Cite this article as: Abdullahi, S. A.& Idris A (2025). A Study of Specification Role and Placement of Cleft Elements in Sentence Structure. Sokoto Journal of Linguistics and Communication Studies (SOJOLICS), 1(2), 19–25. https://doi.org/10.36349/sojolics.2025.v01i02.003
A STUDY OF SPECIFICATION ROLE
AND PLACEMENT OF CLEFT ELEMENTS IN SENTENCE STRUCTURE
By
Saleh Ahmad Abdullahi Ph.D.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2221-083X
Department of Languages,
Nigerian Army University Biu
&
Adamu Idris Ph.D
Department of English and
Literary Studies, Bayero University Kano
Abstract
This
study examines the specification role and placement of clefting in sentence
structure, thereby examining some available materials which are relevant to the
study. It acts as a reference point and exposes the researcher to previously
accomplished research work by experts in the area and language at large. This
study adopts a descriptive survey designed as a technique for obtaining data,
where Daily Trust and Punch newspaper
editorials are considered. The only criterion this paper used in selecting the
data is the fact they contain, the specification role and placement of clefting
in the editorials of both newspapers; all these components are weighed on the
RRG approach. Cleft sentences were found in all newspapers under study; in
other words, such constructions were found and used in those newspapers with
different percentages. Availability of these constructions in the press refers,
undoubtedly, to reader’s acceptability and understanding for them. Readers with
their different linguistic levels know that there is a special message beyond
adopting such patterns. Using such syntactic structures in press language
clarifies that such field uses all the grammatical constructions to express
thoughts, report news, and show comments, regarding the type and nature of the
article.
Keywords: Cleft Structure, Specificational Role, Placement, Daily
Trust, Punch
1.
Introduction
This
study examines the specification role and placement of clefting in sentence
structure, thereby examining some available materials, which are relevant to
the study. It acts as reference point and exposes the researcher to previously
accomplished research work by experts in the area and language at large. It
also reviews clefts and clefting in English and several other foreign languages
at random and their formations. These, together with the review of the
empirical studies, provide reference data for the data analysis of the main
research (specifically chapter four of the thesis).
It
is well- known that language is a means of communication. The linguistic as
well the non- linguistic ones convey meanings of these properties, of course,
cannot be expressed by other means of communication. The largest linguistic
unit of any language is the sentence. The sentence, in turn, is a means to
express a person's needs, desires; e.t.c.
Leech
and Svartvick (1994) state this when they define a sentence:" The cleft
sentence construction with introductory it is useful for
fronting an element as topic and also for putting focus on the topic element.
It does this by splitting the sentence into two halves, highlighting the topic
and making it with the complement of it + be."
Though
Leech and Svartvick show the interrelation between structure and meaning, their
definition is weak. This weakness springs as if the cleft is one. Biber, et al
(2000) support the last two linguists, when they discuss the word order and
related syntactic choice. Biber, et al emphasise that the information that
could be given in a single clause is broken up. The resulting double clauses,
each has its own verb. They mention that there are several types of cleft
sentences.
The
area of syntactic constraint or syntax generally has attracted a lot of
scholarly attention. Nowadays, there is reasonable number of published works on
cleft which appear to bespecialised forms rather than being merely pedagogical.
It is noted that English language is very rich with cleft constructions;
however, not all languages are as rich in cleft types as English (Miller,
1996), but this study is of relevance as a result of absence in studies of
cleft in relations to cleft role and its placement in newspaper, specifically
the editorial section of Nigerian Daily Trust and Punch newspaper.
However,
a cleft sentence divides a proposition into two parts, which are interpreted as
an exhaustive focus and a pragmatic presupposition. These two semantic
components can be flexibly mapped onto the information structure categories of
topic and comment to arrive at comment-topic (“stressed focus”) clefts and
topic-comment (“informative presupposition”) clefts. Clefts thus introduce a
cleft focus or even a pair of foci constructional. They also exhibit an
assertive (comment) focus, which may or may not correspond to the cleft focus.
