university of southern california · the information structure differences between the cleft types...

To Appear in Proceedings of the ‘Questions in Discourse Conference’ at Universität Göttingen, September 18-

20, 2014.

The English It-Cleft: No Need to Get Exhausted*

Mary Byram Washburn, Elsi Kaiser, Maria Luisa Zubizarreta

University of Southern California

Abstract

English it-clefts are thought to be exhaustive (e.g. Atlas and Levinson 1981, Chomsky 1977, É

Kiss 1998, Krifka 2008, Percus 1997, Szabolci 1981, Zimmermann and Onea 2011), such that in

a sentence like “It was John who left”, John is the only one who left. However, we report three

experiments whose results indicate that it-clefts do not have to be exhaustive, but rather, the

impression of exhaustivity may be a scalar conversational implicature (following Horn 1981): in

a cleft such as It was John who left, listeners assume the speaker named everyone who left if they

are relevant. Experiments 1a and 1b were judgment experiments, where participants rated the

naturalness of nonexhaustive it-clefts as compared to fully canonical, exhaustive it-clefts (our

baseline measurement for acceptable) and noncontrastive it-clefts (our baseline measurement for

unacceptable). We used noncontrastive it-clefts because contrastiveness is widely agreed to

involve presuppositional failure, and in case exhaustivity is a presupposition of the it-cleft as is

sometimes proposed, we wanted to compare the result of violating it to the result of violating a

different presupposition: contrastiveness. We found that participants rated the nonexhaustive it-

clefts as more natural than the noncontrastive it-clefts, but there was no significant difference

between the nonexhaustive it-clefts and the canonical, grammatical it-clefts. Participants did not

reject nonexhaustive it-clefts. This is the first experimental evidence for English showing that the

pre-verbal focus position is not necessarily exhaustive. In Experiment 2, we further support this

result by repeating the study with insitu contrastive foci which are almost always considered to

be structurally nonexhaustive (ex: Rooth 1985, Krifka 2001). We found the same pattern of

results: participants did not reject the nonexhaustive foci. Exhaustivity appears to be a

conversational implicature of the it-cleft.

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I. Introduction

There is a robust intuition that the English it-cleft is exhaustive. For instance, in (1) below, the

intuition is that John is the only person who left.

1) It was John who left the party.

cleft pronoun clefted constituent relative clause1

The pervasive opinion has been that exhaustivity must be a part of the syntactic/semantic

structure of the it-cleft (e.g. Chomsky 1977, Atlas and Levinson 1981, Percus 1997, É Kiss

1998). However, it has been acknowledged since the 1970s that this view is problematic. To give

one example, it has been noted ever since Prince (1978) that so called information-

presupposition clefts, like that in (2) and (3)2, are not exhaustive like their stress-focus

counterparts, such as the cleft in (1) (Prince 1978, Hedberg 1990).

2) It was Lansdale, as much as anyone, who established Diem in power.

(Mark Frankland, Predecessor makes North look like an amateur

operator, 3/5/87, taken from Hedberg 1990, Ch. 6, pg. 17, ex. 60)

3) It was in that article, among other places, that Bork expressed his support for

California’s anti-open housing referendum…

(David S. Broder, The need to be sure on Bork, 9/20/87, taken

from Hedberg 1990, Ch. 6, pg. 17, ex. 60)

Maintaining the claim that exhaustivity is a part of the structure of the it-cleft would presumably

require that it-clefts be separated into two different types: one exhaustive, one not. For instance,

Hedberg (1990) observes that exhaustive it-clefts, such as (1), have their primary stress on the

clefted constituent, and the clefted constituent acts as a topic, while nonexhaustive clefts, such as

(2) and (3), have their primary stress on the relative clause, and the clefted constituent acts a

comment. Based on this difference, Hedberg (1990) divides clefts into two types. The exhaustive

type, such as (1), she calls topic-clause clefts, and the nonexhaustive type, such as (2) and (3),

she calls comment-clause clefts. She accounts for the exhaustivity of the topic-clause clefts by

assuming that they are derived from definite descriptions (Hedberg and Fadden 2001).

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Nonexhaustive comment-clause clefts would then have to have a radically different underlying

structure (cf. den Dikken 2013). If, however, even topic-clause clefts were structurally non-

exhaustive, this would not be necessary. The information structure differences between the cleft

types could be derivational, just as, for instance, the differences between a canonical sentence

and a sentence with a fronted topic are derivational.

This paper presents three experiments that cause further trouble for the view that exhaustivity

is structurally encoded in the it-cleft. In Experiments 1a and 1b, when participants were

presented with stress-focus it-clefts that were clearly non-exhaustive, they did not rate these

clefts as being unnatural, contrary to what one would expect if exhaustivity were structurally

encoded in the it-cleft. We will propose instead that the exhaustivity of the English it-cleft is a

conversational implicature arising from the interaction between the maxims of quantity and

quality.

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 will present an overview of research on

exhaustivity and the it-cleft. In Section 3, we will present the first detailed formal derivation of

an exhaustivity conversational implicature for the it-cleft. In Section 4, we will test

experimentally (Experiment 1a) whether, under the correct circumstances, the exhaustivity

implicature can fail to arise—as would be expected for a conversational implicature and not for a

presupposition or assertion. This is the first experimental evidence for English showing that the

it-cleft is not necessarily exhaustive. In Section 5, we will replicate the results of Experiment 1a

with more tightly controlled items (Experiment 1b), and additionally find evidence that

exhaustivity in the it-cleft is specifically a scalar implicature. In Section 6, we will present a

parallel experiment (Experiment 2) for the in-situ contrastive focus position in English, showing

that this type of focus—usually claimed to be nonexhaustive (É Kiss 1998, 2007; Rooth 1985,

1992; Krifka 2001, among others)—patterns the same, with respect to exhaustivity, as the it-

cleft. In Section 7, we will discuss the significance of these results to the current understanding

of focus and exhaustivity.

2. Proposals for exhaustivity and the it-cleft

One of the most popular accounts for the exhaustivity of the it-cleft is a syntactic account put

forward by É Kiss (1998, 2007). É Kiss (1998) divides focus into two categories: information

focus and identificational focus. These two types differ in terms of both their structure and their

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meaning. Structurally, information focus is not represented with any special position, but is

found in-situ in a language, often marked prosodically. Identificational focus, on the other hand,

is represented in the structure as part of the CP. In terms of meaning, information focus is only

the non-presupposed portion of the sentence, but identificational focus expresses exhaustive

identification.3 She analyzes both the English it-cleft and the Hungarian pre-verbal focus position

as cases of identificational focus, deriving exhaustivity by means of a structural focus position

that requires exhaustivity. She reasserts this analysis in (2007), clarifying that identificational

focus is exhaustive because it is a specificational predicate. Identificational focus picks out the

referential content of the open set denoted by the background of a sentence.

