Aspect-Switching and Subordination: 
the Role of/t-Clefts in Discourse* 
Judy Delin Jon Oberlander 
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences Centre for Cognitive Science and 
University of Sussex 
Falmer 
Brighton BN1 9QN England 
Introduction 
In this paper, we explore a proposal, first put forward 
by Prince \[1978\], to the effect that it-clefts serve an 
apparently subordinating function in discourse. In 
addition to the cause-and-effect subordination noted 
by Prince, our own data reveals that clefts are also in- 
volved in temporal subordination, where the clefted 
material appears dissociated from the main time line. 
Using Scha aud Polanyi's \[1988\] notation, we can 
draw a local discourse structure that illustrates the 
general subordination relation involved. However, 
this does not coustitute an explanation of why sub- 
ordination is effected by it-clefts. 
In an attempt to construct a general explanation 
for botb sets of cases, we examine Prince's \[1978\] 
suggestion that it-clefts serve to mark a piece of in- 
formation as KNOWN FACT. We propose that tile AS- 
PECTUAL EFFECT of using a cleft both explains tbe 
Known Fact Effect observed by Prince, and accounts 
for the various kinds of discourse subordination as- 
sociated with it-clefts. 
We then turn our attention to a third set of data: 
it-clefts that have a contrastive effect in the dis- 
courses in wbicb they appear, and what goes wrong 
with those discourses when they are de-elefted. In 
some cases, de-clefting causes no ill-effects. In other 
cases, however, no contrastive relation can be re- 
trieved upon de-clefting and the discourse becomes 
incoherent. 
In the final section of the paper, we make some 
speculative comments on an apparently related phe- 
nomenon: the fact that it-clefts cannot take it as the 
clefted constituent, which we feel is amenable to a 
discourse-structural explanation. 
The data for the study were drawn from the Sur- 
vey of English Usage corpus of spoken English, tile 
LOB corpus of written English, and casually-collected 
data. 
*The authors gratefully acknowledge the support 
of the Science and Engineering Research Council 
through a Postdoctoral Fellowship, and Project Grant 
on/Gz2077. Itono is supported by the Economic and 
Social Research Council. We thank three anonymous 
reviewers for their helpful comments. Email contact: 
judy0coga, ntmx. ac. uk 
Human Communication Research Centre 
University of Edinburgh 
2 Buccleuch Place Edinburgh Scotland 
Clefts and Discourse Subordination 
Background, Cause and Effect 
To our knowledge, Prince \[1978:902\] was the first 
to observe that cleft constructions serve a SUBOR- 
DINATING function in discourse. She observed that 
for examples like (1) the information conveyed is 
'background material ...subordinate in importance 
to what follows': 
(1) It is through the writings of Basil Bernsteiu 
that many social scientists have become aware of 
the scientific potential of sociolinguistics ... Yet 
their very popularity has often deformed Bern- 
steiu's arguments; ...he has been made to say 
that lower class children are linguistically 'de- 
prived' ...In fact, Bernstein's views are much 
more complex than that. First ... 
She notes in particular that the subordination re- 
lation involved is often (although not always) one 
of cause emd effect, where the clefted proposition is 
often intended to be interpreted as the cause. She 
gives the following example: 
(48a) Here ... were the ideas which Hitler was later 
to use.., lfis originality lay in his being the only 
politician of the Right to apply them to the Ger- 
m~m scene after tile First World War. It was then 
that the Nazi movement, alone among the na- 
tionalist and conservative pa*ties, gained a great 
mass following and, having achieved this, won 
over the support of the Army, the President of 
the Republic, and.., big business--three 'long- 
established institutions' of great power. The 
lessons learned in Vienna proved very usefnl in- 
deed. 