While only exclusive focus particles can associate with the cleft focus,
additive and scalar focus particles can associate with the assertive focus in
the cleft clause, thus giving rise to additional cleft sentences containing
multiple instances of focus.
2.
Literature Review
Specificational
role and placement of cleft elements in the sentence structure have attracted
the attention of scholars for a considerable amount of time akin to Han &
Hedberg (2008), which gives a semantic account of it-clefts as employsed in
Synchronous Tree- Adjoining Grammar. The study postulates two different
semantic accounts for equative and predicational clefts. Since we propose a
derivational relationship between it-clefts and th-clefts, there would be an
extension of semantic analysis of the two different types of it-clefts to two
different types of wh-clefts and reverse wh-clefts as well. Two types of
wh-clefts have often been discussed in the literature, usually labeled
'Specificational' versus 'Predicational' wh-clefts (e.g. Higgins 1973, den Dikken,
Meinunger& Wilder 2000, inter alia). Specificationalwh-clefts exhibits
reflexive connectivity and are reversible, while predicational wh-clefts do not
exhibit connectivity and are irreversible.
However,
Han & Hedberg (2008) follow Heycock & Kroch (1999) in postulating two
copulas to account for the sentences. Since the identity operator simply
postulates the identity of two arguments in no particular order, this approach
accounts for the reversibility of specificational sentences. The predicational
copula, on the other hand always predicates a property denoted by the copular's
predicate complement of the subject and is not reversible. However, due to the
fact that such purported interpretations are expressed by a single
morphological form in English and many other languages, it has understandingly
become popular in the literature to avoid postulating such an ambiguity and
instead to propose a univocal copula at the same time as postulating a derivational
relationship between specificational and predicational sentences, whereby, for
example, an underlying predicate applies to an underlying argument in an
underlying small clause. Either the argument or the predicate raises up into
spec-IP syntactic subject position. This is the "inverse analysis" of
copular sentences that postulates specificational sentences in the
"inverse" of predicational sentences,which are derived via the
syntactic movement.
Since
the inverse analysis is more parsimonious, it avoids postulating an ambiguity.
The reason in a nutshell is that reverse copular sentences exhibit both
specificational and predicational interpretations.
Semantically,
reversible sentences connect two equal terms with an equality operator, as
formalised in Han & Hedberg 2008. In the case of specificational sentences,
the superscriptional phrase (Higgins, 1973) attributive definite description
(Donnellan, 1966), i.e. a generalised quantifier of type, but it can be
type-shifted down to a referential interpretation of the type, along the lines
of Partee 1987 and thus be equated with the type of argument.
If
specificational sentences are derived solely by inversion, then the
superscriptional phrase raises from predicate of small clause position to
matrix subject position, the specificational nature cannot be accounted for.
However,
this require the two readings of the sentences correspond to two different
pronunciations, depending on whether the topic is John or
whether the topic is who the teacher is. Thus, distinction can be
attributed solely to pragmatics rather than to semantics. The inverse analysis
can therefore somehow be rescued.
Nonetheless,
information structure alone cannot account for the two readings since there
seems to be at least one language in the world that does appear to have two
morphologically distinct copulas that correspond to the distinction postulated
in Han & Hedberg (2008). According to Kuno &Wongkhomthong (1981), Thai
appears to have an equative copula khi: and a morphologically
distinct predicational copula pen. These authors explicitly
relate pen to Akmajian/Higgins predicational sentences
and khisentences to their specificational sentences. As can be
seen, this distinction apparently cannot be reduced to information structure.
3.
Methodology
This
study adopts a descriptive survey designed as a technique for obtaining
data.The current facts and information are presented as observed. A descriptive
survey usually gathers data and describes same in a systematic way; presenting
the characteristics, features and facts of the data. In this study, Daily
Trust and Punch newspaper editorials are considered.
