1988). Studies on copular sentences, clefts, and pseudo-clefts. Leuven University Press. Haas, W. (1957). Zero in linguistic description. Studies in linguistic analysis (pp. 33–53). Blackwell. Huddleston, R. (1971). The sentence in written English: A syntactic study based on an analysis of scientific texts. Cambridge University Press. Huddleston, R., & Pullum, G. (2002). The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge University Press. Kaltenböck, G. (2023). On the use of there-clefts with zero-subject relativizer. In C. Gentens, L. Ghesquière, W. McGregor & A. Van linden (Eds.), Reconnecting form and meaning. In honour of Kristin Davidse (pp. 17–43). Benjamins. Lambrecht, K. (1988a). There was a farmer had a dog: Syntactic amalgams revisited. Proceedings of the 14th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (pp. 319–339). Berkeley Linguistics Society. McGregor, W. (2003). The nothing that is, the zero that isn’t. Studia Linguistica, 57 , 75–119. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartik, J. (1985). A comprehensive grammar of the English language. Longman.

CHAPTER 6

Different Antecedent–Relative Clause Relations

Abstract In this chapter we spell out the semantic implications of the point that the antecedent of restrictive relative clauses is the nominal head plus modifiers but minus determiners, whereas in cleft relative clauses it is the whole NP. The crucial point is that the antecedents of restrictive relative clauses designate mere types, which the NP-internal relative clause further narrows down into more delicate type specifications. By contrast, the NP antecedents of relative clauses in clefts denote determined instances, which fill the semantic gap in the relative clause that follows it as a separate constituent. It is this that explains the possibility of ‘declefting’ a cleft into a simple proposition, in which the antecedent NP is integrated directly with the representational material of the relative clause rather than via the intermediary of the antecedent–relative anaphor relation. We operationalize this into tests to distinguish restrictive relative clauses in there-clauses from relative clauses in specificational there-clefts, which boil down to establishing whether or not the determiners of the postverbal NP, which are predominantly quantifiers, scope over the relative clause. Keywords Scope of determiners · Type specifications · Declefted proposition

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Davidse et al., Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32270-9_6

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Because restrictive relative clauses and relative clauses in clefts take relative markers from either the th- or the wh-paradigm, they present as identical surface strings in many of our examples. We can distinguish them only by careful functional-structural analysis. In this chapter, we address the first major grammatical-semantic distinction on which the recognition of these two construction types hinges, viz. the different antecedents of restrictive relative clauses and relative clauses in clefts (Sect. 6.2). Before we turn to this contrast, we briefly consider the antecedent of non-restrictive relative clauses (6.1).

6.1 Antecedent of Non-Restrictive Relative Clauses As noted in Chapter 3, we restricted the non-restrictive relative clauses in our dataset to those with a nominal antecedent like (60), excluding those with a clausal antecedent. (60) there’s a l\/etter ‘here // which I won‘t sh\/ow you // (LLC) It is uncontroversial that the nominal antecedent of non-restrictive relative clauses is a full NP. The relative anaphor which in (60) points back to a letter. The relative anaphor in non-restrictive relative clauses and their NP-antecedent denote identical (sets of) instances.

6.2 Antecedents of Restrictive Relative Clauses Versus Relative Clauses in Clefts Introduction In Chapter 1, we discussed Langacker’s (1991) analysis of the antecedent of restrictive relative clauses as involving the head noun only. In this section, we spell out the consequences of this point for the structural disambiguation and semantic computation of restrictive relative clauses versus relative clauses in clefts. With restrictive relative clauses in identifying clauses (61) versus it-clefts (62), the distinction is generally accepted and somehow easily parsed. In (61) the NP with restrictive relative clause gives a uniquely characterizing description, the boy who caused all the trouble, to identify “who was on the phone”. The it-cleft in (62) specifies that the person causing all the trouble was the boy. Crucially, the NP

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with restrictive relative clause is one unit, whereas the antecedent and the cleft relative clause are two separate units (Huddleston, 1984: 460; Huddleston & Pullum, 2002: 1035). (61) Who was that on the phone? — It was the boy who caused all the trouble. (Huddleston, 1984: 460) (62) Who caused all the trouble? — It was the boy who caused all the trouble. (ibid.) To existential clauses with a restrictive relative clause, e.g. (63), versus there-clefts, e.g. (64), the same type of structural disambiguation applies (e.g. Davidse, 2000; Davidse & Njende, 2019), but there is almost no recognition of this in the literature. (63) they know that there \/are // certain arguments which w/ork // and certain arguments which w\on‘t work // (LLC) (64) there are c\ertain things // Ø can be s\exlinked // on the Y chr/omosome // (LLC) This is probably so because NPs in existential clauses are typically indefinite (e.g. Abbott, 1993; Akmajian & Heny, 1975; Quirk et al., 1985), featuring either indefinite articles or, more frequently, quantifiers (Davidse, 1999a; Milsark, 1976).1 There has been little explicit discussion in the literature of indefinite NPs with restrictive relative clauses and even less of specificational there-clefts with indefinite or quantified value NP. Karssenberg’s (2018: 24–88) study of il y a (‘there is’) clefts in French, recognizes the central challenge of distinguishing relative clauses in clefts from the ‘lookalike’ restrictive relative clauses. She extensively discusses the main diagnostics proposed in the literature. Thus, for clefts, she looks at, amongst others, the decleftability test, which derives from the view of ‘clefting’ as a transformation applied to a simple proposition. No systematic distinction is made between relative clauses in specificational and presentational il y a clefts. For restrictive relative clauses, tests such as omissibility and the possibility of an adjectival alternate are considered.

1 As we will see in Chapter 8, 88.7% of the NPs in the existential constructions in our data have quantifiers or indefinite articles.

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Karssenberg concludes that most of the proposed tests capture tendencies, but that none are foolproof. In her study of corpus data (which did not include prosody), she classifies 28% as clefts and 32% as ‘lookalikes’ of clefts, but 40% as ‘unclear’ (Karssenberg, 2018: 60). This gives an idea of the high number of ambiguous cases that cannot be resolved if we do not address relative clauses in specificational and presentational clefts as the distinct grammatical signs they are, for which specialized diagnostics have to be developed. We will address the challenge of distinguishing restrictive relative clauses and there-clefts in English by further developing the nonmainstream recognition criteria proposed by Davidse (2000) and paying particular attention to the contribution made by quantifiers and other determiners of the postverbal NP to the overall semantics of the constructions. In the process, we will consider the main traditional diagnostics, explaining why they do not fully work and how, with some tweaking, a number can be included in our account. In Sect. “Restrictive Relative Clauses Versus Relative Clauses in It-Clefts”, we spell out the different structural assemblies and semantics of identifying clauses with NPs containing restrictive relative clauses versus it-clefts. In Sect. “Restrictive Relative Clauses Versus Relative Clauses in There-Clefts”, we do the same for existential clauses containing restrictive relative clauses and there-clefts, distinguishing the specificational and presentational subtypes. Restrictive Relative Clauses Versus Relative Clauses in It-Clefts The antecedent of a restrictive relative clause is traditionally assumed to be the whole NP (e.g. Huddleston, 1984: 394; Quirk et al., 1972: 858) because it is said to give the ‘defining’ information necessary to identify the referent of that antecedent. This, in turn, presupposes that the antecedent includes the determiner. Quirk et al. (1972: 858), for instance, state that in (65) who stood in the corner provides the necessary information to identify the girl. (65) The girl who stood in the corner is Mary Smith (Quirk et al., 1972: 858) However, this analysis is shown to be untenable in examples with relative quantifiers like every, as pointed out by Huddleston (1984: 394). In

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(66a), for instance, the relative pronoun does not point back to the whole NP every vehicle, as this would wrongly entail that every vehicle was tested (66b). Huddleston (1984: 394) tried to solve this by positing an alleged ‘lack of equivalence’ between relative anaphor and antecedent.2 (66) a. Every vehicle which they had tested had some defect. (Huddleston, 1984: 394) b. /= They had tested every vehicle. Moving away from this earlier position, Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 1034) state that structurally the antecedent is the head only and that semantically restrictive relative clauses denote ‘subsets’, as also proposed by Halliday (1994: 227). With Langacker (1991) we will argue that restrictive relative clauses as such designate subtypes rather than subsets. In Langacker’s (1991: Ch. 2) approach to reference, the designation of referents by NPs results from the interaction between the functions of their common noun head (plus modifiers) and the function of their determiners. A common noun is the name of a class, applying to all entities with the characteristics of that class. Hence, common nouns, like for instance vehicle, designate mere categorizations of entities. The addition of modifiers “restricts the denotative scope” of the head (Adamson, 2000: 57), creating more finely elaborated type specifications, i.e. a subtype— which is not the same as a subset. The modifiers can be nouns, as in carrier vehicle, adjectives, as in heavy vehicle, or restrictive relative clauses, which characterize the entity by its role in a clausal process, as in vehicle that was tested (Langacker, 1991: 435). It is only when these type specifications are integrated with a determiner into a full NP, that they actually designate (sets of) instances located vis-à-vis the deictic centre. The order of the structural assembly is essential here. The restrictive relative clause first modifies the nominal head, and this composite structure is then modified by the determiner (Langacker, 1991: 430–434), as visualized in Fig. 6.1. We represent the dependency relations between the elements of structure by arrow arcs pointing from head to dependent (Hudson, 1984; McGregor, 1997).

2 Which was criticized by Davidse (2000: 1110).

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Fig. 6.1 Internal dependency structure of NP with restrictive relative clause (RRC) (Langacker, 1991: 430–432)

This structure reflects the semantic fact that the determiner scopes over the whole unit of head + restrictive relative clause. The universal quantifier every in (66a) every vehicle that was tested refers inclusively to the whole subset of vehicles that were tested. In (67a), the NP with indefinite article a vehicle that was tested has non-specific reference: it designates an arbitrary instance without presupposition of existence (Langacker, 1991: 104). Importantly, the absence of presupposition of existence also impacts the reality status of the event designated by the head and restrictive relative clause: there is no presupposition of occurrence of vehicles having been tested. Example (67b), where the quantifier no scopes over the head + restrictive relative clause, entails non-occurrence of the event of vehicles having been tested within the discourse context. (67) a. Do you currently have a vehicle that was tested on offer? b. Currently we have no vehicle that was tested on offer. These observations can be used to address what may be an unspoken reservation about viewing restrictive relative clause–modifiers as fully equivalent to adjectival and nominal modifiers in NPs: how can finite relative clauses, which designate situations tied to a deictic centre, be incorporated into the mere categorization of an entity? Examples (67a) and (67b) show that this really is the case because the reference types of the NP override the presupposition of occurrence typically associated with finite clauses.3 We are also in a position now to evaluate the test of adjectival or preposition phrase equivalents of restrictive relative clauses proposed by Léard (1992: 31), Choi-Joning and Lagae (2005), which Karssenberg (2018: 31–32) critiques because there are not always equivalent adjectives or preposition phrases available and because in any case they do not convey 3 More specifically, non-modalized, positive declarative clauses.

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the same meaning. Both criticisms are valid. However, we would like to point out that possible alternation with participial modifiers does in fact reveal an important aspect of the grammatical meaning of restrictive relative clauses, viz. the point that restrictive relative clauses are NP-internal modifiers that restrict the type specifications characterizing the entity. If one keeps in mind that participles remove the deictic location of the situation, then this test can help the analyst recognize restrictive relative clauses, as in (62) Who was that at the phone? — It was [the [boy who caused the trouble]]:: it was [the [trouble-causing boy]]. (‘::’ symbolizes a systematic and regular alternate.) The proposed structural–functional account correctly predicts that proper names cannot take restrictive relative clauses (Huddleston, 1984: 460; Quirk et al., 1985: 1407) because they do not linguistically predicate type specifications (Langacker, 1991: 58–60), but refer to individuals by the unique name they have been given in an original name-giving act. If a proper name is modified by a restrictive relative clause, as in (68), then its semantics and grammatical behaviour are coerced into those of a common noun “with the approximate value ‘person named Stan Smith’” (Langacker, 1991: 59). (68) a. the Stan Smith who used to play professional tennis (Langacker, 1991: 59) b. the Stan Smith who married my sister-in-law (ibid.) We now turn to relative clauses in it-clefts. Crucially, they have the whole NP as antecedent, e.g. the boy in (62), Who caused the trouble? It was the boy who caused all the trouble. Whilst this point is made by Lambrecht (2001: 473), Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 1035) and Lehmann (2008: 213–215), they do not spell out its semantic consequences. Davidse (2000) has argued that the antecedents of relative clauses in clefts denote determined instances —in contrast with the antecedents of restrictive relative clauses, which designate mere types . This explains why proper names and pronouns, which intrinsically designate individuals, are natural antecedents of relative clauses in clefts, as in (18) may have been Ivor B\ond Ø told me //. By the same token, the determiners of the antecedent do not scope over the relative clause because the antecedent and relative clause in clefts do not form one constituent (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002: 1416).

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Davidse (2000: 1114) has further drawn attention to the neglected distributional fact that the value in it-clefts may also denote instances determined by a quantifier, like universal quantifier all in (69a). Importantly, (69a) does not entail that all houses require attention, but it does entail that all attention-requiring houses are being done. Ø are being done is clearly a cleft relative clause as it features the zero relative with subject function. That require attention is a restrictive relative clause, which settles the question of the subtype of houses targeted for renovation. All quantifies over all ‘attention-requiring houses’—not just ‘council houses’—and it is that subset that is ‘being done’. (69) a. A: They’ve done all those up and erm but … I don’t know whether it’s just council houses … B: Mm as far as I’m aware I think it’s [all the [houses that require attention]] [Ø are being done]. (WB) b. All the houses that require attention are being done. Having considered the contrast between restrictive and cleft relative clause in examples with both singular NPs (61–62) and plural NPs (69), we are now in a position to spell out the different composite semantics of restrictive and cleft relative clauses and their antecedents. A restrictive relative clause narrows down the entity-type designated by its antecedent, the head noun of the NP. Together they express a finer subtype of the entity-type as defined by its role in a clausal process. With plural NPs or universally quantified singular NPs, the meaning of the relative anaphor can be informally glossed as ‘in so far as’: houses that require attention in (69) means “houses in so far as they require attention”, and vehicle which they had tested in (66a) means “vehicle in so far as tested”. In these cases, the whole NP containing the relative clause clearly designates a referential subset of the set referred to by a NP with the same head only. With a singular NP like the boy who had caused the trouble in (61), the meaning of the nominal head–restrictive relative clause unit likewise involves narrowing down the general entity-type. What happens here is that, given that there are more than one instances of ‘boy’ around in the discourse context, the speaker narrows down the categorization to such an extent that only one instance in the context corresponds to it. Relative anaphors of restrictive relative clauses thus always have a ‘subtyping’ meaning, whereby the designata of the antecedent and the relative

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anaphor are not co-extensive. The relation between the nominal head antecedent and restrictive relative clause is a form of subordination within the NP. With cleft relative clauses, by contrast, the antecedents and the relative anaphors do designate co-extensive sets. In (69), the subject zero relative marker in [Ø are being done] and the antecedent [all the houses that require attention] designate identical sets. If the antecedent is a singular NP, as in (62) Who caused all the trouble? — It was [the boy] [who caused all the trouble], the relative anaphor who and the boy refer to the same set containing a single instance. The distinct features of the relation between the antecedent and the cleft relative clause are not a negligible fine point. The inclusion of the determiner in the antecedent is a crucial grammatical-semantic feature that has not received the attention it deserves as a recognition criterion. Davidse (2000: 1114) pointed out that in it-clefts like (69a) “it is precisely the inclusion of identification and quantification in the antecedent of clefts that SANCTIONS the well-known systematic alternation with non-cleft counterparts. … In the cleft, the relative clause predicates information about a specific situation INDIRECTLY—via the intermediary of the anaphoric relative relation—of the antecedent NP. In the corresponding non-cleft, the same clause is integrated DIRECTLY with that NP”. This leads us to the question of whether the so-called ‘declefted’ alternate, i.e. the simple proposition formed by the antecedent and the cleft relative clause, can be used as a criterial recognition test, as is maintained in much of the literature. We propose to view the ‘declefted’ alternate as an entailment of clefts that can be used as a necessary, but not as a sufficient, recognition criterion. With examples with universal quantifiers like all and every, the possibility of deriving a simple proposition as entailment does distinguish relative clauses in it-clefts from restrictive relative clauses, as discussed above for (66) and (69). However, with other examples, e.g. those with singular NP, the simple proposition formed by integrating the restrictive relative clause with the NP containing it has the same logical entailment as the simple proposition derived from the cleft. For instance, the example with restrictive relative clause in (61), Who was that at the phone? It was [the [boy who caused the trouble]], entails the boy caused all the trouble—but it is not a pragmatically acceptable answer to the question. By contrast, with the cleft in (62) Who caused all the trouble? It was

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Table 6.1 Form-meaning contrasts between restrictive (RRC) and cleft relative clauses (CRC)

Antecedent Antecedent + relative clause

Relation between antecedent and relative anaphor Scope of determiner

Form Meaning Form Meaning

Form Meaning

Form Meaning

Restrictive relative clause

Cleft relative clause

Head noun Type of entity [N + RRC] Narrowing down of entity-type by its role in a situation N – relative anaphor Type insofar as subtype

Full NP Determined instance [NP][CRC] Filler of gap in open proposition

[Det [N + RRC]] Determiner interacts with type specifications to designate instances referred to by NP

[Det [N]] [CRC] Determiner identifies or quantifies instances filling gap in open proposition

NP – relative anaphor Co-extensive sets of instances

[the boy][who caused the trouble], the entailment, the boy caused all the trouble, is a pragmatically acceptable answer to the question. The main form-meaning contrasts between restrictive relative clauses and cleft relative clauses in it-clefts discussed in this section are summarized in Table 6.1. Restrictive Relative Clauses Versus Relative Clauses in There-Clefts In this section, we take the analysis outlined in Sect. “Restrictive Relative Clauses Versus Relative Clauses in It-Clefts” to the contrast between restrictive relative clauses in existential clauses versus relative clauses in there-clefts. Whereas it-clefts are always specificational, there-clefts are either specificational or presentational. As we will show in this section, the structural relation between antecedent and relative clause is the same in both types of there-cleft. Therefore, we can generalize over them with the term ‘cleft relative clause’. Restrictive and cleft relative clauses in existential environments are strongly skewed towards occurring in or with indefinite NPs. We will elucidate the ways in which the different types of indefinite determiner combine with, on the one hand, the head + restrictive relative clause and, on the other hand, the NP antecedent of cleft relative clauses.

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We start with examples that feature negative quantification. In their discussion of “existential sentences with relative clause”, Quirk et al. (1985: 1407) note that examples like (70a–b) have ‘cleft-like’ structural features and rhetorical motivations such as emphatic negation (70a) or double negation expressing an emphatically positive statement (70b). (70) a. There isn’t a student who passed the exam (Quirk et al., 1985: 1407). b. There isn’t a student who didn’t pass the exam. However, Quirk et al. stop short of analysing (70a–b) as there-clefts, and do not distinguish cleft from restrictive relative clauses. Our dataset comprises 11 examples of specificational there-clefts with negatively quantified antecedent. Two of these additionally contain a restrictive relative clause, as in (71). (71) the committee of vice-chancellors will always it seems to me probably be the body which responds to the lowest common denominator of of action […] er er there is nothing that they cons\ider // that they do not adj\ourn // (LLC) We can apply the same entailment tests to (71) as we used to distinguish the restrictive from the cleft relative clause in (69a) it ’s all the houses that require attention Ø are being done. Example (71) does not entail that “the vice-chancellors consider nothing”. Hence, that they consider is a restrictive relative clause. Example (71) does entail that “nothing being considered is not adjourned by them”. i.e. “everything they consider they adjourn”. The second relative clause is thus a cleft relative clause. The effect of the double negation in (71) is similar to Quirk et al.’s (1985: 1407) example (70b), whose ‘declefted’ alternate is “not a student did not pass”, i.e. “every student passed”. For close analysis of negative quantification in examples with restrictive relative clauses and in there-clefts we have to take into account the fact that no can have two different meanings: relative or absolute quantification (Langacker, 1991, 2004, 2016, 2017; Davidse, 1999a, 2004).

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In (71) there is nothing that they cons ider that they do not adjourn, no is used as a relative quantifier, the opposite of all in (69), it ’s all the houses that require attention Ø are being done. Relative quantifiers like no and all quantify the actually denoted set by comparing it to a reference set comprising all the instances of the relevant type specifications in the context. In (69), the reference set is formed by all houses that require attention. The universal relative quantifier all indicates that the set actually denoted by the NP coincides with this reference set. In (71) the reference set is all things that they consider. No in (71) indicates that the actually designated set has no overlap whatsoever with that reference set: “No specifies universal exclusion” (Langacker, 2016: 8). This entails that the semantic gap in the open proposition of the relative clause is filled by an empty set: “they do not adjourn ‘nothing’”, i.e. they adjourn everything. Negative quantification may also be of the absolute type, as in (72) and (75), and it is then opposed to positive absolute quantifiers like very little (73) and many (76), as well as cardinal numbers like three in (74) and one in (77). (72) cleft there‘s n\othing // one can d\o about it // (LLC) (73) cleft I think there‘s v\ery little // we can do about it n/ow // (LLC) (74) cleft there were three little bl\ack boys // Ø were g\oing along // (LLC) (75) restrictive relative clause Twenty years ago we believed there was no medical problem that could kill a pregnant woman whose life could be saved by treatment involving a termination. (WB) (76) restrictive relative clause I’m doubtful whether thought and communication are necessarily always together like that. … // and there are many p\eople // er who don‘t think in w\ords // but who think in \abstracts // (LLC)

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(77) restrictive relative clause there is \one expensive G\/erman kind // that is really said to do \/everything isn‘t there // (LLC) According to Langacker (1991: 86), absolute quantifiers specify the ‘size’ of some instantiation of a type, by offering “a direct description of magnitude” (1991: 82–83) against some scale of measurement. This scale may be discrete, as with cardinal numbers, or continuous, as with quantifiers like few and many. Negative absolute quantification designates an instantiation measured as ‘zero’ on the cardinality scale (Davidse, 1999a, 2004). Positive absolute quantifiers measure instantiations by relating them to discrete points or ranges on the implied scales. Examples (72)–(74) illustrate the opposition between negative and positive absolute quantification in there-clefts. The specificational cleft in (72) specifies nothing as filling the gap in “x one can do about it”, whilst the specificational cleft in (73) specifies very little as filling the gap in “x we can do about it now”. The presentational cleft in (74) introduces three little black boys as being involved in the action referred to by the relative clause Ø were going along. Examples (75)–(77) illustrate the opposition between absolute negative and absolute positive quantification in existential clauses with restrictive relative clauses. In (75), the negative absolute quantifier scopes over the subtype medical problem that could kill a pregnant woman whose life could be saved by treatment involving a termination, indicating that this subtype has ‘zero-instantiation’ in the discourse context of past medical knowledge. We immediately note the semantic difference with the relative quantifier no in nothing they consider in (71), where there are instances of the type “thing they consider” in the discourse context, but they are excluded from the NP’s denotatum by the relative quantifier: nothing they consider means “none of all the things they consider”. Example (76), then, positively counts many instances of the subtype people who don‘t think in words but who think in abstracts. Example (77) counts just one instantiation of “kind [of dishwasher] that is really said to do everything”. The question is whether absolute quantifiers associated with there-clefts (as in 72–74) and restrictive relative clauses (as in 75–77) lead to different

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entailed simple propositions, as is the case with relative quantifiers. The answer to this question is negative. For instance, the there-cleft in (75) entails that “three little boys were walking along” and the existential with restrictive relative clause in (77) entails that “one expensive German kind [of dishwasher] is said to do everything”. Quantifying the instances of a type in the antecedent NP of a cleft, as in (72)–(74), and quantifying the instances in the discourse context that correspond to the type specifications designated by head + restrictive relative clause, as in (75)–(77), entail the same sort of simple proposition. In examples with absolute quantifiers, the grammatical-semantic distinctions between cleft and restrictive relative clauses have to be tested for in a different way. We propose that this can be done by what we will refer to as the such-test. Cleft relative clauses cannot be replaced by such, as shown by (72)’–(74)’, but restrictive relative clauses can be replaced by such, as shown by (75)’–(77)’. With the latter, the utterance with substitution by such is interpretable as a confirmation of the original, whereas with the former it is not. (72)’ cleft there‘s n\othing// one can d\o about it// /= There is no such thing. (73)’ cleft there‘s v\ery little // we can do about it n/ow// /= There is very little such action. (74)’ cleft there were three little bl\ack boys// were g\oing along// /= There were three such little black boys. (75)’ restrictive relative clause we believed there was no medical problem that could kill a pregnant woman whose life could be saved by treatment involving a termination. We believed there was no such medical problem. (76)’ restrictive relative clause there are many p\eople// who don‘t think in w\ords// but who think in \abstracts// There are many such people.