This specification cannot, however, be part of the asserted meaning of the it-cleft. Horn (1981)

makes this clear by demonstrating that only, which does assert exhaustivity, is felicitous in

contexts that do not allow it-clefts (ex.4).

4) a. #I know that Mary ate a pizza, but I’ve just discovered that it was a pizza that she

ate!

b. I know that Mary ate a pizza, but I’ve just discovered that it was only a pizza that

she ate!

(Horn 1981, pg. 130, ex 11)

Additionally, there is experimental evidence from German (Drenhaus, Zimmermann and

Vasishth 2011), French (Destruel 2012), and Hungarian itself (Onea and Beaver 2009) showing

that exhaustivity is more easily canceled for it-clefts (for Hungarian, the preverbal focus

position) than for only.

In two experiments, Drenhaus, Zimmermann, and Vasishth (2011) compared, in German,

exhaustive it-clefts to nonexhaustive clefts and exhaustive sentences with only to nonexhaustive

sentences with only. They found that violating exhaustivity in a sentence with only was more

ungrammatical than violating exhaustivity in an it-cleft (ex.5). Additionally, in an ERP

experiment, violations of it-cleft exhaustivity caused N400s, typically associated with

semantic/pragmatic integration difficulty as might arise from an utterance such as I eat books for

breakfast. In contrast, violations of exhaustivity in sentences with only caused P600s, typically

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associated with a semantic violation or grammatical reanalysis as might arise from an utterance

such as The horse ran past the barn fell.

5) a. Exhaustive it-cleft

Es ist Maria, die das Klavier spielen kann und ausserdem noch die Geige sagte…

It is Mary who the piano play can and besides that also the violin says…

It is Mary who can play the piano and, additionally, also the violin, says…

b. Non-exhaustive it-cleft

Es ist Maria, die das Klavier spielen kann und ausserdem noch Luise und Jana

sagte…

It is Mary who the piano play can and besides her also Luise and Jana

says…

It is Mary who can play the piano and, additionally, also Luise and Jana, says…

c. Exhaustive ‘only’ sentence

Nur Maria kann das Klavier spielen und ausserdem noch die Geige sagte…

Only Mary can the piano play and besides that also the violin says…

Only Mary can play the piano and, additionally, also the violin, says…

d. Non-exhaustive ‘only’ sentence

Nur Maria kann das Klavier spielen und ausserdem noch Luise and Jana sagte…

Only Mary can the piano play and besides that also Luise and Jana says…

Only Mary can play the piano and, additionally, also Luise and Jana, says…

(Drenhaus et al 2011, pg 327, ex. 14)

Onea and Beaver (2009) compared the exhaustivity of only to the exhaustivity of the preverbal

focus position in Hungarian—often regarded as a clear example of a structural position for

exhaustivity. They presented participants with pictures of two characters accomplishing a task.

The pictures were accompanied by a Hungarian spoken sentence in which either 1) the subject

was fronted to the preverbal focus position, 2) the subject was in the scope of only, or 3) the

subject was in a canonical position with default intonation (ex.5). The participants were then

asked to choose between three possible responses. The responses provided a measure of how

committed the participants were to the exhaustivity of the spoken sentence. Below is an example

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item from their study. The participants would see a picture of Marci and Peter each catching a

butterfly, hear one of the three sentences in ex.(6), and then choose between the possible

responses in ex.(7).

6) a. MARCI fogott meg egy lepkét.

Marci caught PRT a butterfly.

Marci caught a butterfly.

b. Csak MARCI fogott meg egy lepkét.

Only Marci caught PRT a butterfly.

Only Marci caught a butterfly.

c. Marci meg-fogott egy lepkét.

Marci PRT caught a butterfly

Marci caught a butterfly.

7) a. Yes, and Peter caught a butterfly too.

b. Yes, but Peter caught a butterfly too.

c. No, Peter caught a butterfly too.

Onea and Beaver interpreted stronger contradiction (by responding with (7c)) as the

participants understanding the sentence to be more exhaustive, and stronger agreement (by

responding with (7b)) as the participants understanding the sentence to be less exhaustive.

Responding with (7a) indicated that the participants did not interpret the sentence as exhaustive.

They found that participants contradicted (responded with (8c)) sentences with pre-verbal focus

significantly less often than they contradicted sentences with only, but significantly more often

than they contradicted the default intonation sentences like ex. (6a). They interpreted this as

indicating that, while the pre-verbal focus position is still interpreted exhaustively, the

exhaustivity is not as strong as in a sentence with only.

Destruel (2012) ran a very similar study for French. Participants saw a question-answer pair

that was either a canonical sentence, a sentence containing seulement (‘only’) or a c'est-cleft, the

French equivalent of an it-cleft (ex.8). The participants were then given three possible

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continuations and told to choose the most natural one. These three continuations started with

either yes and, yes but, or no.

8) Q: Qu'est-ce que le fermier a brossé?

What is it that the farmer has brushed?

What is it that the farmer brushed?

A: C'est le cheval que le fermier a brossé.

It's the horse that the farmer brushed.

It's the horse that the farmer brushed.

Continuation 1: Oui, et le fermier a aussi brossé la chévre.

Yes, and the farmer also brushed the goat.

Continuation 2: Oui, mais le fermier a aussi brossé la chévre.

Yes, but the farmer also brushed the goat.

Continuation 3: No. Le fermier a aussi brossé la chévre.

No. The farmer also brushed the goat.

Destruel (2012) found parallel results for French as Onea and Beaver (2009) did for

Hungarian: participants preferred to continue canonical statements with yes and, statements with

seulement with no, but c'est-clefts with yes but (p<.05). The participants did not interpret c'est-

clefts to be as strongly exhaustive as statements with seulement. This study, Onea and Beaver

(2009), and Drenhaus et al (2011) highlight very clearly that the exhaustivity of the French c'est-

cleft, the Hungarian pre-verbal focus position, and the German es-cleft—the equivalents of the

English it-cleft—is not the same as the exhaustivity of the focus-sensitive word only.

Exhaustivity could, though, still be part of the meaning of the it-cleft if it were presupposed

instead of asserted, and indeed, most structural accounts for it-cleft exhaustivity claim that

exhaustivity is a presupposition of the it-cleft. Akmajian (1970), Chomsky (1977), Percus

(1997), Hedberg and Fadden (2001) and Zimmerman and Onea (2011) all suggest that the

exhaustivity of an it-cleft is equivalent to the exhaustivity of a definite description or pseudocleft

as in ex. (9).

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9) a) It was John who left early. = The one who left early was John.