The only criterion this paper used in selecting the data is the fact they
contain, the specification role and placement of clefting in the editorials of
the abovementioned newspapers; all these components are weighed on the RRG
approach. In the analysis, each of the newspaper editorials was examined and
types of syntactic constraint from the sample structures and how it works in
different context to achieve the stated goals was identified.
4.
Data Presentation and Analysis
Scholars
of national and international recognition have written about this sub-field of
linguistics. As such, considerable attentions have been received by the
discipline. It is well known that there have been many approaches to the
syntactic structures of cleft sentences over the years. The present research is
fairly arguing a transparent syntax in the categories of cleft sentences. The
researcher’s work on the syntactic structure of clefting in selected newspaper
is the best known. In 1937, Otto Jespersen coined the term ‘cleft sentence’ in
reference to what has come to be known presently as ‘it-clefts’. He revealed
that cleft sentences result from the use of ‘It is..’ to cleave a
sentence, served to be the process that singles out one particular element of
the sentence for the purposes of focus and contrast. The outcome of this is the
reordering of elements in what was a simple sentence to come up with what Peter
and Camello (2000) referred to as the information variant of what was a former
normal sentence. Sentences (1), (2), (3) and (4) below are examples of cleft
sentences and which are considered information variants of a sentence;
1. Campaore fled into exile
during the 2014 popular uprising against his brutal dictatorship…. (The basic
sentence)
Ø It
was not until after campaore fled
into exile during the 2014 popular uprising against his brutal
dictatorship that Sankara’s remains were finally
exhumed, triggering the process for the trial. Daily trust 14th/04/2022
Pp. 17
2. Governor Biodun Oyebanji
and the immediate past governor alleged that ……. (The basic sentence)
Ø It
was alleged that both Governor
Biodun Oyebanji and the immediate past governor….Daily trust 1st/12/2022
Pp. 17
3. The defunct autonomous
regions that guaranteed food self-sufficiency ……. (The basic sentence)
Ø It
was the defunct autonomous
regions that guaranteed food self-sufficiency. …..Punch
19th/04/2022 Pp.14
4. Sierra Leone had a bad moment in
the African Nations Cup qualifier against Ghana…. (The basic sentence)
Ø It
was a bad moment because Sierra
Leone had an African Nations Cup qualifier against Ghana…. Punch 5th/07/2022
Pp. 16
From
these examples, it can be noted that (1), (2), (3) and (4), have different
clause elements in position of focus. Jespersen described cleft sentences as
merely the modification of simpler sentence patterns, a position shared by Lees
(1963). Jespersen (1949) identified four components of a cleft construction:
the cleft pronoun, a copula, a clefted constituent and cleft clause. It is
their unruly behaviour that teachers cannot condone. In the sentences culled
from Daily trust and Punch newspaper above,
‘It’ is the cleft pronoun, the verb be ‘was’ is
the copula, for example 1; ‘not until after campaore fled into exile during
the 2014 popular uprising against his brutal dictatorship’ the clefted
constituent and ‘that Sankara’s remains were finally exhumed, triggering the
process for the trial’ the cleft clause and it also have same reflection
with example 3. The four constituents outlined above have been the subject of a
number of scholarly discussions, each trying to explain the function/role of
each in a cleft construction. Chomsky (1977), Heggie (1988), and Kiss (1999)
view the cleft pronoun as a pleonastic or an expletive element, whose only
function remains to delay the subject in order to put it in line for stress.
Glundel (1977) and Hedberg (2000), on the other hand, hold a different view of
the element as a definite pronoun with ‘low’ information but not vague
reference. They further say that ‘It’ of the cleft sentences
is referential although the intended nature of this referent is clearly
understood only as it is characterised by the relative-like cleft clause, which
somewhat distantly follows it. The copula is the fulcrum of the sentence, which
is always in singular form is yet another constituent on which scholarly
opinion is divided. While Heggie (1988) and Kiss (1999) believe that it has the
semantic function of linking the parts of the construction, Chomsky (1977) and
Delahunty (1984) treat it as an expletive element, as such; the examples given
above had reflected what these scholars demonstrated and also figured out as to
the components of cleft structures as far as the specificational role and
placement are concerned.