Prince \[1978:902\] explains the effect of the cleft in 
her (48a) as follows: 
•.. If the third sentence of (48a) read Then, the 
Nazi movement . .., it would tend to suggest a 
separate event, and we would lose tile notion 
that it was all It's doing a notion conveyed 
very strongly by tim i/~cleft's subordinating ef- 
fect, and underlined (though still not asserted) 
by the last sentence. 
\[Prince 1978:902\] 
Prince's suggestion, then, is that clefts can serve 
as suitable vehicles for deliveriug information that is 
baekgrouudcd to the main flow of the discourse, or 
that is contingently related to it, by cause-and-effect. 
ACIES DE C(IL1NG-92, Nhgll'.'S, 23-28 AO~t 1992 2 8 1 PROC. OF COLING-92, NAI, rrES, AUG. 23-28, 1992 
Temporal Regression 
In addition to the cause-and-effect relations noted by 
Prince, our own data reveals a further 'background- 
ing' function: the use of clefts for temporal subordi- 
nation. In (2), for example, an //,cleft is being used 
to introduce background information elaborating on 
the nature of a protagonist in the discourse (Mr. But- 
ler). This is done by describing an eventuality that 
he was involved in at some previous time: 
(2) 1. Mr. Butler, the Home Secretary, decided 
to meet the challenge of the 'Ban-the-Bomb' 
demonstrators head-on. 
2. Police leave was cancelled 
3. and secret plans were prepared. 
4. It was Mr. Butler who authoriscd action which 
ended in 3Y, members of the Committee of 100 
being imprisoned. 
5. The Committee's president and his wife were 
each jailed for a week. 
The effect of the cleft is to cause the 'background' 
information about the anthorisation of action to be 
interpreted as as occurring prior to the events intro- 
duced in lines 1-3--the decision, the cancellation of 
leave, and the preparation of secret plans. 
If we look at a de-clefted version of the same di~ 
course, we can see that the temporally subordinating 
effect of the cleft is removed, creating a rather differ- 
ent effect. The result, (3), has the 'authorisation of 
action' described in the de-clef ted sentence occnrring 
in simple temporal progression from the 'cancellation 
of police leave'--in other words, after the events in- 
troduced in lines 1-3: 
(3) 1. Mr. Butler, the Home Secretary, decided 
to meet the challenge of the 'Ban-the-Bomb' 
demonstrators head-on. 
2. Police leave was cancelled 
3. and secret plans were prepared. 
4. Mr. Butler authorised action which ended in 
3~ members of the Committee of lO0 being im- 
prisoned. 
5. The Committee's president and his wife were 
each jailed for a week. 
The Known Fact Effect 
Examples such as (1), (48a) and (2) share a property 
that has been characterised as the KNOWN FACT EF- 
FECT. Prince states: 
Their function, or at least one of their functions, 
isTO MARK A PIECE OF INFORMATION AS FACT~ 
known to some people although not yet known 
to the intended hearer. Thus they are frequent 
in historical narrative, or wherever the speaker 
wishes to indicate that s/he does not wish to 
take personal responsibility for the truth or orig- 
inality of the statement being made. 
\[Prince 1978:899-900\] 
The cleft can introduce 'new' information to the dis- 
course, while at the same time signalling that the 
information is to be treated as if it had been there 
all along. A significant feature, then, is that the 
S 
<dominan~ <subordina~ • 
segment> clefted segment> 
Figure 1: A discourse parse tree for an it-cleft 
information must be regarded as not open to con- 
versational negotiation. Delin \[1991\] proposed that 
a speaker who uses an it-cleft that conveys new in- 
formation in the complement is indicating that the 
information they are communicating did not origi- 
nate with the speaker, and that they are therefore 
not to be held responsible for its truth value. 
This Known Fact account has an intuitive appeal; 
yet it does not constitute a meehanisable explanation 
of the role of the cleft in discourse. One possible av- 
enue to such an account would be to exploit Polanyi 
and Scha's \[1988\] Linguistic Discourse Model. By 
adding an appropriate rule to the grammar for dis- 
course constituent units (DCDS), we could represent 
the cleft as introducing a DCO to be attached as sub- 
ordinate to the current node, deriving a local dis- 
course parse tree such as that in Figure 1. 