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(77)’ restrictive relative clause there is \one expensive G\/erman kind// that is really said to do \/everything isn‘t there// There is one such kind (of dishwasher). Because restrictive relative clauses designate type specifications incorporated into the categorization of the entity referred to, these type specification can be anaphorically referred to by such. Such functions as a secondary determiner to the primary determiner (i.e. the absolute quantifiers in (75)–(77)), giving instructions to anaphorically retrieve all the subtype specifications and add them to the type designated by the head noun (Davidse, 2022), whilst leaving the quantifiers intact. By contrast, cleft relative clauses state separate propositions, which cannot be replaced by such, as this leads to utterances with a different meaning from the original, as in (72)’–(74)’. Of course, in checking whether the utterance with such-substitution can be used as a confirmation of the original utterance, we have to take the context into account. For instance, in (76) the speaker rejects the idea that thought always involves language, and makes the case that there is a subtype of humans that think in abstracts, not words. We found that such contextual clues are overwhelmingly present in the extended dialogic contexts of the LLC. Moreover, the sound files provide us with a speech signal that approximates the linguistic information available to the original addressees to decode the message (minus the visuals). This allowed us to classify the examples exhaustively. The final main determiner type we consider is indefinite articles, illustrated in a specificational there-cleft in (78), a presentational there-cleft in (79) and existentials with restrictive relative clause in (80) and (81). For each example, we indicate the (non)-acceptability of the corresponding simple proposition in the b variants and the alternate with such in the c variants. (78) cleft a. I knew really from the moment I started doing medicine I wouldn‘t do surgery […]// cos there‘s some friends of [m] there‘s a fr\iend of mine // that wants to do s\urgery // n=ow // (LLC) b. A friend of mine wants to do surgery. c. /= Yes, there is such a friend of mine.

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(79) cleft a. there was a p\articular man there // she wanted to w\/ork with // (LLC) b. She wanted to work with a particular man. c. /= Yes, there is such a particular man. (80) restrictive relative clause a. F/inally // there is a principle which m\/ay overlook // both the immorality a\nd // the h\/armful outcome of pornography // (LLC) b. /= A principle may overlook both the immorality and the harmful outcome of pornography c. Yes, there is such a principle. (81) restrictive relative clause a. there were questions that I couldn‘t c\ope with // (LLC) b. /= I couldn’t cope with questions. c. Yes, there were such questions. We first examine the entailment test. The there-clefts in (78b) and (79b) entail simple propositions. This is because the indefinite NPs in there-clefts, a friend of mine (78a) and a particular man (79a), introduce specific individuals of which the situation in the relative clause can be predicated. For the examples with restrictive relative clause like (80a) and (81a), by contrast, the simple propositions derived from them, (80b) and (81b), are not entailments.4 4 In (81a), the plural NP with indefinite zero-article designates ‘some’ instances of

questions the speaker could not cope with, whereas in (81b) questions is interpreted generically. As per Davidse (1999a, 2004), they involve a different determiner structure: on its non-generic reading the NP has a ‘zero-article’ whilst on its generic reading it has no determiner at all. This is an instance of what McGregor (2003) refers to as the contrast between a zero-element that is semiotically significant versus ‘nothing’ in either form or meaning. Plural NPs with non-generic reference, can, besides zero, take some, as in there were [Ø]/some questions that I couldn’t cope with, or any as in were there [Ø]/any questions that you couldn’t cope with. The zero-option is hence a member of a paradigm of elements realizing the same function in a particular grammatical environment, whereby zero occupies a distinct and constant semantic value in the paradigm. The zero-article contrasts with assertive some and non-assertive any by having a more general meaning that can be used in both assertive and non-assertive contexts. Generic plural NPs, by contrast, have no determiner. This analysis goes against the claim that generic reference is equivalent to universal quantification, which Carlson (1978: 28–29) showed to be untenable in view of generic examples like Kangaroos/*All kangaroos are widespread in Australia, Colonists introduced rabbits/*all rabbits to Australia. Carlson (1978: 33, 196)

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Alternates with such-substitution, then, pick up the precise grammatical-semantic distinction between cleft and restrictive relative clauses. It is not possible to incorporate the separate proposition in the cleft relative clause into the postverbal NP with anaphoric such, as shown by (78c) and (79c), but it is possible to incorporate the restrictive relative clause, which further subcategorizes the type designated by the head noun, with anaphoric such into the NP, as shown in (80c) and (81c). In sum, the form-meaning contrasts between restrictive and cleft relative clauses in identifying environments summarized in Table 6.1 (Sect. “Restrictive Relative Clauses Versus Relative Clauses in It-Clefts”) can also be tested for in existential environments. If the postverbal NP has universal relative quantification, the entailment of a simple proposition distinguishes the cleft from the restrictive relative clause. If the postverbal NP contains absolute quantifiers or indefinite articles, the possibility of substituting the relative clause by such identifies the NP-internal restrictive relative clause.

References Abbott, B. (1993). A pragmatic account of the definiteness effect in existential sentences. Journal of Pragmatics, 19, 39–55. Adamson, S. (2000). A lovely little example. Word order options and category shift in the premodifying string. In O. Fischer et al. (Eds.), Pathways of change (pp 39–66). John Benjamins. Akmajian, A., & Heny, F. (1975). An introduction to the principles of transformational syntax. MIT Press. Carlson, G. (1978). Reference to kinds in English. Indiana University Linguistics Club. Choi-Jonin, I., & Lagae, V. (2005). Il y a des gens ils ont mauvais caractere. A propos du role de il y a. In A. Murguia (Ed.), Sens et références. Mélanges Georges Kleiber (pp. 39–66). Gunter Narr. Davidse, K. (1999a). The semantics of cardinal versus enumerative existential constructions. Cognitive Linguistics, 10, 203–250.

argued that generic NPs are truly ‘bare’ and have no determiner. He correlated this with them not designating a finite set of individuals. Put in terms of Langacker’s approach to the NP, generic NPs lack the instantiation function associated with determiners. Their type specifications give mental access to the generic class as such.

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Davidse, K. (1999b). Are there sentences that can be analyzed as there-clefts? In G. Tops (Ed.), Thinking English grammar: To honour Xavier Dekeyser, Professor Emeritus (pp. 177–193). Peeters. Davidse, K. (2000). A constructional approach to clefts. Linguistics, 38(6), 1101–1131. Davidse, K. (2004). The interaction of quantification and identification in English determiners. In M. Achard & S. Kemmer (Eds.), Language, culture and mind (pp. 507–533). CSLI. Davidse, K. (2022). Refining and re-defining secondary determiners in relation to primary determiners. In L. Sommerer & E. Keizer (Eds.), English noun phrases from a functional-cognitive perspective. Current issues (pp. 27–78). John Benjamins. Davidse, K., & Njende, N. (2019). Enumerative there-clauses and there-clefts: Specification and information structure. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, 51(2), 160–191. Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd ed.). Arnold. Huddleston, R. (1984). Introduction to the grammar of English. Cambridge University Press. Huddleston, R., & Pullum, G. (2002). The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge University Press. Hudson, R. (1984). Word Grammar. Basil Blackwell. Karssenberg, L. (2018). Non-prototypical clefts in French: A corpus analysis of “il y a” clefts. De Gruyter Mouton. Lambrecht, K. (2001). A framework for the analysis of cleft constructions. Linguistics, 39, 463–516. Langacker, R. (1991). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 2, Descriptive application. Stanford University Press. Langacker, R. (2004). Remarks on nominal grounding. Functions of Language, 11(1), 77–113. Langacker, R. (2016). Nominal grounding and English quantifiers. Cognitive Linguistic Studies, 3, 1–31. Langacker, R. (2017). Grounding, semantic functions, and absolute quantifiers. English Text Construction, 10(2), 233–248. Léard, J.-M. (1992). Les gallicismes. Étude syntaxique et sémantique. Duculot. Lehmann, C. (2008). Information structure and grammaticalization. In E. Seoane & M. J. López-Couso (Eds.), Theoretical issues in grammaticalization (pp. 207–229). John Benjamins. McGregor, W. (1997). Semiotic Grammar. Clarendon. McGregor, W. (2003). The nothing that is, the zero that isn’t. Studia Linguistica, 57 , 75–119.

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Milsark, G. (1976). Existential sentences in English. Indiana University Linguistics Club. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartik, J. (1972). A grammar of contemporary English. Longman. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartik, J. (1985). A comprehensive grammar of the English language. Longman.

CHAPTER 7

Structural Assemblies and Semantics of the Four Existential Constructions with Relative Clause

Abstract This chapter analyses the structural assemblies and semantics of the four existential constructions with relative clause. A simple existential clause codes a relation of occurrence hosted by the setting indexed by existential there. If the NP with existent role contains a restrictive relative clause, then the occurrence relation is construed as quantifying the instances of the composite type specifications of this NP. Nonrestrictive relative clauses are either appositional to the existent NP or hypotactic to the main clause. In there-clefts, existential be is a threeplace predicate, with existential there its subject, the existent NP its direct complement and the relative clause its indirect complement. In specificational there-clefts, the matrix codes the cognitive state resulting from an implied specificational act. The direct complement quantifies, or refers to, instances that match the definition in the relative clause. In presentational there-clefts, the matrix presents an entity, on which the relative clause predicates a discourse-new situation within the speaker’s cognitive awareness. Keywords Simple there-clause · Specificational there-cleft · Presentational there-cleft

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Davidse et al., Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32270-9_7

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In the previous chapter, we focused on the functional-structural differences between antecedent–relative clause relations in clefts and existential clauses with restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses. In this chapter we examine how these different antecedent–relative clause structures are integrated into the larger structures they are part of, and what semantics these structural assemblies code. We first describe how the existent NP containing a restrictive relative clause functions in existential clauses (Sect. 7.1). Next we examine how non-restrictive relative clauses are integrated with their antecedent in existential clauses (Sect. 7.2). We then develop our structural–functional account of there-clefts (Sect. 7.3). For this, we broaden our view to specificational and presentational clefts with other types of matrix, viz. identifying matrices and matrices containing opaque verbs. This allows us to reveal the structural assembly shared by all clefts—as well as differences between specificational and presentational clefts revealed by their different alternation possibilities. It also enables us to zoom in on the distinct semantics of clefts with existential matrix in contrast with those with other matrix types.

7.1 Existential Clauses with Restrictive Relative Clause In Chapter 6, we described the structure and meaning of NPs containing restrictive relative clauses in terms of successive head-modification relations visualized in Fig. 6.1, and included in Fig. 7.1 as the lower-level structure between brackets. In this section, we propose an account of how this structure is integrated into the larger structure of existential clauses. As discussed in Chapter 2, we model the clausal configuration of the process represented by the lexical verb and its participant(s) in terms of head–complement relations Langacker (1987: 277–304). The meaning of the lexical verb as the clausal head makes schematic reference to the nominals elaborating it, as recognized in the traditional notion of verb valency. For existential clauses, we have to elucidate in what way the predicate be is elaborated by there and by the postverbal NP, whose participant role we refer to as ‘existent’, following Halliday (1985: 130). These two complementation relations are visualized in the top tier of Fig. 7.1 as arrow arcs going from the head be to the dependents there and the existent NP. We discuss these two complementation relations in the following paragraphs.

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head be existent

[determiner [head/antecedent there

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are

[certain[arguments

RRC]]

[which work]]]

Fig. 7.1 Structural assembly of existential clause with restrictive relative clause (RRC)

The function of existential there is characterized by Langacker (1991: 343–355) as a ‘setting-subject’, which is a marked type of subject in that it does not designate a participant in the process, but the setting of the process. The background to understanding this notion is Langacker’s (1991) ‘stage model’ of the representational semantics of clauses, in which the interrelation between a process and its participant(s) is evoked within a setting typically coded by circumstantial adjuncts. There are, however, also construction types in which an element of the setting is not coded by an adjunct with relational meaning but by a nominal designating an entity with a direct relation to the verb. The semantic effect of this is that the setting element is pulled within the nucleus into a closer interrelation with the process. Setting-subjects are an instance of this mechanism, which we illustrate first with the semantically specific setting-subject tanker Braer in (82a). Constructions with setting-subjects as in (82a) alternate with intransitive clauses with an adjunct construing the setting congruently, like from a storage tank in (82b). The setting-subject coding of tanker Braer does not turn the clause into a transitive one. Semantically, tanker Braer in (82a) acquires no agentive features such as instigative force and the clause resists the crucial alternate indicating transitivity in English (Halliday, 1985; Langacker, 1991), viz. possibility of a passive: *Oil is still being gushed by tanker Brear.1

1 In accordance with our natural grammar tenet, we take it that the construal of the

setting as subject, e.g. tanker Braer in (82a) has a different semantic effect from its construal as adjunct, e.g. from the storage tank in (82b). A possible semantic-pragmatic motivation was proposed by Vandenberghe (1998). He argues that in examples like (82a) the subject coding conveys a non-agentive notion of ‘responsibility’, such as a structural weakness or technical fault of the entity.

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(82) a. In the Shetland Islands, tanker Braer still aground, still gushing oil. (quoted from WB by Vandenberghe, 1998: 162) b. Heating oil gushed from a storage tank. (quoted from WB by Vandenberghe, 1998: 168) Constructions with subject clitics there and it, e.g. (83a), are analysed by Langacker (1991: 343–355) as setting-subject constructions. We point out that they manifest the same alternation with purely intransitive clauses, as in (83b). (83) a. It/there’s brewing a storm. (cf. Bolinger, 1973: 262) b. A storm is brewing. These alternates do not contain an adjunct because there and it do not refer to a specific location, which would allow for an alternative coding as prepositional phrase. Rather, subject clitics there and it have ‘ambient’ semantics, which, in Chapter 4, we characterized as general exophoric pointing tied to the conceptualizer’s implied position in the deictic centre. In this way, subject clitics there and it convey the conceptualizer’s awareness of the reality or implications of the context (Bolinger, 1977: 84–85, Langacker, 1991: 353–4). We now turn to existential clauses with be, which, as noted in Chapter 4, emerged as pure intransitive clauses, e.g. (84a). The variants with clitics it and there emerged in Old English, (84b–84c) and gained ground in Middle English. In Present-day English, the form with there, which is analysed as a setting-subject in the Cognitive Grammar tradition (see also Smith, 1985, 2002, 20052 ), has become the unmarked, most frequent variant. The variant without there still occurs, amongst others, in existentials with a fronted circumstance of place, as in On the wall was a spider, but allows there-insertion: On the wall there was a spider. This diachronic shift has been explained with reference to the typological shift from English as a verb second to a verb medial language and concomitant changes in the textual organization of the clause.

2 Whilst Smith’s studies focus on German existential es, they also support the settingsubject analysis of English existential there.

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(84) a. Two kinne festing beð (1070–1225) “Two kinds of fasting (there) are” (Breivik, 1989: 46) b. Is hit lytel tweo þæt. “is there little doubt that” (late 9th cent, King Ælfred tr. Gregory Past. Care) (Mitchell, 1985: 625) c. for nis þær na steuene bituhhe þe fordemde bute wumme. “For there is no voice between the damned but woe me” (1070– 1225) (Breivik, 1989: 47) d. Ah þer nis buten an god. “But there is just one God” St. Katherine, 22.61 (c.1225) (Williams, 2000: 164) Regarding the development of existential it and there in interaction with changing mood structures, Williams (2000) shows that they were associated with the structural position of subjects. In Old English, they appeared in the post-finite position both in interrogatives (84b) and in declaratives if the initial position was occupied by conjunctive elements or negation, as in (84c). In Middle English, they moved to pre-finite position in such declaratives, as in (84d), just like other subject pronouns did at a time when full nominal subjects still appeared in post-finite position (Williams, 2000: 164). This change was part of the changing tendencies in information structure that yielded the unmarked information structure of declaratives that has persisted into the present, which disfavours new information in clause-initial position. Indeed, the pattern “clitic subject there + be + postverbal existent NP” instantiates the “pattern of beginning a clause with an element that is ‘given’, i.e. accessible from the current discourse space” (Langacker, 1991: 354) and putting new information in clause-final position (Halliday, 1994). In accordance with our theoretical tenets (Chapter 2), we maintain that existential clauses also have representational semantics: the elaboration of the lexical verb be (as clausal head) by there and the existent NP codes a specific process-participant relation. We subscribe to Langacker’s (1991: 352) semantic characterization of this structure as a setting-subject construction, in which existential “there designates an abstract setting construed as hosting some relationship”, which is a “relationship of occurrence [italics ours]” (Langacker, 1991: 353). If we look at existential clauses diachronically, we see that in the earliest recorded data ‘occurrence’ was expressed by fully intransitive existential be and an existent NP like two kinds of fasting as in (84a), in which nothing overtly marks

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the conceptualizer’s awareness. This is precisely what setting-subject it or there add to the intransitive nucleus of be + existent NP in examples like (84b–d), which express the occurrence of an entity or phenomenon within the conceptualizer’s zone of cognitive awareness. This occurrence can be construed in a number of ways. The unmarked, most common type, Davidse (1992, 1998, 1999a, 2020) has argued, expresses whether or not the type specifications associated with the existent NP are instantiated, and if so, with what magnitude—conveyed either by explicit quantifiers or implied by other determiners, as in (85). Less commonly, the existent can be a definite NP, as in (86). (85) a. There are few/ Ø saints. b. There are no saints. (86) On the train coming up, there was Roy Hatterson with a group of people. (WB) The declarative existential in (85a) asserts that the type ‘saints’ is instantiated, with few measuring a small number of instances and Ø leaving the quantity maximally vague. The existential in (85b) denies that the type ‘saints’ is instantiated. McNally (1998) made, from a formal semantic point of view, basically the same descriptive claim: existential be can be interpreted as ‘be instantiated’ whereby the central NP provides a description of the ‘non-particulars’ that instantiation is being declared or denied of. These semantics differ from the mainstream characterization of existential clauses as having the function to “inform the addressee of the existence or presence of some entity or state of affairs and/or to introduce that entity or situation into the current discourse” (Lopéz-Couso [2010: 86] with reference to Johnson [2001]). The ways in which the proposed ‘instantiation’ semantics differs from the received semantic definition are further detailed in the following paragraphs. In the unmarked existential, the ‘instantiation of type specifications’ is construed by the single existent NP which contributes the two elements of the ‘occurrence’ relation, viz. the type specifications and the (quantified) instantiation. The type specifications are conveyed by the head noun of the existent NP plus any descriptive modifiers it may have and by anaphoric elements with instructions for retrieving type specifications. Information about the actual instantiation is provided by the determiners, which,

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in the Langackerian tradition, are argued to also subsume quantifiers in determiner position (Davidse, 2004, 2022; Langacker, 1991, 2004, 2016, 2017). This characterization of the semantic functions of the existent NP captures examples with both positive (85a) and negative (85b) quantification. The claim that type specifications and determining information contribute distinct components to the semantics of existentials is confirmed, we argue, by their ability to be structurally separated. In (87), the nominal head specifying the type is extracted from the existent NP and put in pre-subject position, whilst the postverbal complement designates the quantified instantiation. By contrast, such fronting of the head noun is marginal with ordinary patientive complements, as in (88).3 (87) There are few/no saints.:: Saints, there are few/none. (88) He dropped many/no apples.:: ? Apples, he dropped many/none. Into the proposed meaning of existential clauses, the semantics of NPs with restrictive relative clauses discussed in Sect. 7.1 can be seamlessly integrated. For instance, in they know that there are certain arguments which work, the type specifications ‘arguments which work’ are asserted to be instantiated, with certain conveying that there are ‘some’ instances of each type. The two modifier relations internal to the existent NP are visualized in the lower structure of Fig. 7.1. The structural assembly of the whole existential construction can be indicated with square brackets as in there are [certain [arguments which work]]. In the next section we turn to the structural assembly of existential clauses with non-restrictive relative clause.

3 In Dutch and French existential clauses like (ia) and (ib), the semantic components of type specifications and quantified instantiation are clearly expressed by separate constituents. The pronoun er in Dutch (ia) and en in French (ib) mean ‘of that type’: they give instructions to anaphorically retrieve the relevant type specifications from the preceding text. Er and en function as adjunct of the existent NPs which themselves consist only of a quantifier, ‘three’, which quantifies the instantiation of the retrieved type. On Dutch er followed by quantifier, see Kruisinga (1949, § 294.a), Bech (1952: 26–32). On French en followed by quantifier, see Grevisse and Goosse (2011: 914).

(i) a. Zijn er valide argumenten voor deze positie? Ja, er zijn er drie. b. Est-ce qu’il y a des arguments valides pour cette position? Oui, il y en a trois. “Are there valid arguments for this position? Yes, there are ‘of that type’ three”.

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7.2 Existential Clauses with Non-Restrictive Relative Clause As noted in Chapter 3, we restricted the non-restrictive relative clauses in our dataset to those with a nominal antecedent, excluding those with a clausal antecedent. In our data, the antecedent NP and the relative anaphor of the relative clause thus always refer to the same (set of) instances. As pointed out by Lambrecht (2002), the antecedent and the non-restrictive relative clause can be integrated into the larger composite structure in two ways, yielding two types of non-restrictive relative clauses: appositional ones, as in (89) and (90),4 and continuative ones, as in (91). (89) then there was Mr Charles Br/andon // who was a secretary of the Transport and General W/orkers Union // (LLC) (90) Because there was a m\/an // who was the head of the \/Irish Museum // I may remember h\/is name in a minute // who was a German sp\y // (LLC) (91) there’s a l\/etter here // which I won’t sh\/ow you // (LLC) Appositional non-restrictive relative clauses and their NP antecedents form a complex NP. Between these two elements, there is, more precisely, a relation of loose apposition. Van Eynde and Jong-Bok (2016) give good arguments for viewing loose apposition as a headed structure. Its dependent element, they argue, is neither a modifier nor a complement. They propose to analyse it as a supplement, following Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 1350), who typify supplements as having “the character of interpolations or appendages”. Adopting this analysis, we view the relation between the antecedent and the appositional non-restrictive relative clause as a head–supplement structure. This type of structure alternates with a complex structure consisting of two NPs in loose apposition, which clearly brings out the appositional semantics of the originals: (89) stands to (89)’ then there was Mr Charles Br/andon, a former secretary of the Transport and General W/orkers Union, in the same way as (90) stands to (90)’ there was a m\/an, the head of the \/Irish Museum. Figure 7.2 visualizes 4 In (90), the final relative clause is a cleft relative clause, as shown by its ability to have Ø subject relative marker: there was a man who was the head of the Irish Museum [Ø] was a German spy. This presentational there-cleft opens a set of stories about appointments of Germans before and during the war.

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there

head be existent

there

was

[antecedent [a man

83

RM + NRRC ] [who was the head of the Irish Museum]]

Fig. 7.2 Structural assembly of existential clause with appositional NonRestrictive Relative Clause (NRRC)

the head–complement structure of the existential clause in the top tier, whilst the head–supplement relation5 internal to the complex existent NP is modelled in the bottom tier. Continuative non-restrictive relative clauses, then, do not form a complex NP with their antecedent. The relative anaphor is co-referential with the NP-antecedent in our data, as in (90) there’s a letter here, which I won’t show you, but can also be a larger unit such as the whole clause, as in (92). (92) They decided to cancel the show, which upset everybody alike. (Halliday, 1985: 204). Structurally, all continuative non-restrictive relative clauses stand in a relation of subordination to the matrix clause. The point that we are dealing here with a relation between clauses is shown by the possibility of alternation with a coordination relation expressed by conjunctions like and or but (Halliday, 1985: 206), as in There’s a letter here but I won’t show it you, They decided to cancel the show and it upset everybody alike. Continuative, or narrative, non-restrictive relative clauses extend the narrative by describing another state-of-affairs that the entity denoted by the antecedent is involved in, as in (90), or that the whole matrix clause is involved in as a ‘fact’, as in (92). The structure of the thus formed complex sentence is visualized for example (90) in Fig. 7.3. The dependency relation internal to the complex sentence can be represented with square brackets as [There is a letter here [which I won’t show you]].

5 The supplement relation awaits further elucidation within a cognitive-functional framework, which is, however, beyond the scope of this study.

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there

head be existent/ antecedent

[there

‘s

a letter here

RM NRRC [which I won’t show you]]

Fig. 7.3 Structural assembly of existential clause with continuative nonrestrictive relative clause (NRRC)

In sum, continuative non-restrictive relative clauses create complex sentences, whereas appositional non-restrictive relative clauses create complex NP structures.