The
clefted constituent, according to Chomsky (1977), is considered an embedded
element used for syntactic focus by Kiss (1999). Examples;
6. a) This is as well because all
round us in the country, ….Daily trust 2nd/09/2022 Pp. 16
b) The rate at which
boreholes are constructed must be minimized if only to
avert the imminent tremor warned by experts. Daily trust 2nd/12/2022
Pp. 19
c) The reason we have not
made the PVCs available is because of the robust system of
cleaning up the registration to ensure that only genuine registrants are
added…… Punch 30th/06/2022 Pp. 24
d) The entire Niger-Delta
region and other oil producing states are awash in illegal refineries that source
crude by sabotaging and stealing from pipelines. Punch 4th/05/2022
Pp. 18
From the above sentences as clearly
observed, cleft(s) is categorically element that is embedded to characterise
syntactic focus of the sentence as seen in the 6a, b, c, and d; where ‘because
cleft’ are used for sentence (6a and c), while ‘if cleft’ is used
for sentence (6b), and ‘that cleft’ is used for (6d). All these
components are cleft elements that begin the embedded segment of the sentences
as seen above (6a, b, c, and d).
Moreover, the cleft clause that is
viewed as a restrictive relative clause by Knowles (1986) and is considered a
merely embedded clause by recent studies on cleft constructions like Kiss
(1999). Examples;
7. a) ….. various
humanitarian issues and crises that are playing out in
our world today. Daily trust 2nd/09/2022 Pp. 16
b) …. Save for the late
Ishaya Aku, who brought elan to the job,Punch 5th/07/2022
Pp. 16
Here, in (7a and b) the cleft
clauses are restrictive relative clauses where ‘that are playing out in our
world today’ in 7a is heavily relying on the previous information in the
sentence and ‘…. various humanitarian issues and crises’; the cleft
constituent is adding more information to the main clause, such is also
applicable to the (7b); ‘who brought elan to the job,..’ is adding
information to the ‘…. Save for the late Ishaya Aku.’
A similar scenario as the one above
also arises in trying to explain the relationship that obtains between the
parts of a cleft construction. The extraposition analysis put forward by
Akmajian (1970), which holds that the cleft pronoun, which is always in the
objective case bears a direct relationship with the cleft clause. Examples;
8. a) The current awkward
situation could have been averted if efforts were made
to divert petroleum. Daily trust 2nd/11/2022 Pp. 17
b) This is anomalous in a
country where the state has a disastrous record in
running commercial enterprises. Punch 1st/08/2022 Pp. 26
From the above, it is seen that;
the clefted elements in (8a, and b) ‘if efforts were made to divert
petroleum’ and ‘where the state has a disastrous record in running
commercial enterprises’ are situated in an extraposition of the main
clause, because; it is an addition on the main clause and reflected in
objective case position. Looking at these sentences, the cleft constituents
bear a direct relationship with the main clause in (8a and b) structures. This
analysis postulates a verbal agreement pattern known as the ‘split agreement’
in which the focus element and the verb in the clause are systematically in
tandem and do not agree in person with the focus noun or pronoun.
On the other hand, the expletive
analysis by Hedberg (2000) disregards all the other elements in a cleft
construction except the clefted element and the cleft clause, which are said to
be a direct syntactic relationship. Fichtner (1993), opines that cleft
sentences can be formed by a short sequence of superficial modifications on a
simple sentence, which identifies two other sentence patterns other than ‘It’ cleft
sentences that are produced by such set of operations. These are: Pseudo-cleft/
wh- clefts and the inverted clefts. These are products of operations like
cleftisation and left dislocation alongside the shift in the position of
elements in what was the original sentence (as seen in examples 1-4 above). He
further says that, this produces structures that belong to the Topic- Comment
Redistribution Transformation, which allow a writer or a speaker to elevate
certain constituents to prominence in close conformity with the ideas in the
text of which the sentence is a part. The examples below are an illustration of
Fichtner’s classification of cleft sentences:
9. a) It is scandalous that states affected
by massive tree-felling activities…… Daily trust 29th/06/2023
Pp. 13 (It- cleft)
b) …….