Hence, we can represent the proposition conveyed 
by the cleft sentence as subordinate to the existing 
discourse structure. But mere representation does 
not make obvious how the syntactic or semantic fea- 
tures of the cleft are supposed to drive the assign- 
ment of discourse structure. Nor is it obvious that 
such a subordination structure supports the Known 
Fact Effect. There are plenty of other subordina- 
tion structures in Polanyi and Scha's framework that 
don't indicate that a Known Fact reading should be 
associated with the subordinate elements. 
The Aspectual Effect of the Cleft 
What we want at this point is an account which 
can recruit the syntactic and semantic features of 
the cleft, to explain the background and regress data 
that has been observed, feed into the discourse parse 
process, and explain the Known Fact Effect. The 
basic proposal we explore here is that it is the as- 
pectual effect of the cleft that provides the required 
explanation. 
Aspect ual Class 
Following Vendler \[1967\], much consideration has 
been given to the "aspectual types" of utterances 
of English sentences (cf. Hinrichs \[1986\]; Dowty 
\[1986\]; Moens and Steedman \[19871). An utterance 
denotes an eventuality of some type', the aspectual 
type will determine the relation to other eventual- 
ities mentioned in a discourse. Vendter's inventory 
includes ACTIVITIES~ ACCOMPLISHMENTS, ACHEIVE- 
MENTS and STATES, Bach \[1986\] takes the space of 
eventualities to include STATES and NON-STATES; in 
turn, states consist of DYNAMIC and STATIC states, 
Acr~ DE COLING-92, NANTES, 23-28 AnenT 1992 2 8 2 PROC. OF COLING-92, NANTES. AUG. 23-28, 1992 
while non-states consist of PROCESSES and EVENTS. 
Events are then either PROTRACTED or MOMENTA- 
NEOUS; momentaneous events are either HAPPEN- 
INGS or CULMINATIONS. 
For current purposes, the relevant distinction is 
that between states and non-states; in particular, 
between states and events. From Bach \[1986:6\], 
paradigmatic cases of verb phrases exlfibiting this 
distinction include the following: 
States: sit, he drunk, own x, love x 
Events: build z, walk to Boston, notice, reach the 
top 
The aspectual class of an utterance is typically de- 
termined by the aspectual class of the lexical verb, 
by other elements within the verb phrase, by tempo- 
ral adverbials with which the verb phrase co-occurs, 
and by the noun phrase itself. Linguistic context will 
also influence aspectual class assignment. For exam- 
ple, a verb normally taken to denote a process, such 
as (4), can form part of a verb phrase deuoting a 
protracted event, as ill (5); and in combination with 
certain noun phrases, tile same verb phrase cau form 
part of a sentence (6) de~oting a habitual state: 
(4) ran 
(5) ran to the station 
(6) trains ran to the station 
We can now frame the basic proposal we wish to 
discuss: it-cleft sentences are stative; tbe presence of 
the copular in the cleft head ensures this. We can 
thus view a cleft as a function taking either non- 
state-expressions or state-expressions as input, and 
returning state-expressions as output. (Ta) and (8a) 
denote an event and a state respectively; but both 
(Tb) and (8b) denote states. 
(7) a. Victoria found the body. 
b. It was Victoria who found the hody. 
(8) a. Victoria knew the killer's identity. 
b. It was Victoria who knew the killer's identity. 