7.3

There-Clefts

In this section, we argue for our account of specificational there-clefts as secondary specification constructions and of presentational thereclefts as secondary predication constructions. In Sect. “Lambrecht’s Structural Analysis of Presentational and Specificational There-Clefts as Secondary Predication Constructions”, we first consider Lambrecht’s (2002) structural analysis of both presentational and specificational il y a-clefts as secondary predication constructions. We recognize Lambrecht’s (2002) proposal as an important inspiration for our own account, which, however, also differs fundamentally from Lambrecht’s (Sect. “General Differences Between Lambrecht’s and Our Structural Analysis of There-Clefts”). The most important difference is that we analyse specificational clefts as secondary specification constructions, which, we argue, have to be recognized as a different construction type (Sect. “Specificational Clefts as Secondary Specification Constructions”). We analyse only presentational clefts as secondary predication constructions, which we hence define more narrowly than Lambrecht and conceive of differently in a number of ways (Sect. “Presentational Clefts as Secondary Predication Constructions”). Lambrecht’s Structural Analysis of Presentational and Specificational There-Clefts as Secondary Predication Constructions Historically, the notion of secondary predication constructions was introduced to analyse examples like (93a), in which a three-place verb,

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interpret, subcategorizes for two non-agentive elements, an entity predicated on, this text, and a predicate, as a forgery (McGregor, 1997; Nichols, 1978). On Langacker’s (1991: 359) analysis, this text is a nominal complement directly elaborating interpret. To the extent that as a forgery elaborates a substructure present in the meaning of interpret it is also a complement of that verb, more specifically a relational complement (Langacker, 1987: 300). According to Langacker (1991: 359), relational complements of verbs can be realized by three classes: prepositional phrases like as a forgery in (90a), predicate nominatives like a forgery in (93b) and possessive complements in ditransitive constructions. In addition, (as) a forgery in (93a-b) stands in a modification relation to this text. Secondary predicates differ from pure adnominals like appositional non-restrictive relative clauses, which have a structural link only with the NP they modify (McGregor, 1997: 172). (93) a. We interpret this text as a forgery. (McGregor, 1997: 172) b. We consider this text a forgery. Lambrecht (2002) extends the secondary predication analysis to presentational il y a clefts, e.g. (94), as well as to specificational il y a clefts, e.g. (95), in which the secondary relation obtains between relative clauses and their antecedents. (94) Il y avait (une fois) une jeune fille qui fumait. There (once) was a girl who smoked. (Lambrecht, 2002: 177). (95) Y a moi qui fume, y a Marie-Paule, y a la jeune fille … There’s me, who smokes, there’s Marie Paule, there’s the girl … (ibid.: 177). Lambrecht (2002: 172) analyses the syntax of presentational and specificational il y a clefts as “a tripartite flat structure composed of a V preceded by one or more bound pronouns […], an NP, and a RC whose pronominal subject is coindexed with the NP”, as represented in (96), with the relative clause “treated as a depictive secondary predicate phrase”. (96) V[pro + V] [NPi ]

RC [rel.

pro.i + V]

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Crucially, predicative relative clauses do not “form a constituent with the nominals of whose denotata they are semantically predicated” (König & Lambrecht, 1999: 195). The antecedent of predicative relative clauses is a full NP, as shown by the fact that it can be a proper name. Lambrecht (2002) in fact ascribes this same grammatical structure of a V preceded by a pronoun and followed by a NP, a coindexed relative pronoun + predicative relative clause to two further types of construction: (i) a perception report, e.g. (97) and (ii) a deictic construction with voilà, e.g. (98). (97) Je vois (trouve) le jeune fille qui fume. (Lambrecht, 2002: 177) “I see (find) the girl smoking”. (98) Voilà la jeune fille qui arrive. (ibid.) “There’s the girl arriving”. Lambrecht (2001, 2002) does not analyse c’est (‘that’s’) clefts in terms of secondary predication, but as a “two-clause sequence … expressing a logically simple proposition” (Lambrecht, 2001: 468), whose matrix is claimed to be semantically empty. Whilst he (Lambrecht, 2002) gives a secondary predication analysis of presentational il y a (‘there’s’) clefts (94) and specificational il y a-clefts (95), he claims for them too that they express information structural meaning only. By contrast, for perception reports (97) and deictic voilà-constructions (98) he seems to suggest that the matrix does contribute meaning to these constructions. General Differences Between Lambrecht’s and Our Structural Analysis of There-Clefts We agree with two main points of Lambrecht’s (2002) structural analysis of clefts as V[pro + V] [NPi ] RC [rel. pro.i + V]. Firstly, the relation between cleft relative clauses and their antecedents is a ‘secondary’ relation. Secondly, it is the matrix that relates the antecedent to the cleft relative clause. At the same time, there are crucial differences between Lambrecht’s and our account. Firstly, we reformulate the structural assembly of thereclefts in Cognitive Grammar terms (Sect. “The Structural Assembly of There-Clefts”). Secondly, we add opaque verb-clefts to the whole field of clefts (Sect. “Opaque Verb–Clefts”). In the next sections, dedicated

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to specificational there-clefts (Sect. “Specificational Clefts as Secondary Spification Constructions”) and presentational there-clefts (Sect. “Presentational Clefts as Secondary Predication Constructions”), this helps us to elucidate the different semantics of the matrix verbs found in specificational and presentational clefts. Rather than analysing presentational and specificational clefts as both involving secondary predication, we argue that specificational clefts are secondary specification constructions with their own distinct properties. The Structural Assembly of There-Clefts We reconceptualize Lambrecht’s (2002) phrase structure analysis of the matrix verb and its three constituents in terms of the dependency approach taken in Cognitive Grammar (see Chapter 2). We will make this case using the specificational there-cleft in (99) and the presentational there-cleft in (100) as examples. (99) There is V\ernon // who is \also known // (LLC) (100) there were thr\ee little black boys // Ø were g\oing along. (LLC) The relation coded by be in there-clefts makes schematic reference to three entities, the setting/subject there and the two complements involved in the secondary relation. The function of the subject clitic there is not different from that in simple existential clauses (Sect. 7.1): “there designates an abstract setting construed as hosting some relationship” (Langacker, 1991: 352). In clefts, as in simple existential clauses, the existent NP is a direct participant of be. But the existent NP is also the antecedent of the cleft relative clause, with which it forms a head–modifier structure. The cleft relative clause, then, also stands in a complementation relation to the matrix VP but indirectly so because this relation is mediated by the antecedent–relative anaphor relation. As we will show, we find the same integration of complementation and modification relations here as in generally recognized examples of secondary predication like We interpret this text as a forgery (McGregor, 1997: 172). Arguably, the question that has bedeviled linguists most is how the relative clause is integrated in the overall structure of clefts. In the literature, two main analyses have been proposed for clefts, the expletive and the extraposition account, which both posit a form-meaning mismatch.

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The expletive account holds that the subject and predicator of the matrix have no lexical meaning and it also bereaves the antecedent–relative clause structure of any meaning. We described the expletive account as held by Lambrecht (1994, 2001, 2002) in Chapter 1. The extraposition account (e.g. Akmajian, [1973] 1979; Bolinger, 1977; Halliday, 1967a, 1994; Huddleston, 1984; Patten, 2012; Percus, 1977)6 analyses the pronominal subject and the relative clause as a single constituent from which the relative clause is extraposed. The resulting discontinuous constituent is said to function much like the continuous constituent with relative clause in a pseudo-cleft, yielding a “meaning thus very close to that of” a pseudo-cleft (Halliday, 1967a: 236). On this analysis, the structure of a there-cleft like (99) is alleged to be [there … who is also known] subject is [Vernon] complement . This not only posits the implausible overriding of agreement principles between there and [+ animate] who but also fails to bring out the distinct semantics of clefts and pseudo-clefts. Against this, we analyse the structural assembly of there-clefts compositionally, which allows us to pinpoint the crucial grammatical-semantic difference with pseudo-clefts like (101), which corresponds to specificational there-cleft (99). (101) A person/One who is also known is Vernon. In (101), the relative clause formulates an open proposition, just as it does in the cleft example (99), but in the pseudo-cleft, the semantic gap is given a separate representation by the antecedent NP which contains semantically highly general nouns like person and the nominal substitute one (Halliday & Hasan, 1976). The resulting complex NP, a person/one who is also known, has non-specific reference and designates the variable for which the value Vernon is specified. In pseudo-clefts, the specificational relation is thus coded as a primary relation. The there-cleft in (99) features the same type of relative clause in which the argument of is known is not identified.7 But unlike pseudo-clefts, clefts do not represent this 6 It is intriguing that Halliday (1967a) and Bolinger (1977) posit a form-meaning mismatch for clefts in spite of their theoretical commitment to a natural coding relation between grammar and semantics. 7 Against the traditional analysis that views the relative clause in pseudo-clefts as a restrictive relative clause, we view it as a relative clause that has a full NP as antecedent. In footnote 12 in Chapter 7, we point out that the relative clause in pseudo-clefts also

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semantic gap separately as a non-specific NP like the one. The value Vernon is inserted directly in the NP-antecedent of the cleft relative clause, whose semantic gap it fills. Importantly, the value is inserted into the antecedent as the head of the antecedent–cleft relative clause structure. In this way, the antecedent–relative anaphor relation mediates the indirect complementation relation of the cleft relative clause who is also known to the matrix predicator. Clefts like (99) thus code the specificational relation as a secondary relation between the full NP antecedent and the cleft relative clause. Contra Lambrecht (2001), who claims that the matrices of clefts do not assign argument roles, we argue that the value in clefts is specified for the variable with the semantic role it fulfils in the matrix. This explains the different implicatures of it- and there-clefts. In it-clefts, be is used as an identifying verb, which construes the role of identifier for the postverbal complement NP. Thus, in an it-cleft like (18) It was Ivor Bond Ø told me e.g. the value Ivor Bond is identified for the semantic gap in the cleft relative clause. This triggers an exhaustiveness implicature. In (99), the existential matrix with enumerative reading construes the role of an entity being enumerated for the postverbal complement. The value NP Vernon is listed as gap filler of the cleft relative clause, without triggering any exhaustiveness implicature. Figure 7.4 visualizes how the secondary specification relation hinges on the existent NP in specificational there-clefts functioning both as a direct complement, the existent, of be and as the antecedent of the relative anaphor of the relative clause, as in There’s Vernon who is also known.

Fig. 7.4 Structural assembly of there-clefts

allows the zero subject relative, e.g. The one thing Ø gives me a happy feeling … is that he’s going to be shewn up (Golding, Lord: 142, quoted in Erdmann, 1980: 142).

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Presentational there-clefts like There were three little black boys Ø were going along have the same basic structural assembly. The postverbal NP functions both as the existent of be and as the antecedent of the relative anaphor. The cleft relative clause is a modifier of its antecedent and an indirect relational complement of the matrix verb. We now have an overview of the different structural assemblies of the construction types considered in this study so that we can compare them. Restrictive relative clauses (Fig. 7.1) and appositional non-restrictive relative clauses (Fig. 7.2) in existential clauses form a complex structure within the existent NP. The restrictive relative clause is a postmodifier of the head whose meaning of a type of entity it further narrows down: there are [certain [arguments which work]]. The appositional non-restrictive relative clause stands in a loose appositional relation to its antecedent NP: there was [a man [who was the head of the Irish Museum]]. Continuative non-restrictive relative clauses (Fig. 7.3) are a subordinated clause, modifying the head existent clause: [There is a letter here [which I won’t show you]]. In there-clefts, finally, the cleft relative clause is both a modifier of the antecedent NP and a relational complement of the matrix verb: There ’s [Vernon] [who is also known], There were [three little black boys] [Ø were going along] (Fig. 7.4). Opaque Verb-Clefts We indicated in Chapter 1 that, like Lambrecht, we take a broad view of clefts, which subsumes it-clefts, there-clefts and have-clefts. We add one more type, viz. opaque verb-clefts, for which the recognition criterion of the zero relative with subject function constitutes a first argument. Table 7.1, a reproduction of Table 1.1, visualizes our typology of clefts. The distribution of the zero subject relative marker in English has been studied under the heading of “contact relatives” (e.g. Doherty, 1993; Erdmann, 1980; Haegeman et al., 2015; Henry, 1995). These studies have established that zero relatives occur in relative clauses dependent on complements of the following classes of matrix verbs: identifying be, existential be, have (got) and verbs like meet, know, need, want, look for, find, discover, etc. These verbs overlap largely with the matrix verbs that have been listed as occurring in cleft constructions by authors with a broad view of clefts, viz. identifying and existential be and have (Davidse, 2000; Lambrecht, 1988a, 2001), except for the opaque verbs. The aura of perceived dialectal/substandard usage associated with zero subject relatives in existential clefts also attaches to examples with opaque verbs,

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Table 7.1 Subtypes of clefts Specificational clefts

Presentational clefts

It-clefts (18) It was Ivor Bond Ø told me Specificational there-clefts (19) There was not one of them Ø could justify the disparity Specificational have-clefts (16) I ‘ve got John Ø does the presses

–

Specificational opaque verb-clefts (21) I’m looking for somebody Ø can speak Irish well

Presentational there-clefts (20) There were three boys Ø were going along Presentational have-clefts (17) I’ve got one sister Ø just had a little boy Presentational opaque verb-clefts (23) I know a man Ø lives in Saint Louis

which have been studied, amongst others, in Appalachan (Wolfram & Christian, 1976) and Ozark English (Elgin & Haden, 1991). However, we suggest that Kaltenböck’s (2023: 18) point that the zero subject relativizer in there-clefts is not restricted to substandard or dialectal varieties also applies to have-clefts and opaque verb-clefts. In support of this, we point out that Erdmann’s (1980) study of contact relatives is based on Present-day British English text examples, mostly from literary sources. We found the zero subject relative attested in have-clefts in the UK spoken subcorpus from WordbanksOnline, cited in the Introduction as (16) I ‘ve got […] John Ø does the presses […] I’ve got Brian Ø looks after machine shop polishing and (17) I’ve got one sister that’s married Ø just had a little boy. I’ve got one sister Ø is getting married next year. We also retrieved hits with zero subject relativizer in opaque verb-clefts in online contexts such as (102), which do not appear strongly substandard. (102) I live in west London and I have got an incomplete website to finish. I’m looking for somebody Ø can finish it. (www.drupal. org.uk › Forums › Drupal UK › DrupalCon UK) If we compare our list of verb classes in English cleft constructions as in Table 7.1 with the types of French constructions to which Lambrecht (2002) ascribes a ‘secondary predication’ structure then the following differences stand out. Firstly, we fundamentally disagree with

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Lambrecht (2002) on the point that there-, have- and opaque verbsclefts always involve secondary predication. Rather, we argue, they divide into two types, with presentational clefts involving secondary predication and specificational clefts involving secondary specification. Secondly, Lambrecht does not include c’est-clefts in the network of constructions with a secondary relation between their relative clause and its antecedent. Against this, we argue that the analysis of it-clefts as involving a secondary specificational relation makes good sense (Sect. “Specificational Clefts as Secondary Specification Constructions”). Thirdly, perception reports, as in (103), and deictic constructions, as in (104),8 which Lambrecht (2002) views as secondary predications constructions, do not allow the subject zero relative in English. We exclude them from cleft constructions on this grammatical criterion. (103) I joined an outside broadcast crew in Buckingham Street around 5.30 and waited. Presently, I saw Salinger who said “I’m sorry, the answer is still no”. (WB) *I saw Salinger Ø said “I’m sorry, the answer is still no”. (104) This auntie does an awful lot of knitting and she brought with her a suitcase full of wool and knitting. it got on my mother’s nerves. There was my auntie Elsie who was sitting on the settee knitting. *There was my auntie Elsie Ø was sitting on the settee knitting. In Sects. “Specificational Clefts as Secondary Specification Constructions” and “Presentational Clefts as Secondary Predication Constructions”, we will argue that the field of cleft constructions manifests the distinction between predication and specification that is generally recognized for copular clauses (e.g. Davidse & Van Praet, 2019; Huddleston & Pullum, 2002), where they are coded as the primary relation expressed by the matrix verb, as in (105)–(106). (105) (a) He is a winner and scored a great goal. (WB) (b) *A winner is him and scored a great goal. 8 Deictic constructions with a finite relative clause as in (103) are judged acceptable by native speakers, but in actual usage English deictic constructions overwhelmingly take non-finite participial clauses, as in the original example from LLC, ^there was my auntie /Els ie // sitting on the sett \/ee // kn\itt ing //, from which we derived (104).

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(106) (a)The envelope please … and the winner is … Darryl Wakelin/ him. (WB) (b) … and Darryl Wakelin/He is the winner. In predicative copular clauses, e.g. (105a), the predicate, e.g. a winner, categorizes the subject as an instance of the category ‘winner’. Predicative copulars are not reversible in the sense of subject-complement re-assignment, as shown by (105b). Specificational copular clauses, e.g. (106a), match a variable, e.g. the winner, with its correct value, e.g. Darryl Wakelin. In English they do allow subject-complement reassignment (Halliday, 1967a; Huddleston & Pullum, 2002), as clearly shown if we replace the proper name by pronouns with case marking as in (106b). As stated above, we argue that presentational clefts are secondary predication constructions, in which the relative clause is indeed a “depictive secondary predicate” (Lambrecht, 2002: 172) of its antecedent. We will hence refer to it as a “predicative relative clause” in analyses that focus on the differences between presentational and specificational clefts. In this predication relation, the antecedent, i.e. the entity predicated on, is logically prior to the predication expressed by the relative clause. Specificational clefts, by contrast, are secondary specification constructions, in which the relative clause sets up a variable that is matched with its correct value, coded by the antecedent. We refer to this type as a “specificational relative clause”. In a specificational relation, the entity ‘matched up to’ is logically prior. This semantic difference is reflected in the different semantics of the verbs used in the matrices of the two constructions. The verb sets as such overlap largely, but not completely, and the verbal meanings activated in the two constructions are clearly different. As we will see, the semantically specific opaque verbs are most illuminating in this respect. We first give our account of the hitherto non-recognized construction, i.e. the secondary specification construction, which we equate with specificational clefts (Sect. “Specificational Clefts as Secondary Specification Constructions”), and then turn to the secondary predication construction, which we define in a more narrow way than Lambrecht (2002) and equate with presentational clefts (Sect. “Presentational Clefts as Secondary Predication Constructions”).

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Specificational Clefts as Secondary Specification Constructions Davidse and Kimps (2016), Davidse and Van Praet (2019) and Van Praet (2022) have proposed that the specificational relation between variable and value as expressed by copular clauses and clefts has the following semantic components. The speaker seeks to match the criterial description given by the variable constituent with entities fitting the description, which may be identified or quantified by the value constituent. In this section, we first develop these semantics for specificational copular clauses (Sect. “Specificational Copular Clauses”), i.e. primary specification constructions, and then for specificational clefts, i.e. secondary specification constructions (Sect. “Specificational Clefts”). Specificational Copular Clauses In this section, we first revisit elements of the proposed semantics put forth in early studies of copular clauses by Austin ([1952–1953] 1970) and Donnellan (1966), which, in our view, have not received the attention they warrant. We then elaborate our own account, spelling out on which points it differs from the influential account by Higgins (1973). A first important, but largely overlooked, contribution was made by Austin ([1952–1953] 1970), who was, according to Davies (2016), the first to analyse specification expressed by a copular clause as a matching relation. Austin ([1952–1953] 1970: 143) explained this for the specificational reading of (107a), which he referred to as its ‘identifying’ reading but which is clearly the specificational reading, as shown by the possibility of subject-complement re-assignment (106b): “we speak of ‘identifying a daphnia’ (or ‘identifying the daphnia’) when you hand me a slide and ask me if I can identify a daphnia (or the daphnia) in it”. In seeking to answer this question “we are trying to find an object to fill a given bill” (Austin: ibid.). The crucial question is, as Davies (2018: 4) puts it, “Does the item referred to by the subject qualify as covered by the complement?/ does it come up to scratch?/ does it fit the bill?”. (107) (a) THAT’s a/the daphnia. (Austin, [1952–1953] 1970: 143) (b) A/The daphnia is THAT. (Austin, [1952–1953] 1970: 143) Thus, on Austin’s account, the semantic role of a/the daphnia in (107) is that of ‘the bill to be fitted’.

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Donnellan (1966) introduced the well-known distinction between referentially and attributively used definite NPs.9 His point that the variable of specificational clauses is an attributively used NP has not been fully appreciated, with the exception of Declerck (1988). Donnellan’s account of specificational clauses also foregrounds the idea of entities fitting the description given by the variable NP. The function of referential NPs was defined by Donnellan (1966: 285) as enabling the hearer “to pick out whom or what he is talking about”. A definite descriptive NP is “merely one tool” for doing this job, for which the speaker can also use other devices like a proper name. Attributively used descriptive NPs, by contrast, are non-referential in the sense that they are not used to pick out a referent. They are descriptions used essentially, specifying the necessary properties of “whatever or whoever fits that description” (Donnellan, 1966: 285). According to Donnellan (1966: 283), both referentially and attributively used NPs “can be said (in some sense) to presuppose or imply that something fits the description”, but the falsity of that presupposition or implication has different effects. He elucidates this difference by contrasting the two possible readings of copular clause (108). (108) Who is the man drinking the martini? (Donnellan, 1966: 287) On the one hand, the man drinking the martini may be used referentially, pointing at a specific visible individual, in which case the question requests further particulars about this man such as his name (“what is the name of the man drinking the martini?”). Donnellan (1966: 287) points out that this referential use does not necessarily depend on a fully correct description since “should [it] turn out that there is only water in the glass, one has nevertheless asked a question about a particular person”. On this reading, the interrogative in (108) and possible answers like That man/ He is John Smith are non-specificational copular clauses (Declerck, 1988: 98; Halliday, 1967a: 230, 235).10 On the other hand, if the question

9 Which, as we will argue below, also applies to indefinite NPs. 10 They have what Declerck (1988) refers to as the descriptionally-identifying reading,

in which an already identified subject is backed up with further information in the complement.

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is a reaction to someone dobbing in a martini-drinker (not in the interlocutors’ sight) at a teetotallers’ meeting, then, in asking Who is the man drinking the martini? the speaker “does not have some particular person in mind about whom he asks the question” (Donnellan, 1966: 287), but he wants to find out “who is drinking martini?”. On this reading, the man drinking the martini is used attributively and Who is the man drinking the martini? is a specificational interrogative. “The attribute of being the man drinking a martini is all-important”, Donnellan (ibid.) observes, “because if it is the attribute of no one, the […] question has no straightforward answer”. We will argue that the insights of Austin and Donnellan are very much on the right track—more so than later approaches that have come to dominate the literature—but they have to be further developed so that they can account for the whole range of specificational copulars, including examples like (109), in which the value is nobody, and (110), in which the variable is the indefinite NP a real saint and the value an indefinite NP with non-specific reference someone altogether different (from Gerald Lawrence). (109) And the winner is…nobody. For the 3rd time in five years no African leader received the $5,000,000 Mo Ibrahim prize for leadership and excellence. (And the Winner is…Nobody African Dynamo) (110) Gerard Lawrence is the sort of man who might be taken for a saint in England; a real saint would be someone altogether different. (WB) Davidse and Van Praet (2019) have argued that the meaning of examples like (109) and (110) is not adequately covered by Higgins’ influential (1973: 132) definition of the variable NP as “delimit[ing] a domain” and the value as picking out “a particular member of that domain”. Higgins (1973: 155) conceives of the variable as having a ‘superscriptional’ function, resembling “the heading of a list […] to which the items on the list conform as ‘values’ of that variable”. Patten (2012: 37) explicates this definition by stating that definite variable NPs denote “a restricted set (for which it is possible to list all its members)”. This suggests that the set is ‘there’, presupposed by the specificational construction (Lambrecht, 2001: 504), its members ready to be listed. However, nobody in (109)

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cannot be said to refer to an item on the list headed by the winner. Nor can non-specific someone altogether different in (110), which does not even carry a presupposition of existence, be said to pick out a particular member from the domain delimited by a real saint. Clearly, the semantic model of listing members from a presupposed set cannot be maintained for examples like (109) and (110). More fundamentally, we claim that this model does not fully capture the conceptual operations involved in the typical examples with definite value like (107a) THAT’s the daphnia either. Rather than merely ‘listing’, we propose that specificational copular clauses construe a matching operation in which speakers are “trying to find” (Austin, ([1952–1953] 1970: 143)) entities that qualify for the essential properties stipulated by the variable. The matching model correctly predicts that the search may not turn up any qualifying entities, as in (109) the winner is nobody, or that the search may stop short of identifying specific qualifying entities, and instead delimit the type specifications within which a qualifying individual might, but not necessarily will, be found, as in (110) a real saint would be someone altogether different. Crucial to the matching operation are the properties stipulated by the variable NP as “the bill to be fitted” by any qualifying entities. Contra Patten (2012: 37), we do not hold that the variable NP as such denotes a set. Rather, we argue that the lexical elements of the variable NP stipulate the properties that the entities looked for must have. It is from these ‘all-important’ (Donnellan, 1966: 287) properties that the idea of a set containing all the entities that fit the description can be inferred. The actual entities fitting the description may number one or more, or none, for one has to reckon with the possibility of an empty set. We further argue that the very notion of looking for qualifying entities entails that the interlocutors are also aware of a more nebulous set of potential candidates, a number of which will in some way fail to meet the criterial properties. As it is hard to draw a boundary around all the entities that potentially might—but ultimately do not—meet the variable’s essential properties, this second set has unclear boundaries. Whereas its role in specification is not explicitly recognized in Higgins’ and Patten’s semantic model of listing members from a domain, we stress that the two sets of potentially and actually qualifying entities are involved in the matching operation construed by specificational clauses. Specification is concerned with selection from the larger set containing both the actually qualifying entities and the potential but failed candidates. For instance, in (106)

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Darryl Wakelin is selected as the actual winner from a set of nominees and in (110) Gerald Lawrence is discarded as a failed candidate for the attribute of being a real saint. To the extent that the qualifying entities are selected from a larger set of potential candidates, the value NP is inherently contrastive. Whereas the representational elements of the variable NP stipulate the essential properties that the qualifying entities must have, the determiner conveys referential meaning. It can be either definite, like the winner in (106), or indefinite, like a real saint in (110). Donnellan (1966) himself only considered the attributive use of singular definite descriptive NPs. Whilst stressing that they do not pick out a specific referent, Donnellan (1966: 303) did ascribe to them the function of “reference in a very weak sense”. This weak reference is predicated on the general, non-particular meaning of the attribute ψ, whereby a specific referent ϕ is ψ. Donnellan (1966: 303) states that a singular definite attributively used NP performs the function of weak “reference to whatever is the one and only one ϕ”, adding the important caveat “if there is any such”. Attributively used NPs are “not concerned with the thing itself” but with the thing insofar “it falls under a certain description” (ibid.). This is why the description is ‘all-important’ in Donnellan’s words, or ‘criterial’ as we put it. Declerck (1988: 47) espoused Donnellan’s notion of ‘weak reference’ as the key to the referential status of variable NPs, extending it to indefinite NPs. Declerck (1988) glosses the meaning of a definite variable NP as in (105), the winner is … Darryl Wakelin, as “the x that is the winner” and of an indefinite variable NP as in (110), a real saint would be someone altogether different, as “an x that is a real saint”. Davidse and Van Praet (2019) argue that variable NPs have dual reference in the sense of Ward and Birner (1995). Variable NPs have weak attributive reference (Donnellan, 1966: 218) and they pragmatically imply reference to specific individuals that fit the description, if there are any such. As we argue that interlocutors infer the set of all instances fitting the description only from the lexical material of the variable NP, this inferred set of qualifying instances is not affected by the choice of indefinite or definite determiner. Whether the speaker sets up a variable as, for instance, Black sheep in the family are …. or The black sheep in the family are … this does not affect the inference of the set of all family members who qualify as black sheep. What the choice of indefinite versus definite determiner does convey is how exhaustive the speaker intends to be in specifying the members from this set. Indeed, it is only relative to the