John is who left early.

b) x.[x left early] = John

The exhaustivity of an it-cleft, though, doesn’t behave exactly the same as the exhaustivity of a

definite description or pseudocleft. As demonstrated below, the exhaustivity of an it-cleft fails to

arise in downward entailing environments such as questions (ex.10), but the exhaustivity of a

definite projects in such environments.

10) Exhaustivity fails to arise in questions:

Context: Mary ate multiple things, among them a pizza.

Q: Was it a pizza that Mary ate? A: Yes. (Horn 1981 & Halvorsen 1978)

Q: Was a pizza the thing(s) that Mary ate? A: #Yes.

Q: What a pizza what Mary ate? A: #Yes.

Halvorsen (1978), concerned with ensuring that it-clefts were not exhaustive in questions,

preserves the intuition that the exhaustivity of the it-cleft is derived from uniqueness, but uses

two other implicata in place of a definiteness operator. First, he claims that the clefted

constituent is identical to the relative pronoun. Second, he stipulates that the cardinality of the

relative pronoun is fixed, via a conventional implicature, to be the same as the cardinality of the

clefted constituent (ex. 11).

11) (y)(left early(y) y=John)

Conventional Implicature: At most n people left early & n=|John|

Atlas and Levinson (1981) point out, though, that accomplishing uniqueness by limiting the

cardinality of the relative clause would require that questions and answers had the same

cardinality. However, as ex. (12) shows, it is possible to answer a cleft question that has a

cardinality of 2 with an answer that has a cardinality of 3, even though the contradiction

shouldn’t be able to target a conventional implicature.

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12) Question: Was it John and Rick that Mary kissed? Mary kissed only two persons

Answer: No, she kissed John, Rick, and Mart.

(Atlas and Levinson 1981, pg. 25, ex. 74-76)

Atlas and Levinson propose instead that exhaustivity is accomplished through an identity

operator: . The operator introduces an assertion that if anything is true of the relative clause,

then that thing must be identical to the clefted constituent.

13) (Xe: YϵLeaveEarly [XY]. LeaveEarly(X))(John)

“If anyone left early, John left early.”

This identity presupposition, though, struggles with a different downward entailing

environment: conditionals as in ex. (14).

14) Exhaustivity fails to arise in conditionals:

If it’s Paul and Mary who arrived, the party is about to start. > No one else arrived.

(Destruel 2012, pg. 99, ex 10)

Atlas and Levinson’s analysis should mean that ex. (14) is undefined under the circumstance

that Paul and Mary arrive with a group of friends, but this doesn’t seem to be the correct

intuition.

Büring and Križ (2013) propose a similar analysis to that of Atlas and Levinson, but with two

crucial differences. First, exhaustivity is the result of maximality: if the relative clause is true of

the clefted constituent, then the maximal thing the clefted constituent is the maximal thing that is

true of the relative clause. Second, this presupposition is conditioned by the truth of the it-cleft’s

assertion.

15) It was John who left early.

Assertion: John left early.

Presupposition: If John left early, the people who left early are {John}.

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Making the presupposition conditional upon the truth of the assertion means that the

presupposition will not hold when the it-cleft is questioned (Was it John who left early?),

negated (It wasn’t John who left early.), or embedded in a conditional (If it was John who left

early, I’ll be furious). These contexts have in common that they do not require that John in fact

left early so they, in turn, would not require that {John} be the maximum set of who left early.

We will propose in the next section that the exhaustivity of the it-cleft is due to a scalar

implicature. A scalar implicature would also fail to arise when questioned, negated, or embedded

in a conditional as these are all downward entailing environments so we present three

experiments in the following sections that show (1) that exhaustivity fails to arise in it-clefts

when the context does not support a scalar implicature, even though the assertion is true, and (2)

that the exhaustivity of the it-cleft behaves very similarly to the exhaustivity of contrastive focus,

which is known to be the result of a conversational implicature. Taken together, these suggest

that the exhaustivity of the it-cleft is best analyzed as a conversational implicature.

3. Formal Derivation of the Exhaustivity Implicature

In this section, it will be argued that the exhaustivity of the English it-cleft can be derived as a

scalar implicature arising from the interaction between the maxims of quantity and quality4.

16) Maxim of Quantity:

Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes

of the exchange

Do not make your contribution more informative than is required

Maxim of Quality:

Try to make your contribution one that is true

(Grice 1975: 46)

The central logic behind an implicature resulting from quantity and quality is this: when a

speaker chooses to assert a statement that is not the most informative statement possible, the

hearer can reason that the speaker chose the weaker statement because any stronger statement

would be false. To derive this, the speaker's potential utterances first need to be ordered on a

scale. This paper will order them in terms of informativity, where informativity is defined as

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asymmetric entailment: if β α but α > β then β is more informative than α (Horn 1972, 1989;

Levinson 1983; Matsumoto 1995; for focus: Beaver and Clark 2008)5. Ex. (17) below is an

example of a potential scale.

17) Alice ate some of the candy, Alice ate all of the candy

Alice ate all of the candy Alice ate some of the candy

Alice ate some of the candy > Alice ate all of the candy

The hearer expects that the speaker will assert the maximal item on the scale. In the case of

(17), the hearer would expect the speaker to assert Alice ate all of the candy. The speaker,

however, may violate this expectation and assert a weaker item instead, for instance: Alice ate

some of the candy. If the hearer suspects that the stronger statement (Alice ate all of the candy)

violates one of the conversational maxims by being overly informative, irrelevant,

unsupportable, impolite, etc, then the speaker's behavior is explained, and no scalar implicature

arises. This is the case in (18). Jack's inquiry doesn't require any information about how much

candy was consumed. Jill's response does not, therefore, implicate that Alice only ate some and

not all of the candy.

18) Jack: Do you know of someone who could tell me if this candy is any good?

Jill: Alice ate some of the candy. You could ask her.

If, however, the hearer believes that the stronger statement would have been required,

relevant, supportable, polite, etc, the hearer may conclude that the stronger statement is false.

The speaker chose not to assert the stronger statement because uttering it would be a violation of

quality. This is the scalar implicature6. For example, in (19), whether Alice finished off the

candy or just had a little taste is important to the conversation. When Jill then chooses to assert

some of the candy instead of the stronger all of the candy, Jack can only conclude, assuming that

Jill is competent to comment on Alice's eating habits, that Jill believes Alice didn't eat all of the

candy.

19) Jack: I'm concerned that Alice eats too many sweets. What did she eat today?

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Jill: Alice ate some of the candy.

In this way, the difference between (18) and (19) can be explained without varying the

semantic meaning of the word some.

This analysis can be applied to the English it-cleft. The speaker has multiple potential

utterances available to her that can be ordered in terms of asymmetric entailment:

20) α: It was a chair that Tom painted.