Temporal Overlap 
Consider now theories which attempt to derive the 
temporal structure of discourse from the syntactic 
structures of a sequence of input sentences. In the 
framework of discourse representation theory, work 
by Partee \[1984\], Kamp and Rohrer \[1983\] and Hin- 
richs \[1986\] has indicated that it is possible to exploit 
Reichenbach's \[1947\] notions of speech-time, event- 
time, and reference-time to drive a process which will 
add temporal constraints to a discourse representa- 
tion structure (DRS). 1 
In particular, in past tense narrative, simple event- 
expressions are taken to locate an event at an event- 
time corresponding to the existing reference-time, 
and, in addition, to update the reference-time to 
a point 'just after' that reference-time. This new 
time wil! constitute the reference-time for the loca- 
tion of the next input expression. By contrast, state- 
expressions firstly locate the state as overlapping the 
1We do not wish to maintain that a reference-time 
based account is the best that can be provided. It is, 
however, a convenient representational tool. 
existing reference-time; and secondly do not update 
that reference time. Hence, the next input expres- 
sion (denoting event or state) will be evaluated with 
respect to the same reference time again. In this 
way, DRS construction can encode the relative tempo- 
ral locations of the various eventualities. In general, 
one can say that simple event-expressions 'move a 
narrative along', while simple state-expressions leave 
it where it is. More complex expressions, contain- 
ing temporal adverbials and perfective or progres- 
sive aspect, require some complication in the DRS- 
construction rules. Take an example like (9): 
(9) John met Mary in town. She had broken her leg, 
but looked well in spite of it. 
The use of the past perfect can be taken to either 
introduce a flashback sequence, with a set of 'sec- 
ondary reference points' (as in Kamp and Rohrer 
\[1983:260\]), or else to turn an event expression into 
all expression denoting tile consequent state of an 
earlier occurrence of the contained event (adapting 
the somewhat different analysis in Moens and Steed- 
mall \[1987:4\]). Assuming the DRT account of states 
in general, we would say here that the consequent 
state (of Mary having a broken leg) overlapped with 
the existing reference time (associated with the event 
of John meeting Mary); tile earlier occurrence of an 
event (of Mary breaking her leg) being inferrable 
from the perfective description of the leg-breakage. 
The DRT notion of temporal overlap is a permissive 
relation; in a case like (10), we can follow a pair of 
event-expressions with various state-expressions, all 
of which DRT would say denote states which overlap 
the event already introduced. 
(10) Someone stole Victoria's car on Friday; they 
wrecked it. 
a. She was very attached to it. 
b. She was very annoyed. 
c. It was unlocked. 
In fact, we would want to say that Victoria was at- 
tached to the car before (and perhaps not after) it 
was wrecked; that sbe was annoyed after (and prob- 
ably not before) it was wrecked; and that its being 
unlocked fully overlapped the stealing and wrecking. 
Arguably, we can view the states in (10a-c) as pro- 
viding respectively some background, a result and an 
explanation for the events ill (10). 
One approach to representing states is to repre- 
sent them via intervals of time, bounded by (artefac- 
tual) begin-events and end-events. Such an approach 
is adopted, for example, in Kowalski and Sergot's 
\[1986\] Event Calculus. In discourse, of course, it is 
not always possible to find explicit reference to anch 
beginnings and endings. Whilst not axlvocating such 
a reductivc approach to states here, we note that in 
some cases, such as the resultant state in (10b) or the 
perfect state in (9), the event which initiated that 
state may be explicitly mentioned. In other cases, 
such as the background in (10a) and tile explanation 
in (10c), the event which lead to the state may be 
only implicit. 2 
~Capturing these differences in a DRT-based theory of 
ACFES DE COLING-92, NANTES, 23-28 Aor~' 1992 2 8 3 PROC. OF COLING-92, NANTES, AUG. 23-28, 1992 
Explaining the Data 
Now, consider the use of clefts as state-denoting ex- 
pressions. We would suggest that, in this respect, 
they be treated like the others we have considered. 
We can say that clefts will denote states which: 
1. Overlap with the existing reference time 
2. Do not update that reference time 
3. Have been initiated by some event, which may be 
either explicit or implicit. 
These facts arise directly from the aspectual type 
of the cleft; in turn, they directly account both for 
Prince's observations, and our own. Recall examples 
(1), (48a) and (2). In the first ease, the information 
about Basil Bernstein's influence is presented via a 
cleft. Hence, it is presented as a state, overlapping 
with any previously established time. There is no 
update to the reference time; hence the information 
that follows it temporally overlaps with it as well. 
