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Where do Cleft Sentences Come From?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Jeanette K. Gundel
Jeanette K. Gundel*
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
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Abstract

Most analyses of cleft sentences have assumed that the subject it of these constructions is semantically empty. It is argued here, however, that cleft sentences are reduced forms of right-dislocated pseudo-clefts, where it is a pronominal reference to the topic which appears at the end of the sentence. The fact that this NP is always pronominalized with it is shown to follow from a more general principle which governs pronominalization in ‘identifying’ sentences.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , September 1977 , pp. 543 - 559
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 by Linguistic Society of America

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