β: There are multiple items in a salient7 context, one of which is a chair, that Tom

painted.

α, β because β α, but α > β

When β is required, relevant, supportable, etc., then the hearer expects that the speaker will assert

it, and if the speaker fails to assert β, asserting the weaker α instead, then the hearer can conclude

that β must be false, and therefore, asserting it would be a violation of quality. This leads the

hearer to arrive at the exhaustive interpretation of the it-cleft, given in (21) as β'.

21) β': It was a chair and nothing else in a salient context that Tom painted.

If, however, the hearer can conclude that the speaker had some other reason for using the it-

cleft instead of β, for instance β would be overly informative, the exhaustive interpretation

should not arise8. This is the case in (22). Jane only needs to mention one non-lamp item in order

to prove Kevin wrong. As long as Tom painted one thing that is not a lamp, then anything else he

might have painted is more information that is required. In this case, β is overly informative, and

when Jane utters α, it does not need to be exhaustive.

22) Jane and Tom refinish all of their furniture each year. This year, Tom painted a chair,

a desk, and a table. A week later, Kevin says to Jane: “I bet Tom painted only lamps

again, didn’t he?”

Jane responds: “He doesn’t always paint lamps. Last week, it was a chair that he

painted.”

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It should be noted that the current account should make the exhaustivity of the it-cleft

equivalent to the exhaustivity of in-situ focus. The tradition of ascribing the exhaustivity of the

it-cleft to a structural property originates, however, with the intuition that the exhaustivity of the

it-cleft is stronger than that of in-situ focus. For example, even Horn (1981) considers the

exhaustivity of the it-cleft to be uncancelable. Despite this, though, we argue that the equivalence

in the current account is appropriate. To preview the experimental results reported in this paper,

nonexhaustive it-clefts and non-exhaustive in-situ foci behave very similarly in our judgement

studies. Furthermore, Experiment 1b provides some evidence that exhaustivity only arises in an

it-cleft under the same conditions that would support a scalar implicature. It is quite possible that

the exhaustivity of an it-cleft arises in the same manner as the exhaustivity of in-situ focus, and

the strength of the intuition is due to a separate, additional implicature, perhaps a Manner

implicature or something related to the existential presupposition carried by an it-cleft, as

suggested by Horn (1981).

In conclusion, the exhaustivity of the it-cleft can be derived as a conversational implicature,

and as exhaustivity can fail to arise, a conversational implicature explains the contexts in which

exhaustivity is true better than proposing that exhaustivity is a part of the structure of an it-cleft.

4. Experiment 1a: It-clefts can be non-exhaustive

The analysis in Section 3, proposing that the English it-cleft is a conversational implicature,

crucially rests upon the grammaticality of examples like (22); speakers need to accept

nonexhaustive it-clefts when some of the premises for exhaustivity have not been met.

Unfortunately, this is a very difficult thing to get accurate judgments about informally.

Therefore, we conducted a psycholinguistic experiment investigating speakers’ judgments of

clefts in different contexts, with a focus on testing whether or not nonexhaustive it-clefts are

judged as less natural than it-clefts in other contexts. This allowed us to obtain judgments from a

sizable number of participants for multiple test items and to test whether people’s responses

show statistically significant patterns. In our experiment, people heard it-clefts embedded in

different kinds of linguistics contexts. The contexts were presented in writing and the critical

sentences (it-clefts) were presented auditorily, with the appropriate pitch accent on the focused

constituent (we discuss this in more detail below).

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More specifically, we asked speakers to rate the naturalness of nonexhaustive it-clefts that

should implicate exhaustivity (because a scalar implicature should arise) and to rate the

naturalness of nonexhaustive it-clefts that should not implicate exhaustivity (because a scalar

implicature should not arise). We then compared these naturalness ratings to how the same

speakers rated the naturalness of exhaustive it-clefts and noncontrastive it-clefts. The speakers’

responses to the exhaustive it-clefts were used as a measure for naturalness, and the speakers’

responses to the noncontrastive it-clefts were used as a measure for unnaturalness since

contrastiveness, by virtue of the fact that it-clefts encode focus, is a presupposition of the it-

cleft9. To preview the more detailed results section below, what we found is the following: While

there was (a) no statistical difference between exhaustive and nonexhaustive it-clefts, (b)

speakers did find nonexhaustive it-clefts to be significantly more natural than noncontrastive it-

clefts. This is evidence that speakers can accept nonexhaustive it-clefts as natural and is

compatible with the claim that the exhaustivity of the it-cleft is a conversational implicature, not

a part of the it-cleft’s structure.

4.2 Design

4.2.1 Participants

Twenty-four University of Southern California students participated in exchange for $5.

4.2.2 Materials

Similar to Beaver and Onea (2009), the participants were presented with a context and then an

it-cleft. The context was shown in writing, and the it-clefts were present auditorily. The

participants were told in the instructions that there were three characters in the experiment: Jane,

Tom, and Kevin. Jane and Tom are best friends who do everything together, but Kevin is Jane’s

boyfriend, and he’s sometimes upset by their friendship. We created this tension between the

characters because pre-testing suggested that speakers tended to find it-clefts more acceptable in

confrontational situations.

The it-cleft was always uttered by Jane in response to an accusation by Kevin. Within each

item, the it-cleft was the same sound file for all conditions. The six conditions were achieved by

altering the context that preceded the target sentence (the it-cleft). We manipulated four factors,

which are explained in detail in the rest of this section:

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1. Exhaustivity was observed or violated

2. Contrastiveness was observed or violated

3. A stronger statement was or was not required by the conversation

4. Contrastive alternatives to the clefted constituent were explicitly listed in the context

or implied as part of a category

There were 30 critical items and 45 fillers (discussed in section 4.2.2.8). We used a Latin

square design with six lists.

4.2.2.1 Conditions and Predictions

Condition 1: Exhaustive, Contrastive (exh, con)

In the first condition, the context preceding the it-cleft was exhaustive and contrastive

(abbreviated as: exh, con). As shown in (23), the (exh, con) condition was a canonical it-cleft:

Tom performs an action on only one item (ex: painted a chair), and Jane’s response, in listing

that one item, contrasts with Kevin’s accusation (ex: that he painted a lamp). This condition

provided a baseline measure for acceptability. As mentioned above, participants read the context

sentences and then heard the critical sentence (shown in bold in ex (23) and in the other

examples).

23) Exhaustive, Contrastive (exh, con)

Jane and Tom painted furniture. Tom painted a chair.

Later, Kevin remarks: “I bet Tom painted only lamps again, didn’t he?”

Jane responds: “He doesn’t always paint lamps. Yesterday, it was a chair that he

painted.”

