It-clefts are IT (inquiry terminating) constructions

By Daniel J. Velleman, David I. Beaver, Emilie Destruel, Dylan Bumford, Edgar Onea, Liz Coppock. 2012

76 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We offer a new analysis of the semantics of the English it-cleft, building on recent work on exclusive particles such as "only." The analysis emphasizes the discourse function of clefts — which, we claim, is to terminate a line of inquiry by marking an answer as complete. It accounts for the semantic effects — not previously appreciated — of focus placement within the cleft pivot. It also provides a solution to a previously discussed problem with the projection of exhaustivity from embedded contexts.

Subfields: Language and Linguistics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/eef5325e16bb9b3fd2adb3a37300cbf3d8aaf194