The purpose of this study is to provide a lexicalist analysis of English wh-cleft constructions in the framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. To give focus on a certain constituent, the wh-cleft constructions exploit a syntactic adjustment, i.e. what … is ~ . Due to such syntactic re-arrangement, the constructions have some peculiar characteristics. To explain such characteristics, the study on the pre-be part of the wh-constructions is a prerequisite. Based on the behaviors of the constructions, we argue that the pre-be part is a complementizer phrase(CP), not an NP nor an S. The CP has a structure of type head-complement-phrase, which consists of the complementizer what and a finite clause, which misses one element. We attempt to ascribe these properties of the constructions to the lexical properties of the complementizer what and the head verb beWH-CLEFT. Given the theoretical tools in HPSG, we can analyze the wh-cleft constructions in the same manner as other unbounded dependency constructions, i.e. in the SLASH-based, traceless approach.
1. Introduction
2. The Pre-be Part
3. Wh-Cleft as a CP: A Proposal
4. Analysis
5. Conclusions and Residual Problems
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