Truncated Clefts are Ambiguous

Abstract

Kim, Jeong-Seok. 2010. Truncated Clefts are Ambiguous. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 35-1, 29-48. This paper explores the so-called truncated cleft in English. This construction has been classified as a type of copular clauses since Higgins's (1973) taxonomy of copular clauses. Along the line of Hedberg (2000) and Birner et al. (2007), I observe that truncated clefts are transformationally ambiguous between the copular reading and the cleft reading. I argue that a sufficiently salient open proposition is a crucial factor of disambiguating these two readings. The presence of a salient open proposition engenders the cleft reading of truncated clefts in linguistic contexts, whereas the copular reading is available in situational contexts. Hence, truncated clefts are placed between deep anaphora and surface anaphora in the sense of Hankamer and Sag (1976). (Korea University)