SYNTACTIC CONSTRAINTS ON DISCOURSE STRUCTURE - THE CASE OF IT-CLEFTS

In this paper, we present an account of the interpretation of it-cleft constructions that attempts to draw together the apparently diverse f actors of aspect, information structure, syntax, and presupposition. W e begin with the observation (due to Prince 1978) that some clefts hav e the effect of ''backgrounding'' the information they convey, and tha t, in addition, clefts appear to indicate that this information is in some sense ''known fact.'' We also add the observation that in some co ntexts clefts can induce temporal reversals in the interpretation of t he narrative order of events and note that clefts appear to limit the range of coherence relations that can be inferred between their conten t and that of the preceding discourse. We argue that these effects ari se out of the way cleft content is incorporated into the existing disc ourse context; further, we suggest that the integration of cleft conte nt is further influenced by the individual semantic, pragmatic, and in formational profile of the cleft concerned. Our account draws on the n otion of clefts as state-making devices: that is, they introduce an ev entuality description with stative aspect, due to the presence of copu lar be as main verb. We look at the implications this has for discours e processing, showing how the interpretation of the cleft's stative ma in verb as temporally overlapping an established reference time has ef fects on the integration of cleft content into the discourse model. Wh ile this aspectual profile is common to all clefts, integration is fur ther influenced by whether the cleft's presupposition contains materia l already known to the hearer (topic) or new (comment). While we canno t provide a complete model of discourse and temporal relations, we hop e to show that the specific discourse relations taken to hold between incoming and existing information depend on a subtle interaction betwe en a range of factors that influence the integration process