What event brought about the influential status of 
Bernstein's writings is not specified. Thus, Bern- 
stein's influence is indeed, as Prince suggests, back- 
ground to what follows; this is a ease of background, 
like (19a). 
In Prince's (48a), the timing of the Nazi move- 
ment's gathering of mass support is presented via a 
cleft identifying it as the time of llitler's application 
of various ideas. Hence, the information about the 
timing is presented via a state--that of having gath- 
ered mass support. In this case, on the DRT anal- 
ysis, the state overlaps with a reference-time 'just 
after' IIitler's application of the ideas. Again, the 
state does not itself update the reference time for 
the next sentence, so what follows overlaps with the 
state. What event brought about the state of mass 
support is clear from the context: it is in fact Hitler's 
application of the ideas, mentioned in the previous 
sentence. Thus, this wmdd be a ease of result, like 
(10b); Prince's suggestion of a causal relation is en- 
tirely compatible with this. 
Finally, Mr Butler's authorisation of various ac- 
tions is presented via a cleft (example (2)). Hence, 
we have a state of Mr Butler~of having authorised 
action--and this state overlaps the reference-time es- 
tablished by the previous sentence. The state does 
not update the reference-time, and so tile subse- 
quent sentence overlaps with this state. Here, the 
event which brought about the state of Mr Butler 
fit clearly his authorisation of action. It must have 
initiated the state, so it lies before tile current refer- 
enee time; but we cannot totally order it with respect 
to the reference-times from the previous sentences of 
the discourse. This explains why there is a feeling 
of "temporal regression' and the associated removal 
from the main time-line; further world knowledge 
would be required to find the actual relative Inca- 
tree of Mr Butler's action. 
The reason de-elefting seenm to disrupt the mean- 
ing of the discourse lies in the fact that it can, as 
here, convert a state-expression back into an event- 
expression. This then gives the impression that 
discourse would, of course, require additional theoretical 
apparatus; cf. Lascarides and Asher \[1991\]. 
the speaker-writer is introduciug a new event into 
the discourse and updating it in the relevant ways; 
whereas in the clefted versions, any events intro- 
duced by the state itself are either implicit, or identi- 
fiable in the previous context. Safe de-clefting must 
therefore involve the preservation of the stative as- 
pect of the relevant cleft sentence; replacement with 
a perfect de-clefted sentence should normally suffice. 
Note that where the de-clefted sentence is already 
stative, de-clefting should not disrupt the coherence 
of the narrative so severely. 
Explaining the Known Fact Effect 
We have indicated that the discourse subordination 
effect of clefts can be traced to their aspectual class. 
This suggests that we can correlate the syntactic 
construction with a semantic feature, and that this 
feature could therefore be recruited by a discourse 
parsing mechanism, such as the Linguistic Discourse 
Model proposed by Seha and Polanyi \[1988\]. 
As we noted earlier, Prince \[1978\] proposed that 
what the various clefts had in common was that they 
marked a piece of information as fact, known to some 
people, but not necessarily to the hearer. By indi- 
cating that they do not accept responsibility for the 
truth of the statement, the speaker at once denies 
that they are the 'informational origin', and makes 
it clear that the validity of the statement is non- 
negotiable. 
We would like to suggest that the aspectual ef- 
fect of the cleft can explain the Known Fact Ef- 
fect, in the following way. On one interpretation 
of Grice's \[1975:46\] Maxim of Quality, we can say 
that a considerate speaker's explicit commitments 
must bc supported by adequate evidence, but that 
their implicit implicatures need not be, so long as the 
speaker does not actually believe the implicatures to 
be false. In the discourses we have discussed, each 
piece of information the speaker wishes to convey 
can be transmitted via either an event-expression or 
a state-expression. When the speaker uses an event 
expression, they are explicitly introducing a new ref- 
erential element to the discourse: an event. Let us 
say that speakers are 'responsible' for explicit intro- 
ductions only. Now, when a speaker uses a state 
expression, they do two things: they explicitly intro- 
duce a state to the discourse, and they also implicitly 
refer to two further events; the beginning and ending 
of that state. But the speaker is not responsible for 
those events, because they have chosen to use a con- 
struction which leaves the events merely inferrable, 
or loeatable in tile previous discourse context. 
