Linguistics 113							Spring 2016

Assignment 15
Due Monday  May 16

It Clefts

Examples (1) and (2) below illustrate a construction known as the "It Cleft":

     (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.

     (4)  It might have been in the coffee can that Mary put the pearls.

     (5)  It might have been the pearls that Mary put in the coffee can.

     (6)  It might have been the coffee can that Mary put the pearls in.

     (7)  It might have been Mary that put the pearls in the coffee can.

     (8) *It might have been the pearls in the coffee can that Mary put.

     (9) *That Mary put the pearls in the coffee can might have been.

    (10)  It might have been that Mary put the pearls in the coffee can.

    (11)  It was himself that Harvey felt sorry for.

Develop an analysis of the It Cleft construction, including a proposed DS
and one or more transformational operations.

Why is (8) ungrammatical?
What do you have to say to account for the ungrammaticality of (9)?

Is there an unbounded movement or deletion involved in this construction?

Find out whether

	(a) It Clefts are Islands

	(b) Any transformation involved in the It Cleft construction
	    obeys island constraints.