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inferred set containing all qualifying instances that the actual specification of instances can be considered to be exhaustive or non-exhaustive. It is generally accepted that specificational copular clauses with definite variable NPs have a conversational implicature of exhaustiveness (Declerck, 1988: 28–35). That is, on their default interpretation, they specify all the qualifying entities in the set defined by the criterial properties of the variable NP. The exhaustiveness implicature stems from the use of the definite determiner. To such NPs the implicature of ‘inclusive’ reference (Hawkins, 1978) attaches, i.e. reference to all instances with the essential properties in the discourse context. On hearing (111), the hearer will presume that the set inferred from the specifications “black sheep of the family” contains only Bishop’s wild daughter and wife, and no one else. (111) The black sheep of the family are Bishop’s wild daughter and wife. (http://www.angelfire.com/mb/jmorris/fallout/ffa milies.html) As is well-known, general conversational implicatures can be cancelled. If the exhaustiveness implicature of (111) proves to be unfounded, the utterance will not be said to have been false. Rather, “although technically true”, it “is deceiving because it is not as informative as it should be, and therefore violates one of Grice’s (1975) principles of conversation” (Declerck, 1988: 30). Specificational clauses with indefinite variable NP have, we hold, a non-exhaustiveness implicature. This stems from what Lyons (1999) calls the implicature of ‘exclusiveness’ attaching to an indefinite NP, which is the opposite of the implicature of inclusive reference attaching to a NP with definite article. Thus, variable NP a real saint in (110) implies reference to one possible specific instance fitting the description, but carries the implicature that there may be more than one. Again, the implicature can be cancelled. There is nothing illogical about a variant of (110) like A real saint is Francis—and he’s actually the only real saint. We thus disagree with Patten’s (2012: 51) claim that indefinite variable NPs as such establish “the existence of a non-exclusive, restricted set of entities”. From an indefinite variable NP like a real saint, the interlocutors infer their set of all individuals qualifying as ‘real saint’, which may very well contain multiple instances. The use of a singular NP with indefinite determiner like a signals that the speaker is thinking of specifying

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only one qualifying instance, but the very use of the indefinite article also triggers the implicature that this specification may not be exhaustive. Specificational Clefts We now turn to the semantics of specificational clefts, which involve secondary specification. The variable and value of the specification relation are coded by the relative clause and its antecedent, which stand in a modifier–head relation to each other. The specificational relative clause also stands in an indirect complementation relation to the matrix verb, mediated by the relation to its antecedent. Davidse and Kimps (2016: 121) proposed that this relative clause codes the variable of the specificational relation as “ ‘x’ with a particular role in a SoA”, which is “a criterial characterization set up by the speaker”. “[T]he value is construed” by the antecedent as instances being listed … or … quantified … as corresponding to the variable” (2016: 127) [italics added by us]. Thus, for the specification relation in clefts, Davidse and Kimps (2016) put forth the same meaning components of ‘matching’ instances to the criterial description provided by the variable as in the semantic model elaborated in Sect. “Specificational Copular Clauses” for specificational copulars. In this section, we will elucidate how the semantics of secondary specification are naturally coded by the lexicogrammar of clefts, noting similarities and differences with specificational copulars. As we saw in Sect. “Specificational Copular Clauses”, the variable in specificational copulars is an attributively used NP with weak reference to instances falling under its description (Donnellan, 1966). For an example like (106) The winner is Darryl Wakelin, this meaning can be glossed as “the x that is the winner” (Declerck, 1988). It is a characteristic of attributively used NPs that, if their presupposition of existence is false, there is no actual entity with the attribute, as in (109) The winner is nobody. The question we consider in this section, is whether the variable in clefts has comparable semantics and pragmatics. For this, we first return to Donnellan’s (1966: 237) discussion of example (108) Who is the man drinking the martini?. He distinguished an ascriptive reading (Who is that man drinking the martini over there?) and a specificational reading (Who was drinking a martini?) (see Sect. “Specificational Copular Clauses”). To make clear the relevance to clefts, which in this study we examine in their typical form with full relative clauses, we fill out the non-finite modifier in (108) as a finite relative clause, as in (112).

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(112) Who is the man who’s drinking the martini? On its specificational reading, (112) is a pseudo-cleft, and it is most naturally answered by another pseudo-cleft, The man drinking the martini is John, or an it-cleft It’s John who’s drinking the martini. If the NP with relative clause in the pseudo-cleft is a description used essentially as per Donnellan (1966), then it is logical to also view the specificational relative clause in the it-cleft in this way. As the specificational relative clause depicts a situation, not an entity, its ‘weakly referential’ status has to be conceptualized as not referring to a specific situation, but as being concerned with a situation insofar as it falls under the definition of the specificational relative clause. Whereas a nominal variable has a presupposition of existence that can be false, a clausal variable has a presupposition of occurrence that can be false. This is the case if the value contains a negative quantifier indicating that there are no entities that can fill the gap in the open proposition in the specificational relative clause. If we consider examples of clefts with all possible matrix types, we find that such examples are not at all marginal. Whilst a value with negative quantifier is possible but infrequent in it-clefts, e.g. (113), it is attested with some frequency in specificational there-clefts (accounting for one-fifth in our data, see Table 8.1, Chapter 8), e.g. (114), and clefts with opaque verbs like find, e.g. (115).11 (113) Sometimes it’s nobody that wins (https://www.instagram.com/ p/B69aOuhhJiD) (114) there was not one of them there ø could justify the disparity between the way Britain’s being treated and the treatment of the members of the Six // (LLC)

11 For recognition criteria distinguishing clefts with specificational relative clause from constructions containing an NP-internal restrictive relative clause, we refer to Sect. 6. (113) is an it-cleft, as it answers the implied question Who wins? – Nobody wins. By contrast, an example with restrictive relative clause like I am seeing someone, but it’s no one that you’ve ever met does not answer the implied question Which people have I ever met? – You have met no one ever. In (115), speaker A uses a there-cleft, in which the specificational relative clause features the distinctive formal characteristic of zero relative with subject function, there’s a lot of people ø do call it a road. Speaker B retorts with an opaque verb-cleft containing the same variable expressed by a specificational relative clause with overt subject relative marker but a negative value, I’ve found nobody that calls it that.

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(115) A: there’s a lot of people ø do call it road. … B: I’ve found nobody that calls it that. (WB) The possibility of non-occurrence of the situation referred to by the specificational relative clause is one argument for it being a description used essentially rather than referentially. A second argument is its concern with situations insofar as they fall under the description. This aspect of its weak referential status ties in with Davidse and Kimps’ (2016: 121) semantic elucidation of the variable as “a criterial characterization set up by the speaker” (Davidse & Kimps, 2016: 121). The essentialist description of the situation is ‘all-important’ Donnellan (1966: 287) to the matching operation construed by specificational clefts. In this respect too clausal variables in clefts are fully parallel to nominal variables in specificational copulars. In his study of zero subject relativizers in constructions with be, have and opaque verbs, Doherty (1993) has actually also commented on the definitional meaning of specificational relative clauses. Discussing the difference between examples with zero relative marker like (116a) and with overt relative marker, as in (116b), Doherty (1993: 160) observes that the relative clause with subject zero relative can only have a definitional reading: “We want any person (no matter who it is) who knows John” (Doherty, 1993: 160). By contrast, (116b) is ambiguous between this definitional reading and the reading “There is a specific person who I want, and that person knows John” (Doherty ibid.). In the latter reading, we point out, the relative clause refers to an actual situation. In our terms, the definitional reading which is part of the specificational cleft reading is the only one for (116a) and one possible reading for (116b). (116) a. We want someone Ø knows John. (Doherty, 1993: 160) b. We want someone who knows John. (ibid.) Doherty’s (1993: 160) semantic gloss of the ‘definitional’ reading is clearly equivalent to Donnellan’s ‘attributive’ reading.12 Coming in via

12 Doherty (1993), like other studies of the zero subject relative marker such as Erdmann (1980) and Haegeman et al. (2015: 62), notes that it is also attested in pseudoclefts like You were the one Ø came in. As just recapitulated, we follow Donnellan (1966) in attributing a definitional reading to the relative clause in pseudo-clefts, just like we do to

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study of zero subject relative markers, Doherty thus confirms the ‘criterial’ semantics we ascribe to specificational relative clauses. In the literature, we find different, but in our view untenable, proposals to capture the intuited logical ‘priority’ of the variable vis-à-vis the value. For Lambrecht (2001), “the open RC [relative clause] proposition … is pragmatically presupposed” (2001: 475), which he links to it being “either fully activated or … accessible in the mind of the addressee…, which distinction “corresponds, mutatis mutandis, to that between ‘discourse-old’ and ‘inferable’ in Prince (1992)” (2001: 476). According to Lambrecht (2001), the open proposition is presupposed as ‘given’ in the mind and discourse, and the denotatum of the antecedent is newly related to it. This is not tenable in view of examples in which the antecedent is the given information to which the relative clause relates as new information, as in It’s that that I meant (Halliday, 1967a: 226).13 Delin (1992: 301–302) associates the ‘prior existence’ of the proposition in the cleft relative clause with non-negotiability: “The crucial factor … is that the information does not originate at the time of utterance. … the speaker is indicating that the time for any negotiation … is past”. Delin (1992: 291) thus seems to understand ‘non-negotiability’ as a sort of factive presupposition, as she holds that “[t]he truth of the resulting proposition is a condition for the carrier sentence to have a truth value”. This is not tenable either as clefts with negatively quantified value as in (113) and (114) involve falsity of the presupposition. Neither Delin nor Lambrecht note the weak referentiality of the variable and the ‘matching’ semantics of specificational clefts. We argue that it is precisely because “the speaker sets up the variable as a set of criteria to which the value must correspond” that it has “rhetorical and logical priority” (Davidse & Kimps, 2016: 121) to the actual assigning of the value. Let us now turn to the sets of verbs that can occur in specificational clefts. It-clefts are always specificational and have identifying be as matrix verb. Specificational there-clefts have an existential matrix with be, and

the relative clause in specificational clefts. This goes some way towards solving the distributional puzzle of relative clauses allowing zero subject relative markers. Relative clauses whose paradigm of relative markers includes the zero subject relative have definitional meaning in specificational constructions. However, zero relatives also occur in presentational clefts, which shows that a broader semantic generalization must be formulated to cover their complete distribution. 13 In Chapter 9, we discuss examples in our data with this information structure.

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specificational have-clefts contain have or have got. Secondary specificational constructions containing opaque verbs may feature want (117), need, look for (118), seek, know (119), find (120), bring in, etc. Secondary specification constructions with opaque verbs construe the ‘matching’ semantics we posit for specificational clefts most overtly. We will first discuss the opaque verb-clefts and then turn to it-clefts and there-clefts. (117) We want someone Ø knows John. (Doherty, 1993: 160) (118) I’m looking for somebody Ø can speak Irish well. (Doherty, 1993: 157) (119) Although if you do want your drive tarmac covered with a quarter inch of black crap that breaks up as soon as the winter comes round, they’ll always know a cousin Shamus or John that can do it for you (mirror.uncyc.org/wiki/Pikey) (120) This was very helpful as it enabled us to get our personalities across and the values of the company, meaning that we found somebody who fits. (Google) ‘Opaque’ verbs are traditionally defined as being able to take complements with either specific or non-specific reference (e.g. Zimmermann, 2006). When opaque verbs are used in specificational clefts, they subcategorize for two complements, the nominal postverbal complement and the indirect complement realized by the specificational relative clause. These, we argue, are not characterized by specific versus non-specific reference. Rather, the postverbal complement, which designates the value in the specificational relation, can have either non-specific reference, like someone in (117) and somebody in (118), or specific reference, like somebody in (120), which refers to a specific individual. The specificational relative clause realizing the variable has weak, attributive reference, as argued above. The matrices with opaque verbs of specificational clefts construe the matching semantics we propose for clefts explicitly. Their subject refers to the conceptualizer matching the variable to instances. The lexicosemantics of the different verbs describe different stages of the matching operation. Verbs such as need and want depict the stage in which the variable defines the role of a thing or person in a process whose absence is felt—and hence needed or wanted—with the value typically a non-specific NP like someone. Verbs such as look for, search, etc. depict the stage in

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which individual instances matching the variable are actively being looked for. Verbs like find, discover, etc. describe successful matching operations, with specific individuals being found that fill the gap in the open proposition. Finally, verbs like have, know, etc. describe the resulting state of successful, or occasionally non-successful, matching operations between the variable and value. In fact, we now see that have (got) is a member of the set of opaque verbs taking referential value NPs and attributively used specificational relative clauses, as in (16) Well I ‘ve got erm as I say John Ø does the presses. […] I’ve got Brian Ø looks after machine shop polishing. We thus reject Lambrecht’s (2001) ‘expletive’ analysis of the matrix of have-clefts. According to him, have or “some other predicator” can occur in clefts only under the caveat that it is “capable of losing its lexical meaning within the construction” and “a semantically non-empty pronoun (I , you, etc.)” can occur in clefts only when it “loses some or all of its meaning within the CC [cleft construction]” (Lambrecht, 2001: 468). Our account, by contrast, which ascribes meaning and valency to the matrix verbs of clefts, reveals that have is an opaque verb. Specificational clefts with opaque verbs cast light on specificational clefts with semantically more general verbs like identifying be and existential be. We argue that, used in clefts, these verbs subcategorize for a value (nominal complement) and variable (relational complement), just like verbs like want do in We want someone Ø knows John. That is, specificational clefts with identifying and existential be construe a matching relation between the instances designated by the postverbal complement and the ‘definitional’ specificational relative clause. More specifically, identifying and existential matrices describe the state 14 resulting from an implied successful, or non-successful, matching operation. These matrices do not explicitly refer to a specificational agent. The conceptualizer involved in the specificational act remains ‘offstage’ (Langacker, 2002: 9) in the coding, but is implied by the deictic centre that forms the reference point for the subject pronouns. In clefts with identifying matrix, the subject is typically the pronoun it, but it can also be that (Hedberg, 2000: 892), as in (121). These definite subject pronouns, whose reference point is the “imaginary observer in (narrative) discourse” (Diessel, 2012: 45), refer cataphorically to the

14 Delin (1992) correctly stressed that the matrix of it-clefts describes a state, which is asserted in a declarative cleft and inquired into in an interrogative cleft.

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postverbal complement NP, e.g. Fulford in (121), which is the value in the specificational relation. (121) A: I knew the maternity hospital had closed. B: Yeah. That’s Fulford that’s closed yeah but now they’re gonna close Naburn I think. (WB). In clefts with existential matrix, the subject is existential there, or existential it in earlier stages, e.g. (122), or certain synchronic variants of English. We have characterized the meaning of the existential pronouns as indexing the conceptualizer’s awareness of the reality or implications of the context. (122) It es na land þat man kan neuen..þat he ne sal do þam to be soght. a1400 (▸a1325) Cursor Mundi l. 22,169 (OED)15 “There is no country that one can name .. that he will not travel (lit. ‘do’) to look for them” All the pronominal subjects in clefts with identifying or existential matrix thus invoke the deictic origo and the conceptualizer associated with it. This conceptualizer is the specificational agent, who remains offstage. Importantly, the implied conceptualizer can be either the actual speaker or a represented speaker in contexts of reported speech (see Sisha-Halevy, 2016).16 In (123), it is the actual speaker who provides the specific referents Paul and his wife as filling the gap marked by the relative zero marker in the open proposition Ø were there. In (124), the free indirect speech What next, he wondered? indicates that the it-cleft is part of the— reported—thought of the speaker he of the represented speech situation, often referred to as the ‘internal’ speaker in the literature on reported speech. 15 Example (122) is a quantifying there-cleft whose value NP has a negative quantifier and contains a restrictive relative clause and whose specificational relative clause contains a negation as well, as in (71) There’s nothing that they consider that they do not adjourn (LLC). We thank An Van linden (p.c.) for her translation of (122). 16 Sisha-Halevy’s (2016) discussion of clefts in Modern Welsh does not systematically distinguish specificational from presentational clefts, but he makes the important point that clefts frequently occur in free indirect speech, where their conceptualizer is not the actual speaker.

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(123) A: And were they …were they well-received these visits? Erm were there a lot of people interested in them? B: Well I suppose there were about I’ve got photographs actually if you’d be interested to see. There must have been about of us altogether. There’s Paul and his wife Ø were there. (WB) (124) What next, he wondered? Ideally, there would be a (discreet) knock on the door and Laura would come in … The door did open but it was Cassie who entered. (WB) The next question we will address is that of the semantic roles construed by identifying and existential be for the postverbal complement. From this compositional approach to the meaning of it- and there-clefts, we will argue, the (non-)exhaustiveness effects associated with them in the literature fall out naturally. It is generally accepted that a “positive [it-]cleft … implicates that the value assigned to the variable is exhaustive” (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002: 1416). The few authors recognizing specificational there-clefts have stressed their non-exhaustiveness, such as Lambrecht (2001: 496), who notes that “the FP [focal phrase] specifies this value non-exhaustively”. An explanation commonly given for the exhaustiveness of it-clefts is that subject it and the cleft relative clause function as a discontinuous definite description. This is the extraposition account we discussed and rejected in Sect. “The Structural Assembly of There-Clefts”. Reeve (2011) stresses that syntactically the relative clause is a modifier of the postverbal complement, but, with reference to Hedberg (2000), he argues that it is necessary to hold on to the idea that subject it and the cleft relative clause function pragmatically as a discontinuous definite description to explain the exhaustiveness effect. We reject the extraposition account in both its strictly syntactic and looser ‘pragmatic’ version. We argue that our compositional analysis of clefts can naturally explain the (non-)exhaustiveness effects. We analyse the matrix of it-clefts as an identifying clause in which the verb be assigns the role of identifier, i.e. the element that brings about identification (Halliday, 1967a), to the postverbal complement NP. This NP also has the role of value in the secondary specification relation. By construing the value NP as identifier in the matrix, an implicature of exhaustive specification is triggered. This exhaustiveness effect is reinforced by the definite cataphoric

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subject it pointing forward to the value NP. It has, like an NP with definite article, an implicature of inclusive reference, and thus ‘announces’ the value NP as the exhaustive (set of) value(s). As with specificational copular clauses, we hold that the exhaustiveness of specification is assessed relative to the inferred set of all actual qualifying entities, e.g. all individuals that saved A’s life in (125). The entities referred to by the value NP in it-clefts are implied to coincide with the inferred set of all the instances corresponding to the variable. The exhaustiveness is a conversational implicature, which can be cancelled without causing any incongruence (De Cesare & Garassino, 2015; Declerck, 1988; Horn, 1981), as illustrated by (125). (125) A. He–he saved my life … B. … It was the Italian that saved your life A. Oh, but he [the American] did too. (from de Mille, J. 1871. The American Baron, quoted in Schwenter & Waltereit, 2010: 90) We analyse the matrix of there-clefts as an existential clause, which conveys its semantics of quantified instantiation or enumeration. By using a there-cleft, the speaker either quantifies the instances that fill the gap in the specificational relative clause, as in there’s nobody that won, or enumerates one or more such instances, as in (123) There’s Paul and his wife Ø were there. We argue that there-clefts do not trigger any implicatures relating to (non-)exhaustiveness. Unlike subjects it and that in the identifying matrix of it-clefts, existential there does not refer cataphorically to the postverbal existent NP (see Chapter 4) (contra Halliday & Hasan, 1976: 101) and is not a participant, but a setting-subject, in the relation coded by be. Existential there refers exophorically to the ambient context in relation to the conceptualizer’s perspective from the deictic origo, and does not trigger any implicature regarding the exhaustiveness of specification. In the absence of any implicature triggers, we hold that there is underspecification of the exhaustiveness in there-clefts. The use of thereclefts is compatible with both exhaustively or non-exhaustively specifying (sets of) instances corresponding to the definition given in the specificational relative clause. An example like (123) There’s Paul and his wife Ø were there is likely to be interpreted as non-exhaustive listing, but in example (126) it is likely that MX was the only one that was over the

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registry. Whether or not the instances listed coincide with the inferred set of all qualifying instances is decided on the basis of contextual clues. (126) For instance, in they erm developed the registry and erm well they developed the administration not just the registry so that there were five or six …there was MX 17 who was over er all the registry and then there was somebody over something else and so on (WB) Specificational clefts with opaque verbs likewise do not contain any triggers of (non-)exhaustiveness implicatures.18 They are compatible with contexts of either exhaustive or non-exhaustive specification, as illustrated by the three have-clefts in (16) A: you have a member of staff working for each department? - B: Well I ‘ve got erm as I say John Ø does the presses. […] I’ve got Brian Ø looks after machine shop polishing. Whilst the have-cleft uttered by A does not involve exhaustive specification, the two have-clefts uttered by B more likely do. Finally, we turn to the distinctive grammatical behaviour of specificational relative clauses in specificational clefts as opposed to predicative relative clauses in presentational clefts (on which we focus in the next section). We show that the matching semantics motivate two alternations that are possible with specificational clefts but impossible with presentational clefts. The first is the possibility of expressing the variable as a constituent preceding the matrix, either as an adverbial clause, e.g. (127b), or an adjunct with prepositions like in the way of, etc., as illustrated in (128b) and (129b). The descriptions in these premodifying expressions, are all used ‘attributively’ (Donnellan, 1966), i.e. x can help us in (127b), a sweeter sherry in (128b) and staff members working for each department in (129b) are all descriptions used definitionally (Doherty, 1993). By

17 WordbanksOnline uses MX and FX to anonymize male and female proper names. 18 Thus, of all types of specificational clefts, only clefts with identifying matrix trigger an

exhaustiveness implicature due to the presence of the subjects it/that. The other types do not have implicatures of either exhaustiveness or non-exhaustiveness as no trigger of either is present. By contrast, specificational copulars and pseudo-clefts do offer a choice between exhaustiveness implicature and non-exhaustiveness implicature, the former triggered by a definite determiner in the variable NP and the latter by an indefinite determiner in the variable NP (see Sect. “Specificational Copular Clauses”).

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contrast, it is not possible to preface presentational clefts with an adverbial clause or adjunct with definitional meaning, as shown in (130b). (127) a. It’s John who can help us. b. If anyone can help us, it’s John. (Declerck & Seki, 1990: 19) (128) a. B: Is there a sweeter sherry? A: there is a drop of Olorosa which you can have. b. In the way of a sweeter sherry, there’s a drop of Olorosa. (129) a. A: you have a member of staff working for each department? B: Well I ‘ve got John Ø does the presses. b. In the way of staff members working for each department, I ’ve got John Ø does the presses. (130) a. I had a funny thing in Holland Street I was out just now I went to the off-licence – and there were three little black boys were going along (LLC) b. * In the way of people going along there were three little black boys. The second alternate distinctive of secondary specification constructions is the variant in which the variable is not overtly expressed. For it-clefts, this ‘reduced’ (Declerck & Seki, 1990) or ‘truncated’ variant (Collins, 2006; Hedberg, 2000; Huddleston & Pullum, 2002; Mikkelsen, 2005) is generally recognized. The point we make is that secondary specification constructions with all matrix types allow the reduced variant if the variable can be inferred from the preceding discourse, as illustrated in (131)–(134).19 By contrast, the predicative relative clause of presentational clefts cannot be omitted under any circumstances (Karssenberg, 2018: 30), as illustrated in (135b). The variable has logical priority as it stipulates the criterial features the instances referred to by the value constituent have to match. The variable is conceptually always present, but it can be ‘presupposed’ by anaphoric ellipsis (Halliday, 1967a: 206) and can then be recovered by the hearer. On a specificational interpretation, constructions without overt variable like (131b)–(134b) put forth the referent as a postverbal complement as matching a variable that can be 19 Textual retrievability is a precondition but not a sufficient reason for informationally presupposing the variable from the preceding text. Speakers may use a non-reduced cleft even if the relative clause is fully discourse-given and retrievable (Bourgoin, O’Grady & Davidse, 2021).