Lascarides and Oberlander \[1992\] suggest that if 
there is no 'explicit' indication of where a state 
starts--via tile mention of causes or the use of tem- 
poral adverbials--then the start of the state is as- 
sumed to be irrelevaut. Here we may gloss 'irrel- 
evant' as: unknown, unknowable or simply to be 
taken for granted. Thus, conversely, if the speaker 
deems the start of tile state to be irrelevant to the 
discourse in this sense, then they can use a simple 
state-expregsion. This makes a cleft a natural choice 
for a speaker who wishes simply to assert that an 
eventuality is current at the reference4ime, without 
ACRES DE COLING-92. NANTES. 23-28 ^Oral" 1992 2 8 4 PROC. OF COLING-92, NANTES. AUG. 23-28, 1992 
indicating anything further about it. So clefts can 
deliver information which might otherwise have been 
stated earlier without disrupting the flow of the dis- 
course (of. Polanyi's \[1986:85-87\] 'true starts'); and 
they call also deliver information without generat- 
ing responsibility for an initiating event whose loca- 
tion may be unknown, unknowable or simply to be 
taken for granted. The former type might be assim- 
ilated to what Prince \[1978\] has termed STIU,;SSED- 
FOCUS ibclefts, and the latter to her INFOItMAT,VE- 
PRBSU PPOSITION clefts. 
Clefts and Contrast 
The observation that the cleft initiates a subordinate 
discourse segment also provides us with a potential 
explanation for a further set of data, namely those 
clefts which play a eontrastive role in discourse. 3 
Contrast (cf. Lyons \[1977\], Werth \[1984\] for a discus- 
sion) can be described as relationship of opposition 
or comparison between two (or more) discourse ele- 
ments that operates on the basis of soine predicate: 
For example, in tile following case a contrast holds 
between the cleft head element the angel and a pre- 
ceding element, Boaz, with respect to the predicate 
use this form of greeting: 
(11) To this the reply is given that from the verse 
dealing with Boaz there is no proof of divine atl- 
proval, only that Boaz used this form of greeting. 
But in tile second verse it is the angel that uses 
this form of greeting and hence there is evidence 
of divine approval. 
It is important to note that the contrastive rela- 
tionship t,as two distinct components: the two (or 
more) coutrastive elements themselves, and the se- 
mantic content relating those elements, thereby al- 
lowing the contrast to take place. In (11), for ex- 
ample, the relating semantic content is easy to find, 
since it is explicitly stated twice ill a way that allows 
the commonality between the contrast-supporting 
predicates to be retrieved inunediately (used this 
form of greeting ... uses this form of greetiug). In 
other cases, however, the relating semantic content 
is not so simple: understanding the contrast between 
doubling the selling space to 700 square feet and the 
newfixturcs and fittings in (12), for example, requires 
a contrastive relation to be constructed out of the 
non-identical content of the predicates be the great- 
est e~:pcnse and be costly: 
(12) Doubling the selling space to 700 square feet was 
not to be tile greatest expense. It was the new 
fixtures and fittings ~o fill ~his space that would 
be costly. 
A similar effect can be observed in (13), in which 
a contrast takes place between tile cleft head ele- 
ment the lady who obliges and the antecedent a aice 
3As noted above, while we would hesitate to make 
a complete assimilation between the two classes, con- 
trastive clefts seem to fall into the class that P.rince \[1978\] 
terms STRESSED-FOOUS it-clefts. 