Summon uncontrolled crowds where covid-19 protocols are
totally ignored. Punch 5th/05/2022 Pp. 16 (Pseudo
cleft)
c) The few
women who havemade it to political offices may have passed
through the eye of a needle ………. Daily trust 8th/03/2022 Pp. 24 (Inverted
cleft)
However, one unique quality of
cleft constructions in English, is their being complex sentences made up of a
matrix clause and a relative-like subordinate clause. The matrix clause, which
is headed by a copula and the relative-like cleft clause, as Jong-Bok and Peter
(2007) point out, have co- referential arguments with the only variation being
where the highlighted expression is placed (See examples below) 10;
10. a) It
is more disturbing that the incident happened as the officers were
trying to bring peace between two ethnic communities…. Daily trust
18th/05/2022 Pp. 13
b) ……. Summon uncontrolled
crowds where covid-19 protocols are totally
ignored. Punch 5th/05/2022 Pp. 16
c) That is a weighty
decision because it involves lives. Punch 12th/01/
2022 Pp. 14
In the sentences (10) above, the
highlighted expression, which is also known as the clefted constituent, ‘more
disturbing’ in (10a) occurs immediately after the copula ‘is’, in
(10b) it occurs after the copula ‘are’ but ‘totally ignored’
appear at the end of the sentence and in (10c) ‘That is a weighty decision’
is at the sentence-initial position before the ‘if-because” cleft.
According to Dekany (2010), cleft sentences are suppositional as well as
specificational in nature and in the default case. In their structure, they
contain supposition of certain information and also the descriptions which
identify the person or thing, fulfills the specifications set forth in another
part of the sentence. See the illustrations below:
11. a) It was only
last week that this was gazetted. Punch 11th/01/2022 Pp.
16
ü b) It
is more disturbing that the incident
happened as the officers were trying to bring peace between two ethnic
communities…. Daily trust 18th/05/2022 Pp. 13
In sentences (11a and b) there is a
supposition that ‘gazetting’ was done and ‘incidence happen’.
At the same time, there is a specification of what was gazette and happening
of the incidence. Structurally, the presupposed information is contained in
the subject, while the new information which is the specification in the
predicate. This kind of configuration is what Helga (1973) terms equational,
since cleft sentences established an identity between a known or presupposed
entity and a focused one which represents new information. Cleft sentences,
according to Delahunty (1984) and Dekany (2010) can have different elements in
the focus position. Nouns, noun phrases, noun clauses, prepositional phrases,
adverbial expressions, finite clauses can all serve as the focus of a cleft
sentence. Examples (12) below will be used to illustrate this.
12. a) There is so
much bloodletting in the country…..Daily trust 18th/05/2022
Pp. 13
b) …… where the
state has a disastrous record in running commercial enterprises. Punch
1st/08/2022 Pp. 26
c) It is a
United Nations (UN) event that promotes awareness about
the desertification of the earth’s…… Daily trust 29th/06/2023
Pp. 13
Sentence (12) above demonstrate the
different elements in the focus positions. In (a), an adverbial phrase, in (b
and c) are noun expressions. However, while this is generally true of all the
cleft constructions, there exists a salient distinction between ‘It- clefts,
there cleft and pseudo clefts’ in terms of what can be clefted. Typically, as
Fichtner (1993) puts, it-clefting of a verb phrase is considered ungrammatical
with ‘It-clefts’, while the same is considered grammatical with pseudo clefts.
The sentences below are an illustration of this position.