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inferred from the preceding discourse. For instance, in (131b), Herman is put forth as matching a variable to do with solving the problem with the kids, and in (132b), a cousin Shamus or John are put forth as matching a variable to do with covering your drive with tarmac. By contrast, in presentational there-clefts, there is no way in which the predicative relative clause can be anaphorically presupposed from the preceding text. If it is not overtly present, it is not there. If one hears (135b) I had a funny thing in Holland Street I was out just now I went to the off-licence – and there were three little black boys, one will interpret there were three little black boys as a simple existential clause, which merely puts three little black boys on the scene. (131) a. What next, he wondered? The door did open but it was Cassie who entered. b. The door did open but it was Cassie. (132) a. A: I’ve really just got to fill them in on lexicographers’ needs just because we’ve been doing a lot of it but there’s other people that you think are doing kind of creative corpus lexicography. B: Well, there’s MX who’s just building a new one. (WB). b. B: Well, there’s MX. (133) a. A. that’s not an excuse John by the way all right because I ‘m not er gonna accept that because you can always bring your kids here. Do you know we’ve got Herman who can look after ’em. He may frighten them a little they may not have sleep overnight but Herman can look after them (WB) b. Do you know we’ve got Herman. He may frighten them a little they may not have sleep overnight but Herman can look after them. (134) a. Although if you do want your drive tarmac covered with a quarter inch of black crap that breaks up as soon as the winter comes round, they’ll always know a cousin Shamus or John that can do it for you (mirror.uncyc.org/wiki/Pikey) b. they’ll always know a cousin Shamus or John. (135) a. I had a funny thing in Holland Street I was out just now I went to the off-licence – and there were three little black boys Ø were going along (LLC) b. /= there were three little black boys

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In conclusion to this section, we sum up the main lines of our grammatical-semantic account of specificational clefts as secondary specification constructions. These constructions are concerned with specification in the sense of ‘matching’ qualifying instances designated by the antecedent to the definitional description provided by the specificational relative clause. The specificational relation as such is coded by the antecedent–relative clause structure. The matching up is represented by the matrix. If the matrix verb is semantically specific, it describes one of the different stages in the matching by the conceptualizer, who is either the actual speaker or a represented conceptualizer. These stages are: the ‘wanting’ of instances qualifying for the variable, e.g. want, need, the discovery of such matching instances, e.g. find, discover, or the state of having at hand qualifying instances, e.g. know, have. Identifying and existential be describe the state resulting from an implied prior matching exercise, whose conceptualizer is implied but remains completely ‘offstage’ (Langacker, 2002: 9). Presentational Clefts as Secondary Predication Constructions In this section, we discuss presentational clefts, which we propose to analyse as secondary predication constructions. The mainstream literature on English has tended to recognize presentational there-clefts with existential be, e.g. (136), and to ascribe them exclusively information structural meaning. For instance, Collins (1992: 432) holds that the postverbal NP and its ‘extension’ together form the locus of new information (see also Huddleston, 1984: 469f.). Lambrecht (1988a) also points out the existence of presentational clefts with have, as in (137). We add that presentational clefts can also take verbs like know (134), meet (135–136). Just like specificational clefts, relative clauses in all types of presentational clefts in English share the distinctive feature of allowing zero relative markers with subject function, as illustrated in (136)–(140). (136) There were three little bl\ack boys // Ø were g\oing along. (LLC) (137) I’ve got one sister that’s married Ø just had a little boy. I’ve got one sister Ø is getting married next year. I had a brother Ø left two years ago. I had a sister Ø just left. (WB) (138) I know a man Ø lives in St. Louis (Elgin & Haden, 1991: 9)

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(139) if you met a man Ø knew everything about you, how would you react? (if you met a man knew everything about you, how would you react?: AskReddit) (140) I met a man Ø can speak five languages (Henry, 1995: 125) In the literature dealing with both French and English presentational clefts, a number of selection restrictions have been posited as correlating with the presentational function. We agree that the following three restrictions are inherent features of presentational clefts. Firstly, the relation between the person or entity designated by the postverbal complement and the situation described in the relative clause is discourse-new. We stress that it is the relation between antecedent and relative anaphor that is new, not the antecedent referent as such (see below), as shown by counterexamples like (141). (141) On the train there was Roy Hatterson who came up with his whole troop.20 Secondly, in accordance with the presentational semantics, the situation referred to by the predicative relative clause has to be discourse-new, as pointed out by Lambrecht (1986, 1988a, 1988b, 2002). Thirdly, the postverbal complement cannot be negatively quantified because it has to denote existing entities (Lambrecht, 1986: 118, Léard, 1992: 37). Two restrictions that have been posited we do not agree with. Firstly, the postverbal complement has been stated to be obligatorily indefinite (Lambrecht, 2002: 175). However, as noted above, counterexamples like (141) show that this is a strong tendency rather than an absolute principle. Secondly, it has been claimed that the relative pronoun is obligatorily the subject of the predicative relative clause. This is motivated by Lambrecht (2002: 175) in function of the “double status of the NP as an object in one predicate-argument structure and a subject in another. … [whereby it] … expresses the newly introduced discourse entity … [and] the entity with respect to which the new information in the RC is to be assessed”. However, this is disproved by examples like (142), in which the

20 This is a modified variant of the attested (WB) example On the train coming up, there was Roy Hatterson with a group of people.

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zero relative marker has the function of complement of the prepositional phrase. (142) there was a p\articular man there // she wanted to w\/ork with // (LLC) We further argue that presentational clefts do have representational semantics coded compositionally by their structural assembly. We will reveal these semantics with reference to the matrix verbs they can take and the alternations they do not allow for, contrasting both of these with specificational clefts. Matrix verbs that are possible in presentational clefts are: existential be (136), have (137), verbs of cognition like know (138) and verbs of (implied) perception like meet (139–140) and see (143). We take the possibility of zero subject relative marker, shown in (144), as evidence that a presentational cleft reading is available. (145) is an attested example with see, allowing a presentational cleft reading. On this reading, a man and a woman are the direct complements putting entities on the scene, whilst was on the ground naked and was stretched out on his back and who was – I was told to be his wife – was administering artificial respiration are predicative relative clauses. We also recognize the possibility of alternatively interpreting a man was on the ground naked and was stretched out on his back as a complement clause of the perception verb saw. (143) Dad once saw a motorist who had suffered a heart attack. My father was the only one who stopped to help. (WB) (144) Dad once saw a motorist Ø had suffered a heart attack. (145) In the yard I saw a man Ø was on the ground naked and was stretched out on his back and a woman who was – I was told to be his wife – was administering artificial respiration. (WB) Presentational clefts cannot have identifying matrices. We propose that this distributional set of verbs can be explained by their shared semantics of evoking a speaker’s deictically located awareness in which the entity designated by the postverbal NP figures as a phenomenon, i.e. an object of consciousness (cf. Halliday, 1994: 117–8). The matrices all construe contexts of perceptual, and more generally, cognitive awareness evoking “the explicit or inferred presence of a centre of perspective”

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(König & Lambrecht, 1999: 195), within which an entity appears as a phenomenon. In there-clefts, the general exophoric meaning of existential there evokes, as its implied reference point, the actual speaker (as in 136), or the conceptualizer in reported speech or thought (as in 143), who perceives or conceives of the phenomenon. The situation described in the relative clause is also located within the (actual or internal) speaker’s consciousness (see below). The matrices in (137–140) and (143) explicitly designate the conceptualizer and the process of consciousness within which the phenomenon is conceived of, as in I have (137) and I know in (138), or perceived, as in dad saw in (143) and the temporally located encounters described by I met (139–140). How can we characterize the semantics of the relative clause in presentational clefts then? Structurally, as we argued in Sect. “The Structural Assembly of There-Clefts”, the postverbal NP functions both as the existent of be and as the antecedent of the relative anaphor. The predicative relative clause is a relational complement of the matrix verb. Whilst presentational and specificational clefts share this basic structural assembly, we have already indicated that their relative clauses manifest distinct grammatical behaviour, in the sense of (dis)allowing different alternations. This is why we argue that two subtypes of cleft relative clause have to be distinguished, whose distinct semantics motivate different alternation behaviour (see Sect. “Specificational Clefts as Secondary Specification Constructions”), viz. specificational and predicative relative clauses. Firstly, as we saw, relative clauses in specificational clefts express a variable, i.e. an attributive, or definitional, description of a situation with a semantic gap. The weakly referential variable can also be conveyed as a constituent preceding the matrix such as an adverbial clause, e.g. (127b) If anyone can help us, it’s John or a prepositional phrase, e.g. (128b) In the way of a sweeter sherry, there’s a drop of Olorosa. This is not possible with presentational clefts, as shown by (130b) *In the way of people going along there were three little black boys. This is because the antecedent and the predicative relative clause together refer to a specific situation located in time, that is, they designate the occurrence of a process-participant configuration at a specific moment in time. Secondly, specificational clefts can be ‘reduced’ in the sense that their variable may not be overtly expressed, but may be conceptually present by anaphoric presupposition from the preceding discourse. By contrast,

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in presentational clefts, the relative clause cannot be anaphorically presupposed from the preceding text. If it is not overtly present, it is not there. If one hears (135b) I had a funny thing in Holland Street I was out just now I went to the off-licence – and there were three little black boys, one will interpret there were three little black boys as a simple existential clause, which simply puts the entities three little black boys on the scene. Predicative relative clauses cannot be anaphorically presupposed because they are inherently discourse-new. What then is the meaning of the whole presentational cleft? How does the meaning of the matrix combine with the secondary predication structure?21 We have argued that the matrix evokes perceptual, and more generally, cognitive awareness with “the explicit or inferred presence of a centre of perspective” (König & Lambrecht, 1999: 195). The content of the cognition or perception process is the occurrence of a process-participant configuration located in time. The secondary predication structure construes this content in two steps. The spotlight is, so to speak, first on the entity designated by the postverbal NP that is perceived, and then the perspective widens out to the situation coded by the predicative relative clause. Both the entity and the situation it is involved in are coded as occurring within the cognitive awareness of a conceptualizer who may be either the actual speaker, like I in (137–140), or the internal speaker of reported consciousness, e.g. the person referred to as dad by the actual speaker in (143). In sum, presentational clefts can feature existential be, have (got) and verbs like know, see and meet, which describe cognitive contexts within which the situation depicted by the predicative relative clause and its antecedent are construed as ‘phenomena’ presented from the actual or internal speaker’s perspective. The antecedent NP has typically, although not obligatorily, indefinite reference. To the antecedent’s referent, the situation depicted by the predicative relative clause is newly related. Presentational clefts depict the cognitive awareness or perception by an

21 We reject Lambrecht’s (2002) claim that the bi-clausal syntax of presentational thereand have-clefts non-compositionally codes the information structure of a topic-focus relation, in which the topic is also itself the focus of the matrix clause. For examples of zero subject contact relatives, whose matrix contains verbs like know and meet, Haegeman et al. (2015) consider but reject the idea that they express a topic-comment structure. Haegeman et al. (2015) do not distinguish the specificational from the predicative readings of these constructions.

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overt or implied cognizant as a two-step process. The direct NP complement first represents the entity. The indirect relative clause complement then links up the entity to the state or action it participates in. By contrast, specificational clefts may feature verbs like identifying be, existential be and opaque verbs like need, look for, seek, know, have, find, which depict the matching operation by an overt or implied cognizant of entities qualifying for the definitional properties described in the specificational relative clause. Its antecedent designates any qualifying instances that are found, which entails that it may have negative quantification, if there are no instances fitting the description in the variable. The various verbs that can occur in the matrix depict the different stages of the matching by the conceptualizer, who is either the actual speaker or a represented conceptualizer. These stages are: the ‘wanting’ of instances qualifying for the variable, e.g. want, need, the discovery of such matching instances, e.g. find, discover or the state of having at hand qualifying instances, e.g. know, have. Identifying and existential be describe the state resulting from an implied prior matching exercise, whose conceptualizer is implied but remains completely ‘offstage’.

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Léard, J.-M. (1992). Les gallicismes. Étude syntaxique et sémantique. Duculot. Lopéz-Couso, M. J. (2010). Developmental parallels in diachronic and ontogenetic grammaticalization: Existential there as a test case. Folia Linguistica, 51(1), 81–102. Lyons, C. (1999). Definiteness. Cambridge University Press. McGregor, W. (1997). Semiotic Grammar. Clarendon. McNally, L. (1998). Existential sentences without existential quantification. Linguistics and Philosophy, 21, 353–392. Mikkelsen, L. (2005). Copular clauses: Specification, predication and equation. Benjamins. Mitchell, B. (1985). Old English syntax. Volume I: Concord, the parts of speech, and the sentence. OUP. Nichols, J. (1978). Secondary predicates. Proceedings of the 4th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 4, 114–127. Patten, A. (2012). The English it-cleft: A constructional account and a diachronic investigation. Mouton de Gruyter. Percus, O. (1977). Prying open the cleft. Proceedings of the 7th North East Linguistics Society (NELS), 28, 337–351. Prince, E. (1992). The ZPG letter: Subjects, definiteness, and information-status. In S. Thompson & W. Mann (Eds.), Discourse description: Diverse analyses of a fundraising text (pp. 95–325). Benjamins. Reeve, M. (2011). The syntactic structure of English clefts. Lingua, 121(2), 142–171. Schwenter, S. A., & Waltereit, R. (2010). Presupposition accommodation and language change. In K. Davidse, L. Vandelanotte, & H. Cuyckens (Eds.), Subjectification, intersubjectification and grammaticalization (pp. 76–102). de Gruyter Mouton. Sisha-Halevy, A. (2016). Work notes on modern Welsh narrative syntax (II): Presentatives in narrative. Journal of Celtic Linguistics, 17 , 97–146. Smith, M. (1985). An analysis of German dummy subject constructions in Cognitive Grammar. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Pacific Linguistics Conference, 1, 412–425. Smith, M. (2002). The polysemy of German es, iconicity, and the notion of conceptual distance. Cognitive Linguistics, 13(1), 67–112. Smith, M. (2005). The conceptual structure of German impersonal constructions. Journal of Germanic Linguistics, 17 (2), 79–140. Vandenberghe, W. (1998). Force dynamic research on ‘new’ types of agency [M.A. thesis. Linguistics Department, University of Leuven]. Van Eynde, F., & Jong-Bok, K. (2016). Loose apposition: A construction-based analysis. Functions of Language, 23(1), 17–39. Van Praet, W. (2022). Specificational and predicative clauses. A functionalcognitive account. De Gruyter Mouton.

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Ward, G., & Birner, B. (1995). Definiteness and the English existential. Language, 71, 722–742. Williams, A., et al. (2000). Null subjects in Middle English existentials. In S. Pintzuk (Ed.), Diachronic syntax: Models and mechanisms (pp. 164–187). Oxford University Press. Wolfram, W. & Christian, D. (1976). Appalachian speech. Center for Applied Linguistics. Zimmermann, T. (2006). Monotonicity in opaque verbs. Linguistics and Philosophy, 29(6), 715–761.

CHAPTER 8

Determiners of Existent NPs in the Four Existential Constructions with Relative Clause

Abstract This chapter examines how the meaning of the four existential constructions with relative clause impacts on the determiner structure of their existent NPs. With quantitative–qualitative study of our data, we establish selection restrictions and quantitative tendencies. Existentials with restrictive relative clause exclude pronouns and proper names because these do not linguistically predicate the type required as antecedent. The instantiation of the more delicate type specifications designated by antecedent plus relative clause is, in the majority of cases, measured by quantifiers. Specificational there-clefts typically quantify the instances matching the variable but, as marked option, they refer to such instances—typically by definite NPs, including pronouns and proper names. The presentational there-clefts in our data all present the existent entity with an indefinite NP. Existentials with non-restrictive relative clauses have the most diverse distribution of determiner types, which in order of decreasing frequency are indefinite article, quantifier, proper name, definite article. Keywords Quantifier · Indefinite article · Definite article · Demonstrative · Proper name · Pronoun

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Davidse et al., Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32270-9_8

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In Chapters 4–7, we have developed grammatical-semantic accounts of the four existential constructions with relative clause that we are concerned with in this study. In accordance with our theoretical commitment to a natural coding relation between grammar and its semantics, we ascribe these constructions compositionally coded meaning. The proposed descriptions of the four constructions all differ to a lesser or greater degree from mainstream descriptions. In this chapter, we will consider the determiners of the NPs that are, or contain, the antecedents of the four types of relative clauses associated with the four constructions. All examples in our dataset have existential main clauses, in which “there designates an abstract setting construed as hosting some relationship”, which is a “relationship of occurrence” (Langacker, 1991: 352–353) involving the existent NP. However, the specific notions of ‘occurrence’ construed by the four constructions differ and in this a crucial role is played by different selection restrictions or quantitative tendencies of the determiners in the existent NPs. In this context, it is important to point out that our data do not constitute a random representation of the existential constructional environment at large, in which all determiner types can be expected to be found albeit with different frequencies (McNally, 1997). The point that this is not the case for the four specific constructions considered in this study is intuitively clear for a construction like presentational there-clefts, which can be predicted to strongly favour indefinite existent NPs and disfavour negatively quantified ones. Similarly, existential constructions with restrictive relative clauses exclude proper names or pronouns because these relative clauses require a common noun as head. In this section, we first briefly summarize the semantics that, we argue, are conveyed by the different structural assemblies of the four constructions, paying special attention to the different notions of ‘occurrence’ construed by the existent NP. On this basis, we then formulate hypotheses about selection restrictions as well as quantitative tendencies of the determiners in the existent NPs (Sect. 8.1). In Sect. 8.2, we verify whether these predictions are borne out by our analysed data.

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8.1 Hypotheses About Determiner Distribution in the Existent NP Deriving from the Semantics of the Four Constructions In this section, we first summarize the meaning of existential clauses with restrictive and non-restrictive relative clause, in which existential be has its unmarked valency of setting/subject there and existent/complement. We then recapitulate the proposed semantics of specificational and presentational there-clefts, in which existential be has a valency of three because the relative clause relates as an indirect complement to it. In existential clauses with restrictive relative clauses, the existent NPs always contain determiners instantiating and deictically grounding the composite structure of head noun antecedent + restrictive relative clause, which expresses a general type narrowed down to more delicate type specifications. The relation of ‘occurrence’ coded by existential clauses with restrictive relative clauses is thus one of “instantiation of type specifications ”. The information about the actual instantiation is provided by the determiners, which, in the Langackerian (1991, 2004, 2016, 2017) tradition, are argued to also subsume quantifiers in determiner position (Davidse, 2004, 2022). We predict that the most common determiner type will be overt quantifiers (see also Davidse, 1999a, 2020). The hypothesized typical profile of existential clauses with restrictive relative clause is exemplified by (146), which conveys that the composite type people one would like counts just a few instances. (146) obviously there would be just a few people one would l\ike // (LLC) Existential clauses in which the existent is followed by a non-restrictive relative clause, we expect to manifest a great variety of determiner structures: not only descriptive NPs with definite and indefinite articles and quantifiers but also proper names and pronouns. In this sense, we expect existential clauses followed by non-restrictive relative clauses to have the least sharp profile in terms of determiner choices. Specificational there-clefts construe a matching relation between the instances designated by the existent NP and the definitionally used relative clause, which are the value and the variable of the secondary specificational relation. This specificational relation can take two forms: the

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value NP either quantifies the instances that fill the gap in the specificational relative clause, as in (147), or it enumerates one or more instances coded by definite NPs like proper name and definite descriptive NP, as in (148). (147) there was not one of them th\ere // Ø could j\ustify // the disp\arity // between the way Britain‘s being tr\eated // and the tr\eatment // of the members of the S\ix // (LLC) (148) There’s Paul and his wife Ø were there. (WB) We predict that specificational there-clefts more commonly quantify, rather than identify, the instances matching the variable. The typical profile of specificational there-clefts is thus illustrated by an example like (147). We hypothesize that this predominance of the quantification function will be reflected in a majority of explicit quantifiers, as in existent NPs containing restrictive relative clauses. In presentational there-clefts the occurrence relation hosted by the setting/subject there is a process-participant configuration located in time. The secondary predication structure presents this configuration in two steps, first putting the spotlight on the entity designated by the existent NP, and then adding the action or state it is involved in coded by the predicative relative clause, which is accessed from the perspective of the—actual or internal—speaker. The existent NP is typically discoursenew and can be predicted to very strongly favour indefinite articles. An example of the typical profile of presentational there-clefts is (149). (149) there was a p\articular man there // she wanted to w\/ork with // (LLC)

8.2 Determiner Distribution in Existent NPs: Results and Discussion In this section we verify whether the hypotheses formulated in the previous section are borne out by our data. The distribution of the determiners in the existent NPs in the four construction types is given in Table 8.1. By way of preliminary, it is important to note that we classified the

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determiner types on the basis of their semantic functions. Under indefinite articles, we subsume not only a and the zero-article1 but also the presenting use of this, which introduces a prominent referent into the discourse, as in (150). (150) there‘s this \eleven year old kid // Ø did a p\erfect // Christmas sh\opping expedition // (LLC) Under quantifiers, we subsume not only canonical quantifiers like no, many, few, a lot, a bit, etc. but also periphrastic expressions like a host of, a great number of, a certain amount of, a very small percentage of, a drop of, etc. as in there is a drop of Oloroso which you can have in (128) above. As argued by Brems (2011), such expressions function as members of the paradigm of quantifiers, whilst the second noun functions as the head designating the type of entity. This is shown by the fact that a drop of can be replaced by some or the zero-article, as in There’s some/Ø Oloroso which you can have. How do these results measure up to our hypotheses in Sect. 8.1? We start by verifying the predictions about existentials with restrictive relative clauses. There are no proper names, as generally accepted. Our hypotheses about the main quantitative tendencies are also confirmed. In a majority of 66.6%, the instances of the composite type expressed by head noun and restrictive relative clause are quantified. It should be noted that the 23.6% with indefinite article implicitly convey quantification, as in (151), where the existent NP with zero-article designates a vague quantity of instances of the type ‘non-answerable questions’. (151) there were questions that I couldn‘t c\ope with // (LLC) We further find small fractions of demonstratives (6.9%), as in (152), and definite articles (2.8%), as in (153). Both are used to designate the instantiation of subtypes carved out by the restrictive relative clause from the general type designated by the antecedent head, which is presupposed by ellipsis in (152).

1 See footnote 4, Chapter 6, for discussion of the zero-article, which is a linguistic sign symbolized by nothing but with a distinct and constant semantic value in the paradigm of indefinite articles.

0

2

0 6 8

Restrictive

Specificational

Predicative Non-restrictive Total

0 20.7 3.9

3.5

0

0 5 10

3

2

0 17.2 4.9

5.3

2.8

%

n

n

%

Definite article

Proper name

0 0 5

0

5

n

0 0 2.5

0

6.9

%

Demonstrative

Determiner types associated with antecedent NPs

Relative clause

Existent NP

Table 8.1

48 /3 neg 44 /11 neg 19 10 121

n

Quantifier

66.6 4.2 77.2 19.3 40.4 34.5 58

%

28 8 61

8

17

n

59.6 27.6 30.7

14

23.6

%

Indefinite article

47 29 205

57

72

n

Total

100 100 100

100

100

%

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(152) there are those whose opposition to \entry // remains f\/irm // however f\avourable // the terms that might be neg\otiated // (LLC) (153) there is the kind of expert\ise // which is common in the Ren\aissance // when you discuss Ren\aissance er theatre // (LLC) In existential clauses followed by non-restrictive relative clauses, we find, as predicted in Sect. 8.1, the most diverse distribution of determiners in the nominal antecedents of the whole dataset. They have the largest proportion of proper names (20.7%) and NPs with definite articles as antecedents (17.2%), the second largest of indefinite articles (27.6%) and the smallest of quantified NPs (34.5%). This confirms our expectation that they do not have a clear profile in terms of determiner choice. Antecedent proper names and definite descriptive NPs are illustrated by (154) and (155) respectively. Both are enumerative existentials,2 identifying instances corresponding to an implied contextual type (Davidse, 1999a; Lumsden, 1988). In (154), the speaker lists people present at a meeting, and in (155), the speaker enumerates a number of principles that can be evoked regarding pornography. (154) erm there was Mr Scott Henderson ch/airman // then there was Mr Charles Br/andon // who was a secretary of the Transport and General W/orkers Union // (LLC) (155) first // there is the so called m\/oral justification // which claims that the exhibition or public mention of certain human act\/ivities // is evil in and of its/elf // and that the law should prosecute it as one of the a:greed forms of v\ice // then there is the pr\/udential principle // which may or may n\/ot overlook // the intrinsic immor\/ality of such spectacles // but which insists er neverthel/ess // that they are socially h\armful //and should therefore be suppr\essed // (LLC)

2 Davidse and Njende (2019) argue that enumerative existentials can be viewed as reduced specificational there-clefts. The contextual type can be regarded as a variable, providing the criterial properties the enumerated instances must qualify for.