4The notion that relations of contrast and other kinds 
of coherence are supported hy inferrable SEAL,S (cf. 
tlitschberg \[1985\], Ward \[1985\]) wmdd also he a useful 
one for this analysis. 
old-fashioned housemaid in tile following advice to 
visitors to grand homes: 
(13) Quite a few of you have asked about tipping, 
and these days problems can arise. A nice old- 
fashioned housemaid, labelled by cap and apron, 
is easy enough; when you leave you will give her 
your little present as a thankyou for looking af- 
ter you. It is the 'lady who obliges' thai can con- 
found you; on that point, tile simplest way is to 
quietly consult your hostess. 
The contrast here operates on the basis of reader 
perceiving the relationship between the two predi- 
cates easy enough and can confound yon. The in- 
ferrable predicate for the contrast is therefore some- 
thing like ease of tipping, and the actual predicates 
that appear serve to range the two elements--the 
housemaid and the lady who oblige~-at opposite 
ends of a scale of ease and difficulty: 
(14) Quite a few of you have asked about tipping, 
and these days problems can arise. A nice old- 
fashioned housemaid, labelled by cap and apron, 
is easy enough; when yon leave you will give her 
your little prczent as a thankyou for looking after 
you. The "lady who obliges' can confound you; on 
that point, the simplest way is to quietly consult 
your hoste.'m. 
We would suggest that it is in these more diffi- 
cult cases, where the contrast-supporting semantic 
relation is less obvious, or where the contrastive an- 
tecedent is less accessible in some other way (for 
example, in terms of its embeddedness within the 
structure of the discourse) that the cleft comes into 
its own. Evidence for this comes from the fact that 
de-clefting in the simpler cases such as (15) does not 
cause loss of coherence: 
(15) To this the reply is given that from the verse 
dealing with lloaz there is no proof of divine ap- 
proval, only that Boaz used this form of greeting. 
But in tile second verse the angel uses this form 
of greeting and hence there is evidence of divine 
approval. 
In other eases, however, de-clefting has more dis- 
ruptive effects. While contrast is successfully estab- 
lished by the cleft ill (12), tile de-cleft version, shown 
in (16), is much less acceptable: 
(16) ?Doubling tile selling space to 700 square feet 
was not to be the greatest expense. The uewfiz- 
tu,es and fittings to \]ill this space would be costly. 
What is happening in the de-clefted cases ill or- 
der to disrupt the retrieval of the relationship along 
which the contrast takes place? In our discussion 
of subordination abow~., we observed that de-clefting 
gives the impression that the speaker-writer is in- 
troducing a new event into the discourse, while in 
the clefted versions, any events introduced by the 
state itself are either implicit, or identifiable in the 
previous context. In the same way, in the contrast 
cases, the loss of the cleft causes the content of the 
de-cleft to be interpreted as a new and distinct the- 
matte development. In this way, the de-clefted infor- 
mation fails to identify with information already in 
AcrEs DE COLING-92, NANTES, 23-28/tOOT 1992 2 8 5 PROC. OF COLING-92, NANTES. AUG. 23-28. 1992 
the previous context. Because of this, the identifi- 
cation of the contrastive antecedent, and the seman- 
tic information linking it to the current proposition, 
are not retrieved. In situations where this relation- 
ship is not made clear by means other than the cleft 
(and it can be effected by intonation, or through the 
availability of an obvious and immediately-preceding 
antecedent--we do not suggest that clefts are unique 
in their contrasting function) the reader's default will 
be to introduce a new eventuality into the discourse, 
probably (in the absence of other signals) as a co- 
ordination in the discourse structure. In this way, 
the information upon which the contrast depends-- 
that the proposition is to be seen as an elaboration 
on existing content--is not preserved. 
Comments and Conclusions 
In this paper, we have tried to show that various 
apparently unrelated aspects of it-cleft function-- 
subordination, the Known Fact Effect, and the facts 
surrounding contrast--can be explained in terms of 
the fact that i~-clefts perform a 'stativizing' function. 