Condition 2: Exhaustive, Noncontrastive (exh, noncon)

In the second condition, the context preceding the it-cleft was exhaustive and noncontrastive

(exh, noncon). As shown in (24), Tom still only performs an action on one item (ex: painted a

chair), but Jane’s response does not contrast with Kevin’s accusation. This condition provides a

baseline measure for unacceptability.

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24) Exhaustive, Noncontrastive (exh, noncon)

Jane and Tom painted furniture. Tom painted a chair.

Later, Kevin remarks: “I bet Tom painted only a chair again, didn’t he?”

Jane responds: “Yes. Yesterday, it was a chair that he painted.”

We chose a noncontrastive it-cleft as the baseline for unacceptability because contrast is almost

always considered a presupposition of the it-cleft10 (Rooth 1985, 1992; Roberts 1996; von

Stechow 1981; Reich 2004; Destruel and Velleman 2014; among others). Comparing

nonexhaustive it-clefts to noncontrastive it-clefts lets us then compare a potential presupposition

(exhaustivity) directly to a known presupposition (contrast). We felt that this is potentially better

than comparing the exhaustivity of the it-cleft to the exhaustivity of only as is more typically

done (É Kiss 1998, Drenhaus et al 2011, Onea and Beaver 2009). This is because the

exhaustivity of only is an assertion, by virtue of being part of its lexical entry, (Rooth 1985,

1992; Beaver and Clark 2008), and we cannot expect that violations of an assertion are perceived

the same as violations of a presupposition. The particular notion of contrast that we are using

throughout all three experiments presented in this paper is that of Alternative Semantics (Rooth

1992). Namely, focus in the it-cleft introduces the presupposition that there is a set C such that C

is a contextually restricted subset of the focus semantic value of the it-cleft that contains the

ordinary semantic value of the it-cleft and at least one other distinct element (aka: an alternative)

(Rooth 1992). For all conditions other than the (exh, noncon) condition, this requirement is

fulfilled because Kevin’s utterance introduces an alternative into the context, but for the (exh,

noncon) condition, the context does not include a suitable alternative11. We acknowledge though

that participants in our studies were always free to accommodate an appropriate alternative for

the (exh, noncon) condition—this is very difficult to restrict—however, to preview the results,

the (exh, noncon) condition was always rated to be statistically less natural than the (exh, con)

condition. In light of this, it seems that if participants were accommodating an alternative, they

were only doing so in a minority of cases. Additionally, if the participants were repairing the

presupposition violation in this way, it would be then only more striking if the nonexhaustive

conditions were rated to be more natural than this noncontrastive condition.

It is also worth notice that all conditions except the (exh, noncon) condition fulfill

Zimmermann (2008)’s Contrastive Focus Hypothesis: the speaker has reason to suspect that the

16

hearer does not expect the assertion of the it-cleft to be part of the Common Ground. In all

conditions except the the (exh, noncon) condition Kevin (the hearer) expresses that he has a

different belief about what Tom did the day before so Jane (the speaker) shouldn’t expect the

assertion of the it-cleft to be part of the Common Ground. In the (exh, noncon) condition,

however, Kevin already communicates that he beliefs the assertion of the it-cleft before Jane

utters it. The (exh, noncon) condition can also, therefore, be said to be noncontrastive according

to the Contrastive Focus Hypothesis.

Condition 3: Nonexhaustive, Explicit, Listing All Alternatives Not Required (nonexh, exp, nreq)

In the third condition, the context preceding the it-cleft was nonexhaustive and explicitly listed

contrastive alternatives to the clefted constituent, but the conversation did not require the speaker

to list all of the alternatives (nonexh, exp, nreq). Because the conversation did not require a

stronger statement listing all of the alternatives, no exhaustivity implicature should arise. To

illustrate, the context was nonexhaustive because, while Tom performs an action on multiple

items (ex: painted a chair, a desk, and a table), Jane only lists one item to contrast with Kevin’s

accusation. Additionally, the other items that Tom performs an action on (the contrastive

alternatives) are explicitly listed in the context, but the conversation does not require that Jane

list them: Kevin accuses Tom of painting only lamps so Jane only needs to list one non-lamp

item in order to contradict Kevin. Like in (22) in Section 3, a more informative statement listing

everything Tom painted would be excessively informative (a violation of quantity); it wouldn’t

be any more true that Tom didn’t paint only lamps if he painted three non-lamp items versus one.

An exhaustivity conversational implicature should not arise in this context so the (nonexh, exp,

nreq) condition is predicted to be acceptable under our account of exhaustivity as a

conversational implicature. Notice that if exhaustivity is part of the structure of the it-cleft under

any of the accounts in section 2.1, this condition should be ungrammatical or undefined, thus

unnatural for the participants.

25) Nonexhaustive, Explicit, Alternatives Not Required (nonexh, exp, nreq)

Jane and Tom painted furniture. Tom painted a chair, a desk, and a table.


17


painted.”

Condition 4: Nonexhaustive, Explicit, Listing All Alternatives Required (nonexh, exp, req)

In the fourth condition, the context preceding the it-cleft was nonexhaustive and explicitly

listed the contrastive alternatives to the clefted constituent, but, in this condition, the

conversation required that the alternatives be listed (nonexh, exp, req). The context was

nonexhaustive because, while Tom performs an action on multiple items (ex: painted a chair, a

desk, and a table), Jane only lists one item to contrast with Kevin’s accusation. Additionally, the

other items that Tom performs an action on (the contrastive alternatives) are explicitly listed in

the context, and a stronger statement listing all of them is required: Jane should have to list all of

the things Tom did to contradict Kevin, not just one (for example, in (26) if Jane’s cleft is taken

as nonexhaustive, then it is still possible that Tom painted a chair and a lamp; this doesn’t

contradict Kevin). Because Jane should have to list all of the items that Tom performed an action

on, a more informative statement is required. An exhaustivity conversational implicature should

arise in this context so the (nonexh, exp, req) condition is predicted to be unacceptable.

26) Nonexhaustive, Explicit, Alternatives Required (nonexh, exp, req)

Jane and Tom painted furniture. Tom painted a chair, a desk, and a table.

Later, Kevin remarks: “I bet Tom painted lamps again, didn’t he?”

Jane responds: “No, he didn’t. Yesterday, it was a chair that he painted.”

Condition 5: Nonexhaustive, Implicit, Listing All Alternatives Not Required (nonexh, nonexp,

nreq)

In the fifth condition, the context preceding the it-cleft was nonexhaustive, but did not

explicitly list the contrastive alternatives to the cleft constituent. As in the (nonexh, exp, nreq)

condition though, a more informative statement that listed all of the alternatives was not

required. In this condition, Tom performs an action on multiple items, but they are not explicitly

listed in the context, rather implied as part of a category (ex: painted a variety of furniture). Jane

only lists one item to contrast with Kevin’s accusation, but the conversation doesn't require her

to: she only needs to list one thing in order to contradict Kevin.