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Still, one could argue that existential clauses with non-restrictive relative clauses follow the general tendency of existential constructions of having a majority (62.1%) of quantifiers and indefinite articles. For specificational there-clefts, we predicted a majority of explicit quantifiers and a smaller portion of indefinite articles, i.e. a distribution very similar to that in existent NPs with restrictive relative clauses. This hypothesis is confirmed with 77.2% of quantifiers and 14% indefinite articles. The data also strongly confirm our claim that specificational there-clefts more commonly quantify, rather than enumerate, the instances matching the definitional relative clause. As we noted in Chapter 6, the presence of quantifiers and indefinite articles in the existent NP is one of the main reasons why specificational there-clefts have often been perceived as existential clauses with restrictive relative clauses. The analyst has to look beyond the surface similarities to reveal the different structural assemblies coding different semantics. These actually predict and explain finer differences within the prima facie comparable sets of quantifiers and indefinite articles. Within the quantifiers, firstly, there is a significant difference in the relative frequencies of negative quantifiers. Negative quantification accounts for 19.3% in specificational relative clauses and only for 4.2% in restrictive relative clauses. This is because with specificational there-clefts, the semantic option that there are no instances qualifying for the variable is an important one. By contrast, in our data, restrictive relative clauses occur in NPs with negative quantifier in only three cases, where they are actually part of a negatively quantified value NP in a cleft, e.g. (156). In other words, the negative quantifier in (156) is there to indicate that there are no qualifying values. (156) there‘s nobody that I can offhand rec\all // on the l\/ist of applicants // who expresses any special \interest in modern drama // (LLC) There are no tokens in our data of simple existential clauses that have a negatively quantified existent NP with restrictive relative clause. Within the indefinite articles, then, there is a significant difference in frequency of the plural zero-article. NPs with restrictive relative clauses have a plural zero-article in 13.9% of cases, referring to a vague quantity of instances of the type construed by the head + restrictive relative clause,

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as in (81) there were questions that I couldn’t cope with. By contrast, there is only one example of a value with zero-article in a cleft, i.e. the final sentence in (157), where (some) people with talents, unheard of talents qualify for the definitional relative clause who could help. (157) A: well I guess this is I guess this is the [f] one of the few things that people like about wars it brings out all these things […] B: mm well yes maybe maybe but thank goodness they they come out when the when the occasion arises […] I mean at the moment say our economy is going on the street and you‘ll probably find // that there are p\eople // with t\alents // unh\eard of talents // who could h\elp // (LLC) A small percentage of specificational there-clefts, 8.8%, do not quantify instances matching the variable described in the relative clause, but refer to such instances. These value NPs are either proper names (3.5%), as in (99) There is V\er non // who is \also known //, which answers a prior question in the context “who is there in the department that is known?”, or definite NPs with common noun head (5.3%), as in (35) there was the girl behind m\/e Ø did that //. For presentational there-clefts, we hypothesized that they would strongly favour indefinite existent NPs. This prediction is confirmed by our data. 100% of the data have indefinite existent NPs: 59.6% have the indefinite articles a, this or zero, and 40.4% have quantifiers, which are indefinite determiners (Davidse, 2022). Our data contained no examples with definite NPs. With respect to quantifiers and indefinite articles, we find the reverse distribution here of that attested in specificational there-clefts (which have 77.2% of quantifiers and 14% indefinite articles). We thus see that, even though quantifiers are indefinite and indefinite articles quantify, the two types of clefts still favour the type of determiner that harmonizes most with their semantics. The preponderance of indefinite articles in presentational there-clefts harmonizes with their presentational semantics, whereas that of quantifiers harmonizes with the typical semantic profile of specificational there-clefts, which is the quantification of instances corresponding to the variable. To conclude this section, we address the question if any generalizations emerge across the four existential construction types. If we look at

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the totals row in Table 8.1, we see that 58% of all the examples have quantifiers and 30.7% indefinite articles. Most of the literature on existentials has claimed the predominant type of reference to be indefinite reference, which is correlated with the claim that existential constructions are typically used to introduce referents into the discourse (e.g. Abbott, 1993; Huddleston & Pullum, 2002; Ward & Birner, 1995). There is no doubt that this claim is true, as not only indefinite articles but also quantifiers mark the referent as not presumed known to the hearer. 88.7% of existential constructions in our data introduce discourse referents. As we adhere to the model that views textual and representational meaning as belonging to different layers of functional organization, we situate the presentational function of existential constructions at the textual level. But we do not agree with the view that the meaning of existential constructions can be reduced to the presentation function as claimed by e.g. Abbott (1993), Huddleston and Pullum (2002), Ward and Birner (1995). In a minority strain in the literature on existential constructions starting with Milsark (1976, 1977) and seconded by Davidse (1999a, 2020), an alternative generalization is formulated to the effect that existential constructions typically quantify the instantiation of the type specifications conveyed by the existent NP. This second claim is also confirmed by 88.7% of cases in our dataset, as the function of quantification is not only fulfilled by explicit quantifiers but also by indefinite articles, which imply an indication of the size of the instantiation (Davidse, 2004). This claim is strongly bolstered by the fact that explicit quantifiers in fact predominate as determiner choice across the whole dataset by 58%. Clearly, the quantification function has to be factored into the semantics of existential constructions, and we argue that this has to be done within the representational layer of functional organization. We subscribe to Langacker’s (1991) proposal that the representational meaning of existential constructions is all about the conceptualizer’s ‘ambient’ awareness indexed by subject there hosting a relation of ‘occurrence’ (Langacker, 1991). In the canonical case, Davidse (1992, 1999a, 2020) has argued, occurrence involves quantifying the instantiation of the relevant type specifications within the spatio-temporal domain indicated by the tense of the VP and, very often, by a location phrase. For instance, there were three enormous fires in the room quantifies the instantiation of the type ‘enormous fires’ as they appear in the conceptualizer’s cognitive awareness indexed by there within the spatio-temporal domain circumscribed by in the room and the past temporal location expressed by were.

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In this chapter, we have given a summary of the semantics of the four existential constructions with relative clauses, based on their different structural assemblies. This provided the basis for hypotheses about selection restrictions and quantitative tendencies of the determiner structure of the existent NPs. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of our dataset largely confirmed these hypotheses. In the next chapter, we turn to prosodically coded meanings of the four construction types, which are mainly to do with information structure.

References Abbott, B. (1993). A pragmatic account of the definiteness effect in existential sentences. Journal of Pragmatics, 19, 39–55. Brems, L. (2011). Layering of size and type noun constructions in English. Mouton. Davidse, K. (1992). Existential constructions: A systemic perspective. Leuven Contributions in Linguistics and Philology, 81, 71–99. Davidse, K. (1999a). The semantics of cardinal versus enumerative existential constructions. Cognitive Linguistics, 10, 203–250. Davidse, K. (2000). A constructional approach to clefts. Linguistics, 38(6), 1101–1131. Davidse, K. (2004). The interaction of quantification and identification in English determiners. In M. Achard & S. Kemmer (Eds.), Language, culture and mind (pp. 507–533). CSLI. Davidse, K. (2020). The ideational semantics of the canonical existential clause in English. In G. Tucker, G. Huang, L. Fontaine, & E. McDonald (Eds.), Approaches to Systemic Functional Grammar. Convergence and divergence (pp. 293–312). Equinox. Davidse, K. (2022). Refining and re-defining secondary determiners in relation to primary determiners. In L. Sommerer & E. Keizer (Eds.), English noun phrases from a functional-cognitive perspective. Current issues (pp. 27–78). John Benjamins. Davidse, K., & Njende, N. (2019). Enumerative there-clauses and there-clefts: Specification and information structure. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, 51(2), 160–191. Doherty, C. (1993). The syntax of subject contact relatives. In K Beals et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the twenty-ninth meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 55–65. University of Chicago Press. Donnellan, K. (1966). Reference and definite descriptions. Philosophical Review, 75(3), 281–304.

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Huddleston, R., & Pullum, G. (2002). The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge University Press. Langacker, R. (1991). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 2, Descriptive application. Stanford University Press. Langacker, R. (2004). Remarks on nominal grounding. Functions of Language, 11(1), 77–113. Langacker, R. (2016). Nominal grounding and English quantifiers. Cognitive Linguistic Studies, 3, 1–31. Langacker, R. (2017). Grounding, semantic functions, and absolute quantifiers. English Text Construction, 10(2), 233–248. Lumsden, M. (1988). Existential sentences: Their structure and meaning. Croom Helm. McNally, L. (1997). A semantics for the English existential construction. Garland Publishing. Milsark, G. (1976). Existential sentences in English. Indiana University Linguistics Club. Milsark, G. (1977). Toward an explanation of certain peculiarities of the existential construction in English. Linguistic Analysis, 3, 1–29. Ward, G., & Birner, B. (1995). Definiteness and the English existential. Language, 71, 722–742.

CHAPTER 9

Prosodic Patterns in the Four Existential Constructions with Relative Clause

Abstract This chapter looks for prosodic distinctive properties and tendencies of the four constructions. Existentials with non-restrictive relative clause are the only ones to be always uttered with separate tone units for matrix and relative clause. Existentials with restrictive relative clause and there-clefts may integrate matrix and relative clause into one tone unit, but in our data the former do so in less than half of cases whilst prosodic integration is marginal in clefts. Tone concord is found in a majority of non-restrictive relative clauses of the appositional type and occurs in just under half of there-clefts. The distribution of tonic accents coding information foci in clefts is not as predicted in the literature. Specificational and presentational there-clefts most frequently have foci on both matrix and relative clause. Specificational there-clefts infrequently make only the value or only the variable focal. Presentational there-clefts infrequently have foci only on the discourse-new predicative clause. Keywords Prosodic integration · Tone concord · Focal patterns

After the account of the lexicogrammatically coded meanings of the four constructions, we now turn to their prosodically coded tactic and information structural patterns (Halliday & Greaves, 2008). In this chapter, we investigate if (any of) the four construction types have prosodic features © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Davidse et al., Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32270-9_9

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that are (i) distinctive to them, or (ii) more frequent in them. In Sect. 9.1, we first outline the approach to prosodically coded meanings that we follow. In Sect. 9.2, we summarize the hypotheses about the prosodic patterns of the four constructions that have been formulated in the literature. In Sect. 9.3, we present and interpret the results of our prosodic analysis.

9.1

The Meaning of Intonation in English Grammar

As discussed in Chapter 3, we analysed our spoken data in terms of their tone units, tones and tonics, whose recognition criteria we explained there. In this section, we survey how, in the Hallidayan tradition, these prosodic phenomena are interpreted as (i) conveying information structure (Sect. “Prosodically Coded Information Structure”) and (ii) and signalling ‘tactic’ distinctions relating to para- and hypotaxis (Sect. “Prosodically Coded Tactic Meanings”). Prosodically Coded Information Structure The information structure which English speakers impose on their discourse in real time is, according to Halliday (1967a: 200–201), “realized directly in the phonological organization”, whose potential for structuring information is impacted by language-specific features of English prosody such as word stress and stress-timed rhythm. Information structure is not determined by, but mapped onto, grammatical structure. To bring to consciousness the semantics of information structure, linguists have to (i) interpret its prosodic realization (Halliday, 1963), which is characterized by ‘inherent iconism’ (Bolinger, 1985), e.g. between intonational and informational prominence, and (ii) derive semantic generalizations from actual contextualized usage by studying how prosody expresses the speaker’s communicative purposes and their awareness of what information is already shared with the hearer, and what information is added as new to the hearer. The first type of choice speakers continuously make when producing speech is to divide their discourse into information units. They do this by marking off tone units, i.e. units delineated by a melodic contour. English

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speech progresses as a succession of melodic units, which “represents the speaker’s blocking out of the message into quanta of information, or message blocks” (Halliday, 1967a: 202). The resulting information units correspond to a clause in a—fairly small—majority of cases (O’Grady, 2014), being smaller or larger than a clause in the remaining percentages. The second type of choice is concerned with the internal information structure of the information units, in which information is generated by the speaker from the tension between what s/he presents as recoverable, i.e. given, and non-predictable, i.e. new (Halliday, 1994: 296–9). The structuring of the information unit is based on the contrast between focal and non-focal information. Information structures consist of an obligatory focal domain and optional non-focal segments. The information focus , i.e. what the speaker selects as the most salient information the hearer has to attend to, is signalled by the tonic syllable within the tone unit, which “carries the main pitch movement” (Halliday, 1994: 296). The domain of the information focus is typically not just the tonic syllable as such but the larger constituent it is part of (Halliday, 1967a: 204). Halliday (1967a: 203–209, 1994: 295–9) distinguishes two main types of focus and information structure: an unmarked and marked type. These types differ in terms of their internal structure and the recoverability or non-recoverability of their elements of structure from the situation or preceding text. Kiss (1998: 249) referred to the two types of information focus as a ‘neglected distinction’, which, yet, has “been present in the literature for a long time (see, for example, Halliday, 1967a; Rochemont, 1986), although the interpretations attributed to the two focus notions (variously called CONTRASTIVE FOCUS versus PRESENTATIONAL FOCUS, NARROW FOCUS versus WIDE FOCUS, or, in this article, IDENTIFICATIONAL FOCUS versus INFORMATION FOCUS) have not always been exactly the same”. We subscribe to the distinction as originally made by Halliday (1967a). The unmarked information structure tends to have a left to right form of organization with recoverable information preceding non-recoverable information (Halliday, 1967a: 205), as in (158), which starts with the recoverable pronoun I . The non-recoverable information coincides partly or wholly with the information focus marking the most salient new information, with ‘new’ understood as ‘freshly’ introduced in the discourse (Halliday, 1994: 295–9). An unmarked information focus occurs unitfinally in the sense that it falls on the last lexical constituent of the

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information unit, like the whole NP with its NP-internal restrictive relative clause in (158). (158) // I’m looking for the caretaker who looks after this block // (Halliday, 1967a: 207). If the lexical element is followed by a grammatical or anaphoric constituent, then it is not part of the focus because it is inherently recoverable, e.g. (159). (159) // I saw her // (id.: 208) What precedes the focal domain may be entirely recoverable, or recoverable shifting into non-recoverable without being focal, as is the case in the caretaker example, where I is situationally recoverable, but ‘m looking for is not. This creates a certain indeterminacy in the unmarked information structure (id.: 208). This is, in fact, why unmarked focus “may be ambiguous” (id.: 208), and why two subtypes of unmarked information structure need to be distinguished. Besides the subtype starting off with recoverable information as in (158) and (159), there is also the subtype where the whole unit contains non-recoverable information, as is often the case at the beginning of a story. In this type, the focal domain is “the whole of the information unit” (id.: 208). Irrespective of whether the unmarked focus is preceded by partly recoverable or wholly unrecoverable information, unmarked information structures do not imply specific wh-questions. They correspond simply to general questions like “what is happening?”, “what is the case?” (id.: 208). The marked type of information structure, then, contains a focus that is “informationally contrastive […] within a closed system or lexically” (id.: 207). The notion of ‘contrastive focus’ subsumes both the correction of an earlier option from a finite set and the addition to an earlier option from a set (id.: 226). This marked focus is, through its shared set membership with an earlier element, semantically cohesive, rather than constituting completely fresh information (Halliday, 1994: 295–299). In this sense, the content of the marked focus cannot be said to be always non-recoverable. Rather, its relation to the non-focal material is non-predictable. Within the information unit, a marked focus always

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relates to a block of presupposed information that is entirely recoverable “anaphorically, by reference, substitution or ellipsis” (Halliday, 1967a: 206). This entails that marked information structures always imply a question pertaining to one specific constituent like a wh-question or an echoic polar question (id.: 207–211).1 A marked focus need not, and often does not, form the final element of the tone unit. The element in a marked focus relation may be a clause constituent, as in (160), which implies the wh-question: What did John paint yesterday?, and which presupposes that John painted something yesterday (id.: 207–208). 1 One cannot but notice the prima facie similarity between the types of focus distinguished by Halliday (1967a) and Lambrecht (1994), as also observed by Verstraete (2007: 81). In the cases where the information unit as defined by Halliday coincides with a clause, there may be rough coincidence between, on the one hand, Halliday’s (i) unmarked information structure with recoverable information preceding the most salient new, (ii) unmarked information structure whose focus domain is formed by the whole information unit, (iii) marked information structure with a contrastive/additive focus relating to a presupposed message block and, on the other hand, Lambrecht’s (1994, 2001: 485) (i) predicate-focus, (ii) sentence-focus and (iii) argument-focus. Indeed, Halliday (1967a) may have partly inspired Lambrecht’s (1994) typology. However, there are fundamental theoretical and descriptive differences regarding the (elements of) structure that focal meaning is ascribed to. For Halliday, the speaker’s choices as to what to present as focal and what as non-focal are part of the textual organization of utterances and are realized directly in the phonological organization, with choices being made ‘online’ in the temporally unfolding speech signal. The speaker’s presentation of information as focal, presupposed, etc. shows some, but by no means complete, correlation with what is actually given or new in the discourse, as speakers may override this for rhetorical reasons. Most importantly, the information unit and clause do not coincide in a large minority of cases, and the contrastive/additive focus may be anything from a clause over a phrase and word to a morpheme. By contrast, for Lambrecht (1994: 5), information structure is concerned with how propositions as conceptual representations of states of affairs are paired with lexicogrammatical structures that interlocutors can interpret as pragmatic units. Information structure is thus tied to the syntactic realization of propositions. Focus is defined as the unit by which the pragmatic assertion differs from an utterance’s presuppositions (Lambrecht 2001: 474). The presuppositions are the set of propositions lexicogrammatically evoked by a sentence which the speaker assumes the hearer already knows or is ready to take for granted, “which is more or less equivalent to the notion ‘hearer-old’ in the system of Prince (1992)” (Lambrecht 2001: 474), i.e. straightforwardly linked to actual discourse-familiarity. The assertion is the proposition the speaker expects the hearer to know or take for granted as a result of hearing the utterance, i.e. the ‘new information’. The focus is the denotatum that makes the utterance into an assertion and is “by definition an unpredictable part of the proposition” (ibid.), which explains why, with a few motivated exceptions, the focus constituent “necessarily requires an accent” (ibid.: 479).

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(160) // John painted the shed yesterday // (id.: 208) Contrastive focus may also be a constituent of a phrase, as in (161), which presupposes that the speaker has seen at least some plays (ibid.), (161) // I’ve seen better plays // (id.: 207) or a constituent of a word, as in (162), which presupposes that there was some sort of damage (ibid.). (162) // the damage was only external// (id.: 207) Marked focus may also involve contrast with options of grammatical systems, as in (163), which implies the echoic polar question // d/id he take it // (id.: 211). (163) // he d\id take it // (id.: 211) Finally, we put forth what is, in our view, a logical but overlooked consequence of Halliday’s (1967a: 206) allowing for information to be recoverable “anaphorically, by reference, substitution or ellipsis [italics ours]” (Halliday, 1967a: 206). Structurally determined ellipsis (Halliday & Hasan, 1976), is just like the zero-article and the zero relative, not ‘nothing’, but a linguistic sign with a recognizable signifiant and a distinct value in a particular grammatical environment. Thus, we propose that in (164), // John //, which is viewed as wh-ellipsis presupposing the remainder of the proposition from the preceding wh-question (Halliday & Hasan, 1976) be analysed on the textual level as a marked focus relating to that anaphorically recoverable presupposition. (164) // who painted the shed yesterday // // John // (id.: 207–8) The contrast between unmarked and marked information structures can be summed up as follows. Unmarked information structures always contain, and at the limit are constituted by nothing but, non-recoverable information. The element selected as unmarked focus relates as salient news to the rest of the information unit, or, if the whole information

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unit is focal, to the common ground shared by the interlocutors. Marked information structures always involve a presupposition represented as recoverable information. Marked foci, are contrastive by their membership of lexical sets or grammatical systems and it is their relation to the presupposition that is represented as unpredictable. A final crucial point (Halliday, 1967a: 204, 1994: 301) is that information structure choices convey the speakers’ representation of information as (non-)recoverable, presupposed or unpredictable. This may not correspond to the actual state of the discourse, and may be manipulated for rhetorical aims, as illustrated in the overheard conversation between academics in (165) (Halliday, 1994: 300). The first move by A is an interpellation centred on contrastive focus b/ack, which presupposes that B has been away. B recognizes the attack and counters the presupposition with contrastive focus on (not) /\out. (165) A: // Are you coming b/ack into circulation? // B: // I didn’t know I was /\out // (Halliday, 1994: 300) In sum, speakers may “play with the system” … “to produce an astonishing variety of rhetorical effects” (id.: 301). Prosodically Coded Tactic Meanings According to Halliday (1967b) and Halliday and Greaves (2008), prosody also signals meaning options relating to tactic relations between clauses, i.e. paratactic (coordinate) or hypotactic (subordinate) versus NPinternal. Halliday (1967b: 21–22, 35–38) proposes the following patterns of tone units and tones for structures with relative clauses. In accordance with the idea that in the unmarked case a clause is co-terminous with a tone unit, a restrictive relative clause is said to typically not constitute a tone unit, as in (166), because it is a NP-internal modifier that does not operate in clause structure. By contrast, a non-restrictive relative clause, as in (167) and (168) is said to occupy a tone unit of its own. Within non-restrictive relative clauses, a further distinction is made between appositional and non-appositional relative clauses (see Sect. 7.2), whereby the appositional relation is said to be typically reflected in tone concord, as in (168), which features a fall-rise on both the antecedent

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and relative clause. This contrasts with the non-appositional type in (167), where there is no tone concord. (166) // that’s another thing I don’t kn\ow yet // (Halliday, 1967b: 36) (167) // I’m marking a th\ousand, // of which three are from h\/ome centres // (Halliday, 1967b: 21). (168) // J\/ohn, // who arrived l\/ate, // missed the sp\eeches // (Halliday, 1967b: 35) In the next section, we further operationalize these hypotheses so that they can be applied to our dataset.

9.2 Hypothesized Prosodic Patterns in the Four Constructions In this section, we summarize the predictions found in the literature with respect to tone units, tonics and tones in there-clefts in contrast with existential clauses with restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses. Because study of prosody is scarce and there-clefts have as such been greatly neglected, this literature is restricted. For restrictive relative clauses, Halliday (1994: 244) argues that their structural integration into an NP is reflected prosodically: typically, a restrictive “relative clause enters into a single tone group together with its antecedent”. For non-restrictive relative clauses, it is generally accepted that they are assigned tone units of their own (Halliday, 1994: 228, McGregor, 1997: 199, Kaltenböck et al., 2011). They may be of the appositional or non-appositional type. Halliday (1994: 228) hypothesizes that appositional ones manifest tone concord with their antecedent. The prosody of English there-clefts has, to the best of our knowledge, not been studied in any systematic way. As the intonation of specificational there-clefts can be expected to show parallels with it-clefts, we will summarize the main hypotheses formulated about the latter. The literature on the information structure of it-clefts has been strongly influenced by the functional approach instigated by Halliday (1967a, 1967b), Halliday and Greaves (2008) and the pragmatic approach of which Lambrecht (1994, 2001) is the most prominent exponent. Theoretically, these two

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approaches differ greatly2 but in descriptive practice, studies from both traditions make claims about accented foci in it-clefts, which as such can be assessed empirically. Many studies hold that the value NP either carries the only information focus coded by a nuclear accent (Clark & Haviland, 1977; Givón, 2001), or carries the main information focus marked by the relatively most prominent accent of multiple nuclei (Declerck, 1988; Lambrecht, 2001; Patten, 2012; Prince, 1978). Lambrecht (2001: 506) indirectly extends his predictions to there-clefts in the English translations of French il y a clefts in (165). The pattern with accent on the value only (169a) is claimed to be the prototypical one, but the pattern with accents on both value and cleft relative clause (165b) is recognized as well. (169) [Mother, looking around the dinner table: Who wants some more meat?] a. There’s ANDRE who wants some more meat. b. And there’s BERTRAND who wants some more POTATOES. (Lambrecht, 2001: 506) Some studies adducing more specific prosodic evidence have challenged this systematic mapping by showing that some value NPs do not have information focus (Collins, 1991, 2006; Delin, 1990; Halliday, 1967a; Kimps, 2016). Halliday (1967a: 229, 236–7) pointed out the possibility of multiple information structural patterns, including a non-focal value, e.g. when the value is an anaphoric non-contrastive pronoun unable to bear focus, as in (170). (170) // it’s that that I can’t underst\and // (Halliday, 1967a: 237) For presentational there-clefts Lambrecht (2001: 506) hypothesizes a prosodic pattern in which both the entity and the event being presented carry a pitch accent, as illustrated in (171). According to Lambrecht (2002: 175), the postverbal matrix NP has inherently a focus relation to its matrix and a topic relation to the proposition in the relative clause, but he does not fully explicate how these information structural functions motivate the predicted prosodic pattern. 2 See footnote 1 of this chapter.

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(171) There is a LINGUIST who wants to explain CLEFTS. (Lambrecht, 2001: 507)

9.3

Results and Interpretation of Our Prosodic Study

We can now confront our qualitative and quantitative findings with the existing hypotheses in the literature. First, we discuss the prosodic patterns relating to taxis in the four constructions (Sect. “Prosodic Patterns Relating to Taxis”). Next, we will focus on the information structural patterns in specificational and presentational there-clefts (Sect. “Information Structure”). Prosodic Patterns Relating to Taxis In this section we verify the hypotheses relating to the number of tone units as expressive of tactic structure (Sect. “Tone Units and Tactic Structure”) and tone concord as expressive of apposition (Sect. “Tone Concord and Apposition”). Tone Units and Tactic Structure Regarding tone units signalling whether relative clauses function NPinternally or in clause structure, we have clear hypotheses for restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses. The literature is agreed that nonrestrictive relative clauses are obligatorily uttered on separate tone units. Restrictive relative clauses are claimed by Halliday (1967b, 1994) to generally enter into one tone unit with their antecedent. In our data, the restrictive relative clause is a modifier internal to the existent NP, which occurs post-verbally. These restrictive relative clauses may be quite long and we also find existent NPs with coordinated restrictive relative clauses. In both cases, we are likely to find that the existential constructions with restrictive relative clauses are uttered on more than one tone unit. This raises the question of how we should define the feature of prosodic integration in this constructional environment. Firstly, we propose that not all of the restrictive relative clause needs to be part of the ‘integrated’ tone unit. This caveat is necessary because the restrictive relative clause itself may be divided into several information units because of length or

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for rhetorical reasons. As long as the tone unit including the antecedent, i.e. the head noun of the existent NP, stretches beyond the relative marker and comprises at least one element of the restrictive relative clause, then we can say that the grammatical integration is reflected in prosodic integration, as in (172). (172) there‘s something that your own c\andidate// can h\andle// (LLC) Secondly, we have to take into account that the existential clause itself may have an unmarked or a marked information structure. If the existential clause has an unmarked information structure, then it will have an unmarked focus, which falls on the last lexical element of the restrictive relative clause, like cope in (173). This unmarked type of focus may be followed by elements inherently unable to carry tonic prominence like the preposition with in (173). (173) there were questions that I couldn‘t c\ope with // (LLC) If the existential clause has a marked information structure with marked foci, then it may still be possible for antecedent and restrictive relative clause to be prosodically integrated. An example is (174), in which the constituent \/one of the existent NP carries a contrastive focus, but that antecedent and its restrictive relative clause still form one information unit. (174) I remember there was \/one that was // er glassed \in // which was supp\osed to be // er of commercial v\/alue // (LLC) The restrictive relative clause also offers the choice between unmarked and marked information structure. In the latter case, the focus will not be on the final lexical constituent of the restrictive relative clauses, which may make the assessment of prosodic integration more difficult. For instance, in (175), the second restrictive relative clause has marked contrastive focus on both \/I and l/\oved. As one tone unit contains the antecedent

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Table 9.1 Prosodic integration of antecedent and relative clause Relative clause type

Prosodic integration Total

Restrictive

Specificational

Predicative

Non-restrictive

n

%

n

%

n

%

n

%

35

45.45 13

21.31

6

11.76 0

0

77

100

100

51

100

100

61

35

number and stretches over the relative marker and first constituent of the restrictive relative clause, we also have prosodic integration here. (175) I began to r\/ealize // that there were all sorts of aggression aggressions and so on with\/in him // that I perhaps denied to mys\elf // because there were so many things that \/I // l/\oved about him // (LLC) We can now assess whether the restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses in our data manifest the hypothesized information patterns and we can compare these to the relative clauses in specificational and predicative clefts. Table 9.1 gives the results of prosodic integration between antecedent and relative clause in the four constructions. Non-restrictive relative clauses have no prosodic integration, thus confirming the hypothesis 100%. On the other hand, restrictive relative clauses have prosodic integration in only 45.45%, even on the maximal definition we have just outlined. Still, prosodic integration is relatively most common with, and in this sense typical of, restrictive relative clauses. It is much less frequent with specificational relative clauses, illustrated in (176), and predicative relative clauses, e.g. (177).3 (176) there’s nothing you can c/\ut // (LLC) (177) there was an undergraduate who did absolutely no w\ork // at \all // in his history sch\ools // (LLC)

3 The difference between restrictive and specificational relative clauses is significant at p < 0.5 (p-value is .003103), as is that between restrictive and predicative relative clauses at p < 0.5 (p-value is .000064).

