The main purpose of the article lies in proposing a novel structure for English it-clefts. I argue that Reeve's(2010) ambiguity problem with respect to the antecedent of the cleft-clause does not arise, since according to the proposed structure the cleft-clause is originally generated in the adjunct position of the cleft-pronoun it, and then undergoes rightward movement at PF. With the proposed structure where no functional head Eq is postulated and the copula be is analyzed as an equative verb requiring two arguments I show that the semantics of it-clefts can be computed compositionally.
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Identifying the cleft-pronoun it
3. Derivations of Cleft-Clauses
4. Non-Compositionality Problem
5. A Novel Proposal
6. Conclusion
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