18

27) Nonexhaustive, Implicit, Alternatives Not Required (nonexh, nonexp, nreq)

Jane and Tom painted furniture. Tom painted a variety of furniture.



painted.”

The alternatives are implicit in this condition, as opposed to explicit in the (nonexh, exp, nreq)

condition, in order to investigate whether increasing the saliency of the alternatives to the clefted

constituent increases the strength of the exhaustivity intuition. Horn (1981) proposes that the

strength of the exhaustivity intuition derives from the markedness of the it-cleft. If this is true,

then when the alternatives to the clefted constituent are highly salient (as in the (nonexh, exp,

nreq) condition), a nonexhaustive it-cleft should be especially difficult. This is because an it-cleft

should seem very marked when it fails to mention salient alternatives. Using a nonexhaustive it-

cleft when the unmentioned alternatives are only suggested and therefore not highly salient (as in

the (nonexh, nonexp, nreq) condition) should be less marked. We therefore predict that,

especially for the (nonexh, nonexp, nreq) condition, an exhaustivity conversational implicature

should not arise. It is predicted to be acceptable, and additionally, more acceptable than the

(nonexh, exp, nreq) condition.

Condition 6: Nonexhaustive, Implicit, Listing All Alternatives Required (nonexh, nonexp, req)

In the sixth condition, the context preceding the it-cleft was nonexhaustive. It did not explicitly

list any contrastive alternatives to the clefted constituent, but a stronger statement listing these

alternatives was required by the conversation (nonexh, nonexp, req). In this condition, Tom

performs an action on multiple items that are not explicitly listed in the context (ex: painted a

variety of furniture), and Jane only lists one item to contrast with Kevin’s accusation, but a more

informative statement is required: Jane should have to list all of the things Tom did to contradict

Kevin, not just one. An exhaustivity conversational implicature should arise in this context, but,

because the alternatives to the clefted constituent are not especially salient, it may not arise as

strong as in Condition 4 (nonexh, exp, req). Therefore, the (nonexh, nonexp, req) condition is

predicted to be unacceptable, but not as unacceptable as (nonexh, exp, req).

19

28) Nonexhaustive, Implicit, Alternatives Required (nonexh, nonexp, req)

Jane and Tom painted furniture. Tom painted a variety of furniture.



Table 1: All six conditions

Condition Abbreviation Example Prediction

Exhaustive, Contrastive (exh,con) (23) Acceptable

Exhaustive, Noncontrastive (exh,noncon) (24) Unacceptable

Nonexhaustive, Explicit, Not Required (nonexh,exp,nreq) (25) Acceptable

Nonexhaustive, Explicit, Required (nonexh,exp,req) (26) Unacceptable

Nonexhaustive, Implicit, Not Required (nonexh,nonexp,nreq) (27) Acceptable

Nonexhaustive, Implicit, Required (nonexh,nonexp,req) (28) Unacceptable

4.2.3.2 Intonational properties of spoken cleft

The clefts that participants heard were always presented auditorily with a contrastive pitch on

the clefted constituent. The average pitch rise (ending pitch – starting pitch12) on the stressed

syllable of the clefted constituent was 99.93 Hz (max: 154.26 Hz; min: 45.27 Hz). In essence, all

of the it-clefts that we used in our experiment had a clear contrastive accent on the clefted

constituent. Furthermore, as stated above, the sound file used in each item was the same file for

all conditions of an item. Thus any differences we observe between the different conditions

cannot be attributed to any differences in the prosody, but rather must be due to the contextual

manipulation.

4.2.2.8 Fillers

There were 45 fillers, for a 1:1.5 ratio. The fillers resembled the targets, in that Tom did one or

multiple things, Kevin commented on them, and then Jane responded to Kevin. We used

pseudoclefts and SVO declaratives as the final sentence. These were either contrastive or

noncontrastive with a contrastive accent on the appropriate word, a contrastive accent on the

20

inappropriate word, or a flat intonation. The fillers included even numbers of perfectly

acceptable items (ex: pseudoclefts or SVO declaratives with a contrastive accent on the

appropriate word) and entirely unacceptable items (ex: pseudoclefts or SVO declaratives with a

contrastive accent on the inappropriate word). There were also items of various in-between

acceptability (ex: pseudoclefts with a flat intonation).

All fillers were exhaustive, and we avoided any filler in which the last sentence would be

considered unacceptable in isolation (ex: an illicit word order) so that the participants would

always remember to consider the context of the utterance.

4.2.3 Procedure

Participants were tested using a PC running Perception Research Systems’ Paradigm software

to display the items and record the responses. Participants read the items one sentence at a time

on the computer screen, and then heard the cleft in a female voice. While listening to the cleft,

they saw on the screen six boxes labeled 1 through 6, arranged from left to right. They were

given an unlimited amount of time to click on the box indicating how they rated the it-cleft.

They were instructed to rate completely natural sounding utterances as 1 and completely

unnatural sounding utterances as 6.

Participants were told to rate the naturalness of the last sentence in light of the preceding

context. We stressed that naturalness should not be evaluated based on prescriptive grammar or

the participant’s opinion of Jane and Tom’s activities. Participants practiced rating naturalness

with five practice trials before the beginning of the experiment.

Randomly distributed throughout the experiment were ten comprehension questions.

4.3 Summary of Predictions

We expect that participants will find the (exh,con) condition to be the most natural, rating it

close to 1, and the (exh,noncon) condition to be the least natural, rating it close to 6. The

exhaustivity implicature should fail to arise in the (nonexh,exp,nreq) and (nonexh,nonexp,nreq)

conditions, so these should be rated significantly more natural than the (exh,noncon) condition,

but not significantly less natural than the (exh,con) condition. The exhaustivity implicature

should arise though in the (nonexh,exp,req) and (nonexh,nonexp,req) conditions so these should

21

be rated significantly less natural than the (exh,con) condition, but not significantly more natural

than the (exh,noncon) condition. In terms of naturalness then, the conditions should pattern:

29) PREDICTED RANKING:

(exh,con), (nonexh,exp,nreq), (nonexh,nonexp,nreq) <rated closer to 1

(nonexh,exp,req), (nonexh,nonexp,req), (exh,noncon)

4.4 Results

All 24 participants were at least 70% accurate on the comprehension questions, but one

participant accepted everything except one it-cleft and one filler as perfectly natural (score of 1).

