Syntax II
Assignment 15			IT CLEFTS			Due Friday May 25

I.  Consider the following:

(1)   It was a banana that the Eskimo was eating.
(2)   It was the Eskimo that was eating a banana.
(3)   The Eskimo was eating a banana.

Are these three sentences synonymous?  If not, describe a world
in which one would be true and the other two false, or vice versa.

II.  Here are some more examples:

(4)   It was that rock that was too heavy for me to lift.
(5)   It was sand that she was walking on.
(6)   It was a chicken that Harvey put in the oven.
(7)   It was in this very book that I found the answer to the mystery.
(8)   It is with great regret that I inform you that your score on the
	intelligence test was zero.
(9)   It is into this endeavor that we must put all our energies.
(10)  It is under the west wall that we must tunnel.
(11)  It might have been in the coffee can that Mary put the pearls.
(12)  It might have been the pearls that Mary put in the coffee can.
(13)  It might have been the coffee can that Mary put the pearls in.
(14)  It might have been Mary that put the pearls in the coffee can.
(15) *It might have been the pearls in the coffee can that Mary put.
(16) *That Mary put the pearls in the coffee can might have been.
(17)  It might have been that Mary put the pearls in the coffee can.
(18)  It must have been himself that Harvey saw in the mirror.

This construction is called the "Cleft", or (more transparently) the
"It-Cleft" construction.  Devise an analysis of it.  Be explicit about
the relations you assume between the CP, the constituent appearing
immediately to the left of the complementizer, and everything to the left
of that.  Be explicit about any Transformation you propose.

Why is (15) ungrammatical?
What do you have to say about the ungrammaticality of (16)?
How is (18) derived?

III.  If there is an unbounded movement or deletion in your analysis,
thoroughly investigate its properties.  Is there an unbounded dependency?
Is it sensitive to island constraints?

Is the CP in the It-Cleft construction an island?

The phrase immediately following 'be' in this construction is called the
"Focus" of the It-Cleft construction.  Is the focus of an it-cleft an
island?

Can the focus of an It-Cleft be moved to a higher position by A-bar movement?

IV. The answer to the previous question should provide an answer to the first of
the following two questions:

	(x) Is it grammatical to WH-Cleft an It-Cleft focus?

	(y) Is it grammatical to It-Cleft a WH-Cleft focus?

But I will not ask you to answer these questions, because you do not know
what a WH-Cleft is.