9

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Table 9.2 Incidence of tone concord (TC) Relative clause type

TC fall TC rise TC fall-rise TC total No TC Total

Non-restrictive + appositional

Non-restrictive – appositional

Restrictive

Specificational

Predicative

n

%

n

%

n

%

n

%

n

%

6 3 3

31.58 15.79 15.79

2 2 1

12.5 12.5 6.25

17 2 1

22 2.6 1.3

20 5 2

32.8 8.2 3.3

23 3 0

45.1 5.9 0

12 7 19

63.16 36.84 100

5 11 16

31.25 68.75 100

20 57 77

26 74 100

27 34 61

44.3 55.7 100

26 25 51

51 49 100

Tone Concord and Apposition Next, we verify Halliday’s (1967b) hypothesis that tone concord, as the prosodic realization of apposition, is predominant in non-restrictive relative clauses of the appositional type. Table 9.2 gives the numbers and percentages of tone concord found in appositional as opposed to nonappositional non-restrictive relative clauses, as well as in all the other types of relative clause. Appositional non-restrictive relative clauses have tone concord in the highest percentage, 63.16%, thus confirming the hypothesis.4 Information Structure In this section, we focus on the prosodically coded information structure of specificational there-clefts (Sect. “Specificational There-Clefts”) and presentational there-clefts (Sect. “Presentational There-Clefts”). Specificational There-Clefts As we saw in Sect. 9.2, no hypotheses about focus placement in specificational there-clefts are, to our knowledge, available in the literature. As

4 We can also note that in appositional non-restrictive relative clauses, concord between falls, rises and fall-rises occurs in comparable proportions. By contrast, in specificational and presentational there-clefts the tone concord found in 44.3% and 51% respectively is due mainly to sequences of falling tones. Falling tone is the unmarked choice overall, which makes the probability of two falling tones following each other more likely.

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starting point, we therefore take the three possible distributions of focus over value and variable recognized for it-clefts (Collins, 2006; Declerck, 1988; Delin, 1990; Halliday, 1967a; Hedberg, 2013): focal–focal, focal– non-focal and non-focal–focal. It is plausible to assume similar patterns, as both it-clefts and specificational there-clefts are secondary specification constructions. The patterns and frequencies found in the there-cleft data are given in Table 9.3. To classify a value or variable as focal, we made no distinction between these constituents carrying single or multiple foci. We see that specificational there-clefts manifest the same three possible distributions of focus over value and variable as it-clefts and in roughly similar quantitative proportions as established for it-clefts by Bourgoin et al. (2021), whose results are given in Table 9.4. In both it-clefts and specificational there-clefts, the majority has the focal–focal pattern, against minorities of the focal–non-focal and nonfocal–focal patterns. In the literature on it-clefts, the thinking was once that in the most typical pattern, the value carries the only information focus (e.g. Lambrecht, 2001). This idea is receding, as it has been disproved in a number of empirical studies (e.g. Bourgoin et al., 2021; Collins, 2006; Hedberg, 2013). In specificational there-clefts, the focal–non-focal pattern, as in (178), accounts for only 4.9% in our data. The most typical information structure in fact has foci on both the value and variable, accounting for 83.6% in specificational there-clefts, as illustrated in (179). Halliday (1967a: 237) first drew attention to the motivated occurrence of the non-focal–focal pattern in it-clefts, as in // it ’s that that I can’t underst\and //. It is noteworthy that it is also attested in our specificational there-clefts, as in (180), with 11.5%. Table 9.3 Focus placement in specificational there-clefts value – variable

value – variable

value – variable

specificational there-clefts

focal – focal

focal – non-focal

non-focal – focal

n

%

n

%

n

%

n

%

61

100

51

83.6

3

4.9

7

11.5

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Table 9.4 Focus placement in it-clefts (Bourgoin, O’Grady & Davidse 2021) value – variable

value – variable

value – variable

Specificational it-clefts

focal – focal

focal – non-focal

non-focal – focal

n

%

n

%

n

%

n

%

1435

100

91

63.6

12

8.4

40

28

(178) there’s no s\/urgery you can do // (LLC) (179) there’s nobody that I can offhand rec\all // on the l\/ist of applicants// who expresses any special \interest in modern drama // (LLC) (180) there’s nothing you can c/\ut // (LLC) A question specific to specificational there-clefts is whether prosody might be of some help in distinguishing specificational from restrictive relative clauses. As we saw in Chapter 5, the superficial resemblance between there-clefts and existential clauses with restrictive relative clauses is one of the big stumbling blocks to the recognition of there-clefts. Our hypothesis is that specificational relative clauses will stand out by more frequently having information focus on quantifying elements of their antecedent. This hypothesis is motivated by the semantic contrast between existential clauses with restrictive relative clauses and quantifying there-clefts, which form the majority of specificational there-clefts (Table 8.1). The semantics of the former are concerned with the occurrence of instances of the type specifications expressed by the head + restrictive relative clause. Whilst they commonly include quantifiers, these are less likely to be focal. By contrast, in quantifying there-clefts, we expect that the quantity of the instances matching the variable expressed by the specificational relative clause will more often be focal, e.g. (181).

5 The it-clefts investigated result from an exhaustive extraction and case-by-case analysis of potential tokens of it-clefts from the LLC, but were restricted to those in which the value is realized by an NP, i.e. excluding prepositional phrases and clauses as value.

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Table 9.5 Focal quantifiers in the four construction types

Focal quantifiers Non-focal quantifiers Total quantifiers

Restrictive

Specificational

Presentational

Non-restrictive

n

%

n

%

n

%

n

%

15

31.25

22

50

6

31.6

3

33.3

33

68.75

22

50

13

68.4

6

66.6

48

100

44

100

19

100

9

100

Table 9.6 Focus placement in presentational there-clefts entity – event

entity – event

entity – event

Presentational there-clefts

focal – focal

focal – non-focal

non-focal – focal

n

%

n

%

N

%

n

%

51

100

48

94.1

0

0

3

5.9

(181) A: it‘s just one qu\estion that they have to do B: there were \/one or tw\o we‘ve got on th/ere Table 9.5 gives the absolute and relative frequencies of focal versus nonfocal quantifiers in the existent NP of the four construction types. Our hypothesis is confirmed. Specificational relative clauses stand out as having overall the highest percentage of focal quantifiers, viz. 50%. Presentational There-Clefts Whereas the relation between the relative clause and its NP-antecedent is specificational in specificational clefts, it is predicational in presentational clefts. As we saw in Sect. 7.3, the matrix of presentational there-clefts evokes deictically grounded cognitive awareness within which the referent of the existent NP is presented and related to the discourse-new event referred to by the predicative relative clause. Table 9.6 lists focus assignment in our data as distributed over the entity and the event described in the predicative relative clause.

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Lambrecht (2001) hypothesized that both the entity being presented and the situation it is involved in carry pitch accents because both are focal. This is certainly the predominant trend with 94.1%, as in (182). A fraction of 5.9% have no focus on the entity being introduced but only foci on the event, as in (183). (182) there was a t\ime when // they were supp\osed to be // about 200 y\ears ago // supposed to be much more common than r\ed grass // (183) there was an undergraduate who did absolutely no work at \all // in his history sch\ools // (LLC) The pattern focal–non-focal is not found in presentational there-clefts, which is to be expected as the information in the predicative relative clause is in no way presupposed. Finally, we can note that predicative relative clauses are the only type in which a tone unit boundary occurs in some cases (n = 5) just after the relative pronoun, as in (182). This is probably best viewed as a case of slight non-coincidence between phonological and grammatical units, whereby the non-prominent relative marker falls within the preceding tone unit for reasons of rhythm (Halliday, 1994: 292–298). We do not view it as prosodic integration because it does not extend into a constituent of the relative clause following the relative marker. At this stage we have no explanation for why it is presentational there-clefts that attract this non-coincidence. By way of conclusion, we answer the question if there-clefts stand out from existential clauses with restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses in terms of prosodic features. As to prosodically signalled taxis, there-clefts stand out by lacking distinctive features. Unlike restrictive relative clauses, cleft relative clauses are rarely prosodically integrated with their antecedent, and unlike non-restrictive relative clauses, main clause and relative clause do not intrinsically have separate tone units. As for prosodically coded information focus, specificational there-clefts behave like it-clefts in showing a comparable distribution over value and cleft relative clause: predominantly focal–focal and fractionally non-focal–focal and focal–non-focal. Presentational there-clefts also favour the focal–focal pattern and infrequently have focus only on the predicative relative clause.

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Lambrecht, K. (2002). Topic, focus and secondary predication: The French presentational relative construction. In C. Beyssade, R. Bok-Bennema, F. Drijkoningen, & P. Monachesi (Eds.), Romance languages and linguistic theory 2000: Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 2000, Utrecht, 30 November–2 December (pp. 171–212). Benjamins. McGregor, W. (1997). Semiotic Grammar. Clarendon. O’Grady, G. (2014). An investigation of how intonation helps signal information structure. In W. Bowcher & B. A. Smith (Eds.), Systemic phonology: Recent studies in English (pp. 27–52). Equinox. Patten, A. (2012). The English it-cleft: A constructional account and a diachronic investigation. Mouton de Gruyter. Prince, E. (1978). A comparison of wh-clefts and it-clefts in discourse. Language, 54, 883–906. Prince, E. (1992). The ZPG letter: Subjects, definiteness, and information-status. In S. Thompson & W. Mann (Eds.), Discourse description: Diverse analyses of a fundraising text (pp. 95–325). Benjamins. Rochemont, M. (1986). Focus in Generative Grammar. Benjamins. Verstraete, J.-C. (2007). Rethinking the coordinate-subordinate dichotomy: Interpersonal grammar and the analysis of adverbial clauses in English. Mouton.

CHAPTER 10

Conclusion

Abstract The mainstream equates clefts in English with it-clefts and holds that their grammar non-compositionally codes focus marking. In the previous chapters, we have built up an alternative account. Coming in from the hitherto only marginally recognized there-clefts, we have put the contrast between specificational and presentational clefts centre stage. To this extended field we have further added opaque verb-clefts. We have argued that the grammatical assembly of specificational clefts, including the inherently specificational it-clefts, compositionally codes the matching of variable and value. The relative clause construes the variable as the description of a role in a situation used essentially, specifying the necessary properties of “whatever or whoever fits that description”. The antecedent designates the value, i.e. the instances that fit the description. Presentational clefts can only have existential be or opaque verbs, which imply or evoke the perspective from which an entity is presented, and on which the new situation referred to by the relative clause is predicated. Keywords It-clefts · There-clefts · Specificational clefts · Presentational clefts

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Davidse et al., Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32270-9_10

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The primary aim of this study was to offer a new, comprehensive account of specificational and presentational there-clefts. Secondly, by entering the debate via the hitherto largely undescribed there-clefts, we also wanted to give a new impetus to the study of the whole field of clefts, which we argue subsumes other types besides the it-cleft. In this conclusion, we summarize the main lines of the proposed new view of clefts. Mainstream reference works on English tend to recognize the it-cleft only, which they view as a construction dedicated to the expression of pragmatic meaning: its bi-clausal syntax is said to unpack a simple proposition into an unambiguous focus–presupposition structure. A criterial test to identify an it-cleft, e.g. (184a), is the possibility of ‘declefting’ it into a simple proposition like (184b). (184) a. now where did I hear that from … may have been Ivor B\ond Ø told me (LLC) b. Ivor B\ond may have told me This interpretation of clefts as focus-constructions is then linked, in a second step, to a prosodic recognition criterion: the postverbal ‘focus phrase’ is claimed to carry either the only, or the most prominent, accent (e.g. Declerck, 1988; Lambrecht, 2001; Patten, 2012; Prince, 1978). Empirical studies falsifying this claim by revealing more diversified patterns have tended to be accommodated within a mitigated information-structural account of clefts (e.g. Collins, 2006; Hedberg, 2013), rather than inspiring more fundamental rethinking. That is, clefts continue to be viewed as coding information structure only and being devoid of representational meaning, but the repertoire of information structures they are alleged to convey is expanded. Constitutive of this traditional account of clefts is the theoretical notion of a form-meaning mismatch. It + be tend to be viewed as semantically empty elements and to the specific antecedent–relative clause structure of clefts no meaning is ascribed at all. Our study has challenged this traditional account from the perspective of an alternative theoretical approach and in confrontation with closely analysed spoken data. Let us first recall some informational and prosodic patterns attested in contextualized data that defy the focus-construction account of it-clefts. Firstly, there are examples like (185), in which the postverbal NP does not carry a pitch accent and the information in the

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relative clause is not presupposed. They might in the traditional approach be categorized as an ‘informative-presupposition’ cleft, which is claimed to present “a piece of information as fact, known to some people although not yet known to the intended hearer” (Prince, 1978: 899). (185) A: did you meet Fuller – B: y/es // it was he who inv\ited me // (LLC). Whilst this explanation might be felt to work for—rather rare—examples like (186) in which the relative clause does provide factual information, it is not satisfactory for examples like (185) in which the speaker’s pitch accent on invited conveys the surprising, unpredictable nature of that information (Bourgoin, 2022: 169). (186) Only exceptional stars can reach out to us across galactic distances at radio wavelengths. Hey’s discovery is often called fortuitous, but one should hesitate before calling it that, in view of Hey’s record. He it was who first discovered radar reflections from meteor trails. (WB) We further pointed out that an example like (187) fundamentally undermines the idea that the postverbal NP and the relative clause code focus and presupposition. The presupposition is clearly “x material counts ” and the focus is formed by the premodifier pop of the postverbal NP only. The syntactic constituents of relative clause and postverbal NP do not coincide with, and hence cannot code, focus–presupposition. Rather, it is the pitch accent as such that codes p\op as the focus. (187) there’s not the same pressure on the material it’s the p\op material that counts (LLC) An important part of our theoretical assumptions is that, in English, information structure, i.e. the off-setting of focal against non-focal information, is “realized directly in the phonological organization” (Halliday, 1967a) (see Chapters 1, 3 and 9). Theoretically, we situate ourselves in the tradition of ‘semiotic’ linguists committed to analysing how structures ‘naturally’ code meanings. Thus, patterns of prosodic prominence naturally—‘iconically’ according to Bolinger (1985)—signal informational

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prominence. Functions such as focus assignment involve the speaker in making moment-by-moment, hearer-oriented choices regarding which parts of the unfolding speech to represent as focal and which as non-focal with a view to creating common ground and taking the communication forward (O’Grady, 2010 and 2016, O’Grady & Bartlett, 2019). Information-structural patterns are decided on in a strongly contextbound way and can be interpreted adequately only with access to the prosody and the larger information flow. Information structure is a very different type of meaning from propositional meaning—or ‘representational’ meaning in theories distinguishing functional-structural layers (as explained in Chapter 2). Representational semantic structures are naturally—largely compositionally—symbolized by lexicogrammatical assemblies (Langacker, 1987, 2021). Central to the representational meaning of a clause is its valency structure, in which a lexical verbal head is elaborated by nominal complements. Valency structures generalize over many usage tokens and their analysis is not dependent on prosody or context. In tying propositional content to concrete discursive contexts and adapting it moment-by-moment to shifting communicative purposes, speakers “play with the system” … “to produce an astonishing variety of rhetorical effects” (Halliday, 1994: 301). The thesis guiding this study is that clefts are no exception to this semiotic principle. Clefts have lexicogrammatically coded semantics, onto which a great variety of context-dependent information structures may be mapped. The focus of our description, both at the representational and information structural level, has been on specificational and presentational there-clefts, empirically grounded in a dataset sampled from the LLC. This dataset contains 192 contexts with utterances manifesting as a string containing existential there + be + NP (+ relative marker) + finite clause. A large set extracted with the query there + be + NP was manually analysed to distinguish tokens with existential there from tokens with demonstrative there (Chapter 4) and include relative clauses introduced by both overt and zero relative markers. Besides specificational and presentational there-clefts, two other constructions manifest as this string, viz. existential clauses with restrictive or non-restrictive relative clauses. In fact, the surface similarities between there-clefts and, particularly, existential clauses with restrictive relative clauses have formed one of the main stumbling blocks to recognizing there-clefts and developing recognition criteria for them. Setting out the paradigms of relative markers found in the relative clauses of these four construction types, we pointed out that

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in English the possibility of using the zero marker with subject function is distinctive of both specificational and presentational clefts (Chapter 5). We proposed that the main grammatical-semantic differences between there-clefts and existentials with restrictive relative clauses lie in their different antecedent–relative clause structure and its different integration in the overall structures—the very functional-structural elements that, in the mainstream approach to clefts, have been badly neglected. In Chapter 6, we dealt with the different antecedent–relative clause structures found in the four construction types of our dataset. We focused, in particular, on how restrictive relative clauses, like the first relative clause in (188), differ from relative clauses in clefts, like the second relative clause in (188) and the sole relative clause in (189)—in spite of the surface similarities that have bedeviled analysts. (188) there is nothing that they cons\ider // that they do not ad j\ourn // (LLC) (189) there were three little bl\ack boys Ø were g\oing along (LLC) The antecedent of restrictive relative clauses is the head noun only whilst that of relative clauses in clefts is the whole NP. Table 10.1 summarizes the implications of this difference, which translate into a number of formal and semantic recognition tests. Applied to the above examples, we see that the first relative clause in (188) narrows down the antecedent ‘thing’ to “thing they consider”. The negative quantifier no scopes over these type specifications, determining the reference of the postverbal NP, which is the antecedent of the second, cleft relative clause. No is used as a relative quantifier, which compares the actually designated instances to the reference set of “everything they consider”, indicating that there is no overlap whatsoever with that reference set. This entails that the semantic gap in the open proposition of the cleft relative clause is filled by an empty set: “they do not adjourn nothing they consider”, i.e. they adjourn everything they consider. Example (189) contains only a cleft relative clause. Its antecedent is the full postverbal NP, three little black boys. In Chapter 7, we addressed the different structural integration of antecedent and relative clause in the overall structures. Here we argued our claim that the relative clauses in clefts are indirect, relational complements of the matrix verb. Cleft relative clauses do not only stand in a

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Table 10.1 Form-meaning contrasts between restrictive relative clauses (RRC) and relative clauses in clefts (CRC)

Antecedent Antecedent + relative clause

Relation between antecedent and relative anaphor Scope of determiner

Form Meaning Form Meaning

Form Meaning

Form Meaning

Restrictive

Cleft

Head noun Type of entity [N + RRC] Characterization of entity-type by its role in a situation N – relative anaphor Type insofar as subtype

Full NP Determined instance [NP][CRC] Gap filler – open proposition

[Det [N + RRC]] Determiner interacts with type specifications to determine instances designated by NP

[Det [N]] [CRC] Determiner identifies or quantifies instances designated by antecedent of CRC

NP – relative anaphor Co-extensive sets of instances

modification relation to their antecedents—which is the only structural relation restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses partake in—they also stand in a complementation relation to the verb mediated by the antecedent–relative anaphor relation. Clefts are constructions in which the matrix verb subcategorizes for a secondary relation between the postverbal complement and the relative clause. In specificational clefts, this secondary relation is a specificational one obtaining between value and variable. Specificational relations can also be expressed by copular clauses, where the verb links two noun phrases as value to variable. In specificational clefts, the value is inserted directly in the NP-antecedent of the specificational relative clause, which designates the variable. The specificational relative clause has, just like the variable NP in copular clauses, weak ‘definitional’ reference. In presentational clefts, the secondary relation between antecedent and relative clause is a predicative one, i.e. involving the roles of predicand and predicate. The predicative relative clause refers to an actual and discourse-new situation, which is newly predicated on its antecedent. Importantly, the grammatical-semantic recognition criteria of both the antecedent–relative clause relation and its integration with the matrix

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Table 10.2 Main semantic and pragmatic oppositions in field of cleft constructions

Impersonal construal

Exhaustiveness implicature

No exhaustiveness effect

Personal construal

Matching

Presenting

It-clefts (18) It was Ivor Bond Ø told me (110) it’s nobody that wins Specificational there-clefts (97) There is Vernon who is also known (19) There was not one of them Ø could justify the disparity Specificational opaque verb-clefts (16) I ’ve got John Ø does the presses (112) I ’ve found nobody that calls it that

–

Presentational there-clefts (20) There were three boys Ø were going along

Presentational opaque verb-clefts (17) I ’ve got one sister Ø just had a little boy (192) if you met a man Ø knew everything about you

verb confirm that there is a third subtype of clefts besides it- and thereclefts, viz. opaque verb-clefts whose matrix contains verbs like have, meet, know, need, want, look for, find, discover, bring in, etc. The existence of have-clefts had already been recognized in some studies (Davidse, 2000; Jullien, 2014; Karssenberg, 2018; Lambrecht, 1988, 2001), whilst Davidse and Kimps (2016) were to our knowledge the first to make a case for also recognizing clefts with other verbs like find, bring in, know, etc. In this study we identify these verbs, also have, as opaque verbs in their cleft uses. We have shown how the two non-agentive complements traditionally defined as specific and non-specific are tweaked with additional selection restrictions to fit the two roles in specificational and predicative relations. Clefts whose matrices contain opaque verbs and explicitly code the agent involved in them cast light on the semantics of clefts with impersonal identifying or existential matrices. Table 10.2 visualizes how identifying and existential matrices and ones with opaque verbs are distributed over specificational and presentational clefts. Specificational clefts can have all three matrix types, whilst presentational clefts can only have existential or opaque verb matrices. We have argued that specificational clefts are secondary specification constructions. Their semantics are all about an—implied or overt—agent

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seeking to match the attributive, weakly referential description (in the sense of Donnellan, 1966) given by the relative clause with entities fitting the description. On this understanding, the variable in the specificational relation is the ‘definitional’ role expressed by the relative clause whilst the value is designated by the antecedent NP. All subtypes of specificational cleft can either refer to or quantify the entities qualifying for the variable. In sum, we hold that the lexicogrammatical assembly of specificational clefts always codes the matching of variable and value in the above sense, not a focus–presupposition relation. The contexts in (190) and (191) illustrate these representational semantics with exchanges consisting of two specificational clefts. The itcleft and there-cleft in (190) are concerned with exam questions, first viewed from the students’ point of view, “x they have to do”, and then from the teachers’ perspective “x we’ve got on there”. Both quantify the instances corresponding to this variable. Speaker A thinks it is just one qu\estion, but speaker B corrects this view with the value NP \/one or tw\o, which has selective focus on the quantifiers, for which use of a there-cleft is the unmarked option. In (191), the speakers are disputing the question of whether or not a specific type of way can be called a road. They set up the dispute in terms of how many people correspond to the variable “x ø do call it road”, reprised as “x that calls it that ”. Speaker A quantifies this set as a lot of people, but speaker B retorts he has found nobody that fits the bill of “calling it a road”. (190) A: it‘s just one qu\estion that they have to do /isn‘t it B: well there were \/one or tw\o we‘ve got on th/ere (LLC) (191) A: there’s a lot of people ø do call it road. … B: I’ve found nobody that calls it that. (WB) These contexts also illustrate the contrast between impersonal and personal construal of the matching operation. In (190), the successive clefts have an impersonal identifying and existential matrix. In both, the matching relation is represented as a state resulting from an implied matching operation. The conceptualizer involved in the specificational act remains ‘offstage’ (Langacker, 2002: 9) in the coding, but is implied in the deictic centre that forms the reference point for the subject pronouns of the identifying or existential matrix. In (191), speaker A starts off