It is as well at this point, however, to sound a cau- 
tionary note. We have not yet examined in full thoee 
cases where de-elefting leaves a state-expression. The 
prediction is that these cases should not seem as bad 
as when de-clefting reveals an event-expression, but 
we have not yet tested the prediction. 
A related issue which ought to be amenable to a 
pragmatic explanation is the unacceptability of it as 
clefted constituent3 R-clefts (and wh-clefts, for that 
matter) cannot take it as clefted constituent: 
(17) *It is it that John has decided he wants. 
The alternative forms with this and that, however, 
are acceptable: 
(18) It is this/that that John has decided he wants. 
The restriction on if cannot be accounted for by 
a simple restriction on pronouns in cleft head posi- 
tion, as personal pronouns can appear, s An obvious, 
but incorrect, explanation would be that it is the 
unstressed variant of that (cf. for example Declerck 
\[1988:14\], following Kuroda \[1968\]), and so cannot 
appear in the cleft's 'stressed' position. However, we 
know that it-clefts regularly appear with no stress on 
the head constituent (cf. Delin \[1989\] for an analy- 
sis); it also appears that it is in any case stressable, 
as the following (attested) data shows: 
(19) S: Judy, is there any more soap? 
J: If yon look in the basket there's that purple 
one 
S: I thought you were drying some out on the 
SBall (p.c.) has pointed out that it is not acceptable 
as complement of a copular sentence whose subject is it 
in any case: e.g. *it's it vs. that's it. 
SBall \[1991\] and p.c., in her study of the development 
of the it-cleft from Old English to Late Modern English, 
finds no occurrences of it in focus position either in the 
modern-day it-cleft or in any of its ancestors. This is in 
spite of the fact that the paradigm of personal pronouns 
in focus position can be considered complete around the 
15th century, with objective case pronouns (e.g. it was 
me) appearing in the 16th (Ball \[1991:274\]). 
window. What happened to IT? 
J: That's it 
S: Oh, so it is 
A second plausible explanation may be that it, 
unique among the pronouns, has no cuntrastive read- 
ing (el. Werth \[1984:134\]). A contrastive function, 
however, does not appear to he obligatory for il- 
clefts anyway, as Declerck \[1988\] among others points 
out. /t-clefts are frequently found with old, non- 
¢ontrastive, anaphoric information in the clefted cou- 
stituent: 
(20) A: Joe Wright you mean 
B: Yes yes 
A: I thought it was old Joe Wright who'd walked 
in at FIRST 
and Prince's \[1978:898\] written example: 
(21) It was also during these centuries that a vast 
internal migration.., from the south northwards 
took place, a process no less momentous than the 
Amhara expansion southwards during the last 
part of the 19th century 
A possible explanation for it-lessness in it-clefts 
may be found in work by Linde \[1979\], who relates 
the alternation of it and thai to the 'in focus' status 
of the referent in relation to the structure of the dis- 
course. In her study of subjects' descriptions of their 
apartments, she notes that it is preferred for 'refer- 
ence within the discourse node in focus', which Linde 
takes to be a continuation of a segment of discourse 
describing the same room in the apartment. That is 
used for reference within the discourse node in focus 
only when there is some contrast to a preceding node; 
most of the time, that is used for transitions between 
nodes.That is, when a room is being described, a sec- 
ond room may be described as leading off lhat. That 
therefore tends to mark progressions from one node 
to the next. Can we therefore expect the it-lessness 
of it-clefts to relate to their position in the discourse 
structure? That is, do it-clefts appear only in these 
node-transition situations, and not in the positions 
of same-node reference? We would expect that an 
exploration of the lack of it in clefts along these lines 
might be fruitful. 
ACRES DE COLING-92, NANTES, 23-28 AOt3"r 1992 2 8 7 PROC. OF COLING-92, N^NTrS, AUG. 23-28, 1992 
ACRES DE COLING-92, NANTES, 23-28 Aotrr 1992 2 8 6 PROC. OF COLING-92, NANTES, AUO. 23-28, 1992 

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