(Her average rating, collapsing across all conditions, was 1.07, whereas the average rating of the

other participants was 2.42.) This one participant was excluded from the data because it was not

clear that she was sensitive to any of the experimental manipulations.

Figure 1 shows the participants’ average ratings for the six conditions. We first transformed

the raw responses into z-scores then conducted paired, two-tailed, Bonferroni corrected t-tests

(with α(.05)=.004) by subjects and by items to compare the conditions to each other. All

statistics are in Table 2. (In Table 2, shading indicates significance; due to Bonferroni correction,

p-values need to be .004 or less for significance.)

22

Figure 1: Results for Experiment 1a: the naturalness of it-clefts

(exh, con) = grammatical baseline; (exh, noncon) = ungrammatical baseline.

On the six-point scale, 1 = completely natural, 6 = completely unnatural.

The nonexhaustive it-clefts were compared to two baselines: the (exh,con) condition was the

baseline for acceptability and the (exh,noncon) condition was the baseline for unacceptability.

The baseline for acceptability was rated significantly better than the baseline for unacceptability

(see Table 2 for statistics).

Effect of Exhaustivity manipulation

The main finding of this study is that participants rated nonexhaustive it-clefts similar to the

baseline for acceptability, but significantly worse than the baseline for unacceptability. None of

the nonexhaustive conditions differed significantly from the grammatical (exh,con) condition,

but they were all rated more natural than the ungrammatical (exh,noncon) condition (see Table 2

for statistics). Participants did not find the nonexhaustive it-clefts to be unnatural.

Effect of Relevance manipulation

Somewhat surprisingly, the conditions in which a more informative statement should have

been relevant—(nonexh,exp,req) and (nonexh,nonexp,req)—were also judged to be more natural

1.97

3.23

2.27 2.39 2.31 2.35

11.5

22.5

33.5

44.5

55.5

6

Conditions

Exp. 1a: It-cleft ratings1= completely natural; 6= completely unnatural

23

than the ungrammatical (exh,noncon) condition (see Table 2 for statistics). Because the more

informative statement was required in these examples, an exhaustivity implicature should have

arisen, causing these examples to be rated unnatural.

Effect of the Explicit Alternatives manipulation

The final manipulation, explicitly listing alternatives to the clefted constituent versus implying

them as part of a category, did not seem to make any difference. There was no significant

difference in how natural the (nonexh,exp,nreq) and (nonexh,exp,req) conditions were perceived

versus the (nonexh,nonexp,nreq) and (nonexh,nonexp,req) conditions (see Table 2 for statistics).

Table 2: Statistical outcomes for Experiment 1a of Bonferroni corrected paired t-tests

*=Bonferroni significant (*)=Bonferroni marginal

Conditions By Subject By Item

*(exh,con) vs. (exh,noncon) *t1(22)=-5.28, p1<.004 *t2(29)=-7.702, p1<.004

(exh,con) vs. (nonexh,exp,nreq) t1(22)=-1.903, p1=.070 t2(29)=-2.110, p1=.043

(exh,con) vs. (nonexh,exp,req) t1(22)=-2.139, p1= .044 t2(29)=-2.276, p1= .030

(exh,con) vs. (nonexh,nonexp,nreq) t1(22)=-1.516, p1= .144 t2(29)=-1.947, p1=.061

(exh,con) vs. (nonexh,nonexp,req) t1(22)=-1.437, p1=.165 t2(29)=-1.537, p1=.135

*(exh,noncon) vs. (nonexh,exp,nreq) *t1(22)= 3.421, p1<.004 *t2(29)=6.321, p1<.004

*(exh,noncon) vs. (nonexh,exp,req) *t1(22)= 3.483, p1<.004 *t2(29)=4.600, p1<.004

*(exh,noncon) vs.

(nonexh,nonexp,nreq)

*t1(22)= 3.725, p1<.004 *t2(29)=4.548, p1<.004

*(exh,noncon) vs. (nonexh,nonexp,req) *t1(22)= 3.695, p1<.004 *t2(29)=5.332, p1<.004

(nonexh,exp,nreq) vs. (nonexh,exp,req) t1(22)= -0.689, p1=.498 t2(29)=-0.549, p1=.588

(nonexh,nonexp,nreq) vs.

(nonexh,nonexp,req)

t1(22)= 0.099, p1=.922 t2(29)=0.093, p1=.926

(nonexh,exp,nreq) vs.


t1(22)= -0.094, p1=.926 t2(29)=-0.090, p1=.929

(nonexh,exp,req) vs.

(nonexh,nonexp,req)

t1(22)= 0.485, p1=.632 t2(29)=0.482, p1=.633

24

4.5 Discussion

This study compared nonexhaustive it-clefts to two baseline conditions in order to investigate

whether participants would accept nonexhaustive clefts as natural. The acceptability baseline was

set by a fully canonical, exhaustive, contrastive cleft (exh,con), and the unacceptability baseline

was set by an exhaustive but noncontrastive it-cleft (exh,noncon). Since contrast is usually

considered a presupposition of the it-cleft, it was then possible to compare nonexhaustive it-

clefts to a different violation of a presupposition. If exhaustivity is a presupposition of the it-

cleft, we would expect that it is always present, and participants would find any violations of it to

be as unnatural as violating the presupposition of contrast. If, however, exhaustivity is a

conversational implicature of the it-cleft, we would expect that there are times when the

implicature doesn’t arise. Conditions (nonexh,exp,nreq) and (nonexh,nonexp,nreq) were

designed to be times when a more informative statement is not required, and so, if exhaustivity is

a conversational implicature, exhaustivity should not arise in these two conditions. We did

indeed find that participants judged (nonexh,exp,nreq) and (nonexh,nonexp,nreq) clefts to be

significantly more natural than (exh,noncon) clefts, and they did not judge them significantly

worse than the grammatical (exh,con) it-clefts. This is the major finding of this study: speakers

do not reject nonexhaustive clefts.

There are still, though, some open questions. The fully canonical (exh,con) condition was less

natural than one might expect while the awkward (exh,noncon) condition was only rated a 3.23

on a scale of 6 (where 1 = completely natural). There are many potential explanations for this

finding: it could be that the (exh,con) condition was rated less natural than expected because

speakers always consider it-clefts, as a marked structure, unnatural to an extent13. As for the

(exh,noncon) condition, it may have been rated more natural than expected because a third of the

fillers were also noncontrastive, and presenting the participants with so many noncontrastive it-

clefts and pseudoclefts may have primed the participants to accept noncontrastive clefts. It is also

possible that participants were occasionally accommodating an appropriate alternative, thereby

repairing the presupposition violation. As mentioned in the Materials section though, this just

makes it even more striking that the participants found the nonexhaustive it-clefts to be more

natural than the (exh, noncon) condition.14

25

An additional surprise is that exhaustivity should have arisen in the (nonexh,exp,req) and

(nonexh,nonexp,req) conditions, causing them to be unnatural, but instead these conditions

patterned the same as their not required counterparts: they were rated significantly more natural

than the unacceptable (exh,noncon) condition and not significantly less natural than the

acceptable (exh,con) condition. This could be taken as further evidence that exhaustivity, unlike

contrastiveness, is a conversational implicature; just like in the Drenhaus et al (2011) study

where participants were more comfortable violating the exhaustivity of German it-clefts than the

exhaustivity asserted by only, participants in Experiment 1a didn’t find violating exhaustivity,

even when it did arise, to be as unnatural as violating the presupposition of contrastiveness.