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with an impersonal construal. Speaker B construes the matching operation personally, appearing explicitly as the subject I , and also describes the phase of the matching operation with the perfect ‘ve found, which contribute to his attempt to settle the dispute in his favour. The implied or overt conceptualizer is the actual speaker in all the clefts in (192) and (193), but can also be the represented or internal speaker (Sisha-Halevy, 2016), like the represented speaker he uttering the cleft there is nothing that any of us can do in (192) and subject they of the opaque verb-cleft in (193). (192) When they looked at the X-ray my surgeon chap who’s quite an expert at this sort of thing said Well the knee is a mess… He said there is nothing that any of us can do unless we give you a complete knee replacement (WB) (193) They’ll always know a cousin Shamus or John that can do it for you (mirror.uncyc.org/wiki/Pikey) The other opposition within specificational clefts is the pragmatic one related to exhaustiveness effects, which, we argued, falls out naturally from analysis of the different matrices. The matrix of it-clefts is an identifying clause in which the verb be assigns the role of identifier to the postverbal complement NP. This triggers an implicature of exhaustive specification, which is reinforced by the definite cataphoric subject it pointing forward to the value NP. It has, like an NP with definite article, an implicature of inclusive reference, and thus ‘announces’ the value NP as the exhaustive (set of) value(s). The other cleft types do not have implicatures of either exhaustiveness or non-exhaustiveness as no trigger of either is present in them. In there-clefts existential there does not refer cataphorically to the postverbal existent NP. Rather, there refers exophorically to the ambient context in relation to the conceptualizer’s perspective from the deictic origo, and does not trigger any implicature regarding the exhaustiveness of the specification. We hence hold that there is underspecification of the exhaustiveness in there-clefts. The same goes for opaque verb-clefts. In the absence of any exhaustiveness trigger, they are underspecified with regard to exhaustiveness. We now turn to the presentational clefts, which subsume only two subtypes, there-clefts as in (194) and opaque verb-clefts as in (195) and (196). The opaque verbs used in the latter partially overlap with those

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occurring in specificational clefts but also include ones more typical of presentational clefts like meet in (195). As used in presentational clefts, different meanings of the opaque verbs are activated, which do not include the component of matching a qualifying entity with a definitional, weakly referential variable. Rather, the opaque verbs met in (195) and know in (196) evoke perceptual, and more generally, cognitive awareness with “the explicit or inferred presence of a centre of perspective” (König & Lambrecht, 1999: 195). (194) There were three little black boys Ø were going along. (LLC) (195) if you met a man Ø knew everything about you, how would you react? (if you met a man knew everything about you, how would you react?: AskReddit) (196) I know a man Ø lives in Saint Louis. (Elgin & Haden, 1991: 9) The personal versus impersonal matrices in presentational clefts construe an explicit cognizant versus one implied by the deictic centre of existential there, which can be either the actual or internal speaker. Within the zone of perceptual or cognitive awareness, the entity designated by the postverbal NP is put on the scene, and this entity is then related to the situation referred to by the predicative relative clause. The ‘presenting’ meaning construed at the representational level thus involves a consciousness perceiving/cognizing and phenomena appearing. We continue to refer to it as ‘presenting’, but stress that we are not talking at this level about textual notions such as discourse-new information. We pointed out that the postverbal complement is very often, but not obligatorily, an indefinite NP, as shown by examples like (197). (197) On the train there was Roy Hatterson who came up with his whole troop. Having thrashed out these accounts of the representational semantics of specificational and presentational clefts coded by their lexicogrammatical assemblies, we turned to the question of how speakers prosodically modulate specificational and presentational there-clefts (Chapter 9). The sound files of the tokens of the four constructions with existential clause followed by relative clause in our dataset were coded by the second and third author for tone units, tones and tonic syllables. These prosodic

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Table 10.3 Distribution of focus assignment over antecedent and relative clause in LLC-datasets Total

Presentational there-clefts Specificational there-clefts It-clefts

focal – focal

focal – non-focal

non-focal – focal

n

%

n

%

n

%

n

%

51 61 143

100 100 100

48 51 91

94.1 83.6 63.6

0 3 12

0 4.9 8.4

3 7 40

5.9 11.5 28

features can be used to signal both tactic and informational structural meanings (Halliday & Greaves, 2008). We were looking for answers to two sets of questions. Firstly, can prosodic features provide us with added recognition criteria for the four constructions, or at least support their analysis with quantitative tendencies typically associated with one of the constructions? Secondly, how do the empirically established information structural patterns of the four constructions compare to hypotheses about them in the literature? We found that non-restrictive relative clauses are the only type in our dataset whose prosody obligatorily marks tactic features. In 100% they are assigned one or more tone units of their own, setting them apart from their antecedent. Other construction types have some typical prosodic features. Appositional—as opposed to continuative—non-restrictive relative clause, admittedly a small fraction of the dataset, featured tone concord in 63.16%. With restrictive relative clauses, the hypothesized prosodic integration of antecedent and relative clause into one tone unit occurred in 45.45% of cases. This is not a default, but prosodic integration is still most common with restrictive relative clauses. With regard to the information structure of there-clefts, we contrasted presentational with specificational there-clefts and compared the latter with it-clefts. Concentrating on focus assignment, we investigated the question of whether the antecedent and/or the relative clause carry information foci. Table 10.3 summarizes the results. For all three types of clefts, the focal–focal pattern is most frequent. What precise informational and interactional factors motivate the predominance of this pattern will have to be studied in future research. Presentational there-clefts attest only two possibilities, focal–focal and

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non-focal–focal. This is to be expected as it makes no sense to informationally background the discourse-new situation in the relative clause. In specificational clefts, it was hypothesized in the Lambrecht-tradition that the focal–non-focal pattern is most common (2001: 493) because the relative clause constituent is claimed to code the informationally backgrounded presupposition. This hypothesis is not confirmed as the focal–non-focal pattern is least frequent in both it-clefts and specificational there-clefts. The sizeable minorities of the non-focal–focal pattern in both also go against the idea that the postverbal complement codes focus, which is “necessarily accented” (Lambrecht, 2001: 493). In future research, the very diversified focus assignment patterns and their motivation will have to be studied in more detail than we have done here. We made abstraction of a lot of details in Tables 9.3, 9.4, 9.6 and 10.3 in Chapter 9 to make our results comparable to existing hypotheses. However, ultimately, we will have to elucidate what Halliday (1994: 301) calls the “astonishing variety of rhetorical effects”, created by the speaker’s decisions about division into information units and location and type of information focus. These decisions are made on a moment by moment basis in function of constantly (re-)assessed communicative, discursive and interactional goals (O’Grady, 2010, O’Grady & Bartlett, 2019). A finegrained phenomenon that warrants more study is ‘selective’ focus on only one element of the antecedent NP, which accounts for 9.2% in the it-cleft dataset in Bourgoin and Davidse (forthc.), as illustrated in (187) above. In the specificational there-clefts in our dataset, as many as 50% have selective focus on the quantifier of the value constituent, as in (190). Another phenomenon to be addressed is the embedding of clefts in the larger discourse context. The generalizations over focus assignment patterns in terms of the three possibilities in Table 10.3 miss a lot of the finer cohesive relations signalled by information foci between smaller elements than the two main parts of a construction like clefts. Let us illustrate this with the specificational cleft in (198) and the presentational cleft in (199). (198) there was not one of them th\ere // Ø could j\ustify // the disp\arity // between the way Britain‘s being tr\eated // and the tr\eatment // of the members of the S\ix // (LLC) (199) the worst thing was for \us // to leave our w\ounded // they knew we were g\oing // there are Germans who are alongside our front l\ines // there were many m\any of them // who c\ould not go // who could not w\alk // (LLC)

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In (198), multiple foci are assigned to elements of the long cleft relative clause—no doubt with a view to aiding the hearer’s processing but also to foreground smaller elements (e.g. (not) j\ustify and disp\arity) and to contrast smaller elements (e.g. the way Britain‘s being tr\eated versus the tr\eatment of the members of the S\ix). The presentational cleft in (199) comes about in a narrative by a British former Red Cross nurse who served with the Russian army in the First World War. She recounts how during a surprise attack by the Germans they were ordered to leave behind their wounded. In the presentational cleft, she first puts a marked selective focus on the quantifier in the postverbal NP: there were many m\any of them //. To these referents, she ascribes the predicative relative clause who c\ould not go //, in which the non-final focus on c\ould not signals the contrast with the able-bodied who were g\oing. She adds a second relative clause with final focus restating the information that the wounded could not w\alk //. Study of these fine-grained information structural choices will have to operationalize the important distinction between unmarked focus and marked contrastive focus, discussed in Chapter 9, Sect. “Prosodically Coded Information Structure”. Clearly, much more is going on in terms of information structural choices made ‘online’ than suggested in the pragmatic approach to clefts, which views them as dedicated to the coding of focus (specificational clefts) or focus/topic–focus (in presentational clefts). Having made the case for a principled distinction between the representational semantics of specificational and presentational clefts and their rich affordances for information structure, the most urgently required further research may well be fine-grained empirical analysis of their very diverse information structural patterns.

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Index

A actual speaker, 46, 106, 112, 115–117, 163 adjectival alternate, 57 equivalent, 60 modifier, 59, 60 adjunct, 42, 43, 77, 78, 81, 109, 110 adverb, 42 deictic, 41, 42 demonstrative, 42–43 agent, 7, 12, 15, 16, 27, 105, 106, 161 alternate, 28, 42, 50, 57, 61, 63, 65, 69, 71, 77, 78, 82, 110. See also alternation; equivalent alternation, 28, 61, 63, 76, 78, 83, 109, 114, 115 ambiguity, 10 ambiguous, 34, 58, 102, 138. See also ambiguity antecedent clausal, 34, 56 nominal head, 10, 28, 63

NP, 11, 18, 63, 64, 68, 82, 88–90, 116, 128, 162, 166 apposition, 82, 144, 147 loose, 82, 90 appositional, 82–85, 90, 141, 142, 147, 165

B bi-clausal, 3, 16, 116, 156

C clause coordinated, 34, 141, 144 hypotactic, 75, 141 main, 12, 124 matrix, 5, 83, 86, 89, 109, 115, 143, 159 paratactic, 141 relative, 3, 4, 7, 9–12, 15, 17, 18, 27, 30, 34, 35, 49–53, 56–65, 67, 68, 70, 72, 76, 81, 82, 84, 86–90, 92, 93, 101–104, 106, 108, 110, 112, 115, 117,

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Davidse et al., Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32270-9

181

182

INDEX

124–126, 129, 130, 133, 138, 142, 144–147, 149, 150, 156, 158–160, 162 subordinated, 90 cleft full, 102 have-cleft, 4, 11, 12, 16, 90, 91, 104, 108, 109, 116, 161 it-cleft, 2–5, 7, 11, 12, 16, 46, 50, 56, 62–64, 89, 92, 101, 104, 105, 107, 110, 148, 149, 156, 165, 166 opaque verb-cleft, 16, 86, 90, 91, 101, 104, 155, 161, 163 presentational, 9, 15, 18, 35, 58, 67, 76, 87, 92, 93, 103, 106, 109, 110, 112–116, 150, 159, 163, 164, 166, 167. See also secondary predication pseudo-cleft, 88, 101, 102, 109 reduced, 110, 115 specificational, 2, 7, 8, 14, 18, 35, 50, 67, 84, 87, 91, 93, 94, 100, 102–105, 109, 112, 115, 117, 150, 160–162, 164, 167. See also secondary specification there-cleft, 2, 3, 6, 8, 10–13, 16, 17, 24, 30, 34, 46, 51, 52, 57, 64, 65, 68, 70, 76, 82, 84, 87, 88, 90, 91, 103, 106–108, 112, 124–126, 129–131, 142, 147–150, 156, 158, 161, 163, 164, 166 enumerative, 89, 129. See also enumerate quantifying, 106, 149 clitic pronoun ambient, 46, 78 existential, 44–46 exophoric, 46, 78 it , 44–46, 78, 79 there, 44–46, 78, 79, 87

cognitive-functional, 3, 5, 25, 83 Cognitive Grammar, 78, 86, 87 cognitive linguistics, 25 complement, 3, 4, 7, 9, 14, 15, 25–27, 50, 81, 82, 85, 87, 89, 90, 93–95, 104–107, 110, 113, 114, 117, 125, 158–160, 163, 164, 166. See also complementation direct, 89, 117 indirect, 27, 89, 90, 100, 104, 125, 159 relational, 27, 85, 90, 105, 115, 159 complementation, 5, 26, 27, 28, 76, 87, 89, 100, 160. See also head–complement complex NP, 82–84, 88 sentence, 34, 83, 84 structure, 82, 90 compositional, 18, 26, 88, 107, 114, 116, 124, 155, 191 construction cleft, 16, 90–92, 105, 161 existential, 42, 57, 81, 124, 131–133, 144 secondary predication, 6, 9, 16, 84, 87, 92, 93 secondary specification, 6, 7, 16, 84, 87, 92–94, 104, 110, 112, 161 setting-subject, 77–79 specificational, 2, 6, 7, 18, 50, 84, 87, 93, 94, 96, 101, 103, 104, 110, 146, 148, 150, 158, 161 D deictic adverb, 42 centre, 7, 47, 59, 60, 78, 105, 162, 164

INDEX

construction, 86, 92 origo, 106, 108, 163 pronoun, 7, 47 reference point, 7, 47 there, 41–43 determiner definite, 98, 99, 109, 131 demonstrative, 127, 128 indefinite, 64, 70, 98, 99, 109, 127, 131 discourse-new, 113, 116, 126, 150, 160, 164, 166 discourse-old, 103 distribution, 25, 30, 50, 52, 90, 103, 126, 129–131, 148 domain, 26, 35, 36, 96, 97, 132, 137–139 scopal, 26 spatiotemporal, 132 Dutch, 44, 81

E entity, 8–10, 15, 16, 27, 59, 61, 64, 69, 77, 80, 83, 85, 87, 89, 90, 93, 95, 97–101, 108, 113, 114, 116, 117, 126, 127, 143, 150, 151, 160, 162, 164 entity-type, 62, 64, 160 enumerate, 8, 108, 126, 129, 130. See also list equivalent, 60, 70, 102, 139 exhaustiveness effects, 107, 163 exhaustive, 99, 107, 108, 163 non-exhaustive, 99, 109 existent, 76, 79–81, 83, 87, 89, 90, 108, 115, 124–127, 130–132, 144, 145, 150, 163 existential be, 7, 9, 45, 47, 78–80, 90, 105, 108, 112, 116, 117, 125

183

clause, 5, 10, 17, 29, 30, 34, 35, 44, 45, 57, 58, 64, 76, 78–81, 83, 84, 87, 90, 116, 125, 129, 130, 142, 145, 149, 158, 164 enumerative, 129 matrix, 1, 5, 8, 76, 89, 103, 161, 164 there, 1, 17, 18, 29, 34, 35, 41–47, 75, 77, 78, 106, 108, 115, 158, 163, 164 unmarked, 78, 80, 145

F filler, 64, 160 focus, 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 17, 26, 78, 93, 109, 116, 137–141, 143–145, 147, 150, 156–158, 162, 165–167 cohesive, 138, 166 contrastive, 137–141, 145, 167 fresh, 138 indeterminacy, 138 marked, 8, 138, 140, 143, 145 presenting, 137 selective, 5, 8, 162, 166, 167 unmarked, 137, 138, 140, 167 form-meaning mismatch, 3, 6, 87, 88, 156 free indirect speech, 106 French, 2, 3, 57, 81, 91, 113, 143 functional linguistics, 25

G gap, 2, 15, 64, 66, 67, 89, 101, 105, 106, 108, 115, 126, 160 German, 44, 68, 82, 166, 167 ground, 3, 8, 15, 24, 45, 78, 141, 158 grounding, 125

184

INDEX

H head clausal, 29, 76, 79 conceptually incomplete, 26, 27 complement, 76, 83 modifier, 87 nominal, 10, 28, 59, 62, 81, 158 supplement, 82, 83

I identified, 4, 27, 89, 94, 95 identifier, 89, 107, 163 identifying be, 7, 89, 90, 103, 105, 107, 117, 163 clause, 5, 56, 58, 107, 163 matrix, 8, 105–109, 162, 163 implicature cancellable, 99, 108 conversational, 99, 108 exclusive reference, 99 exhaustiveness, 5, 89, 99, 108, 109, 161, 163 inclusive reference, 99, 108, 163 non-exhaustiveness, 99, 109, 163 information focal, 26, 137, 139, 141, 148, 157, 165. See also focus focus, 4, 116, 137, 139, 143, 148, 149, 166 given, 103. See also recoverable new, 12, 13, 79, 103, 112, 113, 137, 139. See also non-recoverable; unpredictable non-focal, 26, 137, 148, 157, 166 non-recoverable, 137, 138, 140 recoverable, 139 unpredictable, 157 information structure, 6, 26, 79, 103, 116, 133, 136–142, 145, 147, 148, 156–158, 165, 167

marked, 137–140, 145, 167 unmarked, 79, 137, 138, 140, 145 instance, 3, 11, 15, 17, 27, 29, 34, 51, 56, 59–64, 66–70, 77, 80–82, 97–100, 105, 108–110, 112, 117, 125–127, 129–132, 149, 160, 162 instantiation, 67, 71, 80, 81, 108, 125, 127, 132 internal speaker, 46, 116, 163, 164 intonation, 3, 5, 36, 38, 142. See also prosody British School of intonation, 36

K known, 87–90, 132, 157, 161

L list, 89, 91, 96, 97, 100, 109, 129

M marked, 8, 35, 38, 77, 106, 137–141, 143, 145, 167 match, 8, 15, 16, 27, 93, 94, 97, 100, 102–105, 109–112, 117, 125, 126, 130, 131, 149, 155, 161–164 matrix, 4, 5, 8, 15, 76, 83, 86–90, 92, 100, 101, 103–110, 112, 114–117, 143, 160–162, 164 matrix in cleft existential, 1, 5, 8, 76, 89, 103, 106, 162 identifying, 8, 105, 108, 109 opaque verb, 86, 161 possessive, 85 meaning information structural, 3, 4, 9, 86, 112 pragmatic, 156

INDEX

propositional, 3, 158 representational, 5, 6, 9, 132, 156, 158 speaker-related, 26, 47 textual, 78, 110, 132, 139, 140, 164 Middle English, 44, 45, 78, 79 modification, 5, 26, 27, 28, 85, 87, 160. See also modifier–head modifier adjectival, 59, 60 degree, 29 descriptive, 80 nominal, 60 NP-internal, 17, 55, 61, 71, 101, 138, 141 postmodifier, 90 premodifier, 4, 157 relative clause, 10, 60, 90, 100, 144 modifier–head, 100. See also modification

185

N natural grammar, 24, 26, 29, 30, 77 new, 2, 12–13, 15, 79, 103, 106, 112, 116, 126, 135–137, 139, 140, 156, 160, 164, 166 noun, 10, 59, 88, 127, 160 common noun, 59, 61, 124, 131 head noun, 14, 56, 62, 69, 71, 80, 81, 125, 127, 145, 159, 160

P participant, 46, 76, 77, 79, 87, 108 participant role, 76 Present-day English, 78 presenting, 16, 161, 164 presupposed anaphorically, 111, 116 information, 139, 141, 151 open proposition, 2, 13, 103 pragmatically, 103 set, 96, 97 presupposition, 3, 4, 14, 60, 95, 97, 100, 101, 103, 115, 139–141, 156, 157, 162, 166 existence, 14, 60, 97, 100, 101 process, 6, 7, 15, 27, 36, 58, 59, 62, 76, 77, 104, 115–117 pronoun definite, 44, 46 subject, 7, 46, 79, 105, 162 proper name, 14, 61, 86, 93, 95, 109, 124–126, 129, 131 prosodically coded, 133, 135, 136, 141, 147 information structure, 136–142, 145–147, 151 tactic meaning, 141, 144–147 prosodic integration, 144–146, 151, 165 prosody, 18, 24, 58, 136, 141, 142, 149, 158, 165

O Old English, 45, 78, 79 opaque verb, 14, 15, 76, 90, 93, 101, 102, 104, 105, 109, 117, 161, 164 open proposition, 2, 13, 64, 66, 88, 101, 103, 105, 106, 159, 160

Q quantifier absolute, 66–69, 72, 150 indefinite, 57, 72, 125, 130–132 relative, 58, 66–68, 159 universal, 60, 62, 63, 66

186

INDEX

R reference ambient, 45, 46 anaphoric, 139, 140 attributive, 98, 104 cataphoric, 46, 107, 163 exophoric, 45, 46, 115 generic, 71 non-specific, 14, 15, 27, 60, 88, 96, 104 specific, 14, 98, 104 relative anaphor, 27, 56, 59, 62–64, 82, 83, 87, 89, 90, 113, 115, 160 relative clause cleft, 62–65, 68, 71, 82, 86, 87, 89, 90, 107, 115, 159, 167 predicative, 34, 86, 109, 111, 113, 115, 116, 146, 150, 151, 160, 167 specificational, 10, 34, 58, 93, 100–102, 104–106, 108, 112, 117, 130, 146, 159, 160 contact, 14, 90, 91, 116 non-restrictive, 10, 11, 17, 18, 28, 34, 49, 52, 56, 76, 82, 83, 85, 90, 125, 130, 141, 142, 144, 146, 147, 160, 165 appositional, 82, 83, 85, 90, 141, 147, 165 continuative, 83, 84, 90, 165 NP-internal, 17, 72, 101, 144 restrictive, 10, 11, 13, 18, 27, 34, 49, 50, 56–62, 64, 65, 68, 69, 72, 76, 88, 90, 101, 125, 127, 130, 141, 142, 144–146, 149, 158, 159, 165 relative marker, 11–13, 17, 18, 27, 30, 34, 49–53, 56, 63, 82, 90, 101–103, 112, 114, 145, 146, 151, 158. See also relativizer

that-paradigm, 50, 52 wh-paradigm, 50, 52, 56 zero, 14, 51, 102 object function, 50 subject function, 12, 13, 51, 101, 112, 159 relativizer, 3, 51, 91, 102. See also relative marker reported speech, 46, 106, 115, 116 represented speaker, 46, 106 S Scope, 26, 59, 60, 64, 67, 83, 160 secondary predication, 6, 7, 9, 16, 84–87, 91–93, 112, 116, 126 secondary specification, 6, 7, 16, 84, 87, 89, 92–94, 100, 104, 107, 110, 112, 161 Semiotic Grammar, 25, 158 setting, 77, 79, 87, 124, 125, 158, 165 subject, 77, 78, 80, 108 specification primary, 8, 69, 88, 94 secondary, 84, 87, 89, 93, 100, 104, 112, 125, 148, 160 semantics, 11, 28, 87, 94, 100, 103, 125, 161, 164, 167 specificational cleft, 2, 7, 8, 14, 18, 35, 50, 67, 84, 87, 91, 93, 100, 102–105, 109, 112, 115, 117, 150, 160–162, 167 construction, 2, 6, 7, 18, 49, 84, 87, 93, 94, 96, 101, 103, 104, 110, 146, 148, 150, 158, 161 copular, 8, 93–97, 99, 100, 102, 108 relation, 7, 88, 89, 93, 94, 100, 104, 106, 112, 125, 160 structural, 5, 9–11, 17, 18, 24–26, 28, 34, 36, 56–59, 64, 65, 76,

INDEX

77, 79, 81, 83, 84, 86, 88, 90, 114, 115, 130, 135, 142–144, 158, 159, 165, 167 assembly, 10, 11, 28, 59, 76, 77, 81, 83, 84, 86, 88, 90, 114, 115 relation, 64, 160 structure component, 6, 15, 25, 28, 30 composite, 25, 28, 59, 82, 125 element of, 26, 28, 29, 59, 137 subject, 3–5, 7, 12–14, 42–45, 51, 52, 63, 77–79, 85, 88–92, 94, 95, 101–103, 106, 108, 109, 113, 116, 132, 163 subordinate, 37, 38, 141 clause, 90 tone, 38 superscriptional, 96 supplement, 82, 83. See also supplementation supplementation, 82. See also head–supplement T tone, 18, 35–38, 136, 141, 142, 147, 164 fall, 4, 35, 147 fall-rise, 35, 37, 141, 147 level, 35 rise-fall, 35 rise, 4, 35, 147 tone concord (TC), 141, 142, 144, 147, 165 tone unit compound, 38 tonic, 35, 37, 38, 136, 137, 142, 145, 164

187

accent, 18 syllable, 35, 37, 137, 164 type, 2, 4–7, 10–12, 14, 17, 18, 25, 26, 28, 30, 34, 35, 38, 45, 49, 50, 52, 53, 56, 57, 60, 61, 64, 66–69, 71, 76, 77, 80–82, 90, 91, 93, 101, 109, 124, 125, 127–131, 133, 136, 137, 139, 142, 158, 160, 165, 166 type specifications, 10, 59, 61, 64, 66, 68, 69, 71, 80, 81, 97, 125, 132, 149, 159, 160

U unmarked, 78–80, 125, 137–141, 145, 147, 162, 167 use, 5, 44, 45, 95, 98–101, 108–110, 127, 161, 162

V value, 2, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 15, 16, 50, 57, 61, 70, 88, 89, 94, 96, 98, 100, 101, 103–108, 127, 130, 140, 143, 148, 149, 160, 162, 163, 166 variable, 5, 7–9, 12, 15, 16, 89, 93–105, 108–111, 115, 117, 125, 129–131, 148, 160, 162, 164

Z zero, 3, 12, 13, 18, 27, 34, 50–52, 63, 67, 70, 89–92, 101–103, 106, 112, 114, 116, 131, 158, 159