13. a) …… where the
situation is equally, if not more critical. Daily trust 21st/10/2022
Pp. 19 (Pseudo cleft)
When such expression is considered
with ‘it-cleft’ it will be ungrammatical as thus;
b) It is the situation is
equally, if not more critical* (It cleft)
The clefting of a verb phrase
results in a marked construction as in sentence (13b) and a grammatical pseudo
cleft sentence as in (13a) above. Indisputably, cleft sentences are focus
constructions, which Hedberg (1988) draw attention to a specifically designated
element, thus increasing a hearer’s awareness of any difference between the
information presented in the cleft structure and suggested by the context. Each
of the cleft sentence categories has a specific configuration that enables it
to achieve this. It-cleft sentences are summarised by Heberg (1988) as Comment-
Topic structures, which are used for the purposes of explicit contrast and
which according to Aarts and Aarts (1988) are said to order elements as below:
It–be + emphasised constituent +that/ wh- relative clause. For example:
14. a) It is obvious
that Bello has come into an office of strategic significance……..Daily
trust 1st/09/2022 Pp. 13
Pseudo clefts, which Aarts and
Aarts (1988) identified has an attributive properties manifested in their
structure that has a Subject- Predicator – Subject – attribute arrangement in
which what is on the right of the copula identifies what is being described by
the relative clause on the left. The subject, in this configuration, is
realised by a ‘What clause’, the predicator by a form of ‘be’ and the subject
attribute by a noun phrase, noun clause, an infinitive or an –ing participle
(the present participle). For example:
15. ….. where government
interferes in football are also politically vulnerable or are outright
dictatorships. Punch 5th/07/2022 Pp. 16
In the sentence (15) above, the
subject is ‘where government interferes in football’, a noun clause, the
predicator, ‘are’, a form of verb ‘be’ and subject
attribute, ‘politically vulnerable’, a noun phrase, which identifies
what is being described in the wh- clause in the pre-copular position.
In
terms of derivation and realisation, there is a dual source for cleft
sentences. Hankhamer (1974) and Pinkham and Hankhamer (1975) view cleft
sentences as being products of non-cleft structures also known as simple
sentences as well as base-generation rules. Fichtner (1993) explains that a
cleft sentence can be formed by a short sequence of superficial modifications
of the structure in a simple sentence,thereby inserting a pronominal element,
which serves as a dummy topic and form of verb ‘be’ into it and a shift in the
position of one element from the original sentence. In the latter proposal,
cleft sentences are believed to be derived from an underlying sentence. On the
other hand, Delahunty (1984) argues that cleft sentences are base-generated,
where the focus and the cleft clause are generated by the phrase structural
rules and the ‘It’ subject inserted by the lexical insertion rule. The other
processes involved in the realisation of these structures are cleftisation and
left dislocation.
In
the same argument, Fichtner (1993) puts forward a proposal that pseudo clefts
arise out of these two processes as well as topicalisation, which is a further
operation on the cleft phrase.
5.
Conclusion
As
one of the typical syntactic errors, cleft structure in spite of the explicit
explanation and corrective feedback indicated that remedial teaching had little
effect on the correct use of cleft structures in different typologies (Han,
2004). Most writers could successfully use cleft sentences in their papers to
show a prominent element in the sentence. This is, in fact, to call readers
paying attention to that part, which carries the main idea and some writers
used such structures to reveal a contrast between two concepts, ideas,
thoughts, events etc. This invites their readers to evaluate and assess these
two extremes. In spite of the absence of phonetic aspects such as intonation
and stress in written language, the writers replace them with some punctuation
marks to reflect the cleft sentences aim. The cleft sentences were found in all
newspapers with different percentagesunder study. Availability of these
structures in the press, refers undoubtedly to reader’s acceptability and
understanding of such phenomenon. Readers with their different linguistic
levels know that there is a special message beyond adopting such patterns.
Using such syntactic structures in press language clarifies that such field
uses all the grammatical structures to express thoughts, report news and show
comments, regarding the type and nature of the paper. It is noticeable that all
types of cleft sentences are used with different frequency. They are not
restricted in a particular type of articles. To the contrary, they are found in
all types such as politics, social life, sports e.t.c.
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