Another possibility is that rating tasks are inherently difficult tasks for participants and so it

could be the case that the differences between the required and not required conditions weren’t

big enough for the task to perceive.

There is, however, still one possible reason for concern in Experiment 1a. The materials in this

experiment left open a potential interpretation that Jane’s nonexhaustive response to Kevin is not

about the events listed in the first sentence. For instance, it is possible to interpret the items such

that Tom painted a chair, a desk, and a table last week, and so when Jane asserts “Yesterday, it

was a chair that he painted” or “Yesterday, he painted a chair,” she is in fact referring back to a

different event (the one yesterday instead of the one last week) in which Tom only painted a

chair15. Under this interpretation, Jane’s statement is still exhaustive. Concern that participants

may have been using this interpretation motivated Experiment 1b16.

5. Experiment 1b: It-clefts can still be nonexhaustive

Experiment 1b controlled the items more carefully so that Jane’s response had to be referring to

the events listed in the context. In this way, we can more clearly probe whether participants are

indeed willing to accept nonexhaustive it-clefts.

6.1 Design

6.1.1 Participants

Twenty-eight University of Southern California students participated in exchange for course

credit. None of them had been participants in Experiment 1a.

26

6.1.2 Materials and Procedure

Experiment 1b did not manipulate whether the alternatives to the clefted constituent were

explicitly listed or implied since this manipulation had not had an effect in Experiment 1a. The

alternatives to the clefted constituent were always explicitly listed. The conditions in Experiment

1b were: (i) the canonical, exhaustive, contrastive it-cleft that is the baseline for acceptability; (ii)

the exhaustive, noncontrastive it-cleft that is the baseline for unacceptability; (iii) the

nonexhaustive it-cleft in a context where listing alternatives is not required; and (iv) the

nonexhaustive it-cleft in a context where listing alternatives is required. The materials and the

sound files were exactly the same as in Experiment 1a, expect that there were only 28 items so

that the conditions were balanced evenly across all four lists. As in Experiment 1a, the contexts

were written, and the final sentence was presented auditorily. The final sentence was the same

sound file for the different versions of one item.

The fillers for Experiment 1b were exactly the same as those in Experiment 1a. The procedure

was likewise identical, except that the number of comprehension questions was increased to 12.

Condition 1: Exhaustive, Contrastive (exh, con): baseline for acceptability

30) Yesterday, when Jane and Tom painted furniture, Tom painted a chair.



painted.”

Condition 2: Exhaustive, Noncontrastive (exh, noncon): baseline for unacceptability

31) Yesterday, when Jane and Tom painted furniture, Tom painted a chair.


Jane responds: “Yes. Yesterday, it was a chair that he painted.”

Condition 3: Nonexhaustive, All Alternatives Not Required (nonexh, nreq): acceptable

32) Yesterday, when Jane and Tom painted furniture, Tom painted a chair, a desk, and a

table.


27


painted.”

Condition 4: Nonexhaustive, All Alternatives Required (nonexh, req): unacceptable

33) Yesterday, when Jane and Tom painted furniture, Tom painted a chair, a desk, and a

table.



6.2 Results

All participants answered at least 9 of the 12 comprehension questions correctly so no

participants were removed. (One item had to be removed from the analysis because it did not

appear in all conditions due to experimenter error.) Figure 2 shows the participants’ average

ratings for the four different conditions. As in Experiment 1a, we first transformed the raw

responses into z-scores then conducted paired, two-tailed, Bonferroni corrected t-tests (with

α(.05)=.008) by subjects and by items to compare the conditions to each other. All statistics are

in Table 3. (Shading indicates significance; due to Bonferroni correction, p-values need to be

.008 or less for significance.)

28

Figure 2: Results for Experiment 1b: the naturalness of it-clefts



Like in Experiment 1a, the (exh,con) condition was used as a baseline for acceptability and the

(exh,noncon) condition was used as a baseline for unacceptability. The (exh, con) condition was

rated to be more natural than the (exh, noncon) condition (see Table 3 for statistics).


The most important pattern from Experiment 1a was also found in Experiment 1b: speakers

found that the nonexhaustive conditions where a scalar implicature should not arise (nonexh,

nreq) was more natural than the noncontrastive condition, but it did not differ significantly from

the acceptable baseline condition (exh,con) (see Table 3 for statistics). Experiment 1b then

confirms that the results from Experiment 1a were not because participants interpreted Jane’s it-

cleft to be about a different event than occurred in the context, but, rather, they are able to accept

nonexhaustive it-clefts.

Effect of [Required] manipulation

Experiment 1b additionally shows that the nonexhaustive cleft in a context where a scalar

implicature should not arise (nonexh, nreq) is more natural than the nonexhaustive cleft in a

2.61

3.252.85 3.01

11.5

22.5

33.5

44.5

55.5

6

exh, con exh, noncon nonexh, nreq nonexh, req

Conditions

Exp. 1b: It-cleft Ratings1= completely natural; 6= completely unnatural

29

context where a scalar implicature should arise (nonexh, req). While the [required] condition did

not differ significantly from the [not required] condition, the [required] condition was

significantly worse than the baseline for acceptability (exh, con), but did not differ significantly

from the baseline for unacceptability (exh, noncon) (see Table 3 for statistics). This is the exact

opposite of the pattern for the [not required] condition and means that participants only find the

nonexhaustive it-clefts acceptable when a scalar implicature does not arise. This is evidence not

just that exhaustivity in it-clefts is an implicature, but specifically that exhaustivity is the result

of a scalar implicature.

In general, the results of Experiment 1b confirm the results of Experiment 1a.

Table 3: Statistical outcomes for Experiment 1b of paired t-tests


Condition 3 By subject By item


(exh,con) vs. (nonexh,nreq) t1(27)=-2.451, p1=.021 t2(26)=-2.543, p2=.017

*(exh,con) vs. (nonexh,req) *t1(27)=-3.703, p1<.008 *t2(26)=-3.654, p2<.008

(*)(exh,noncon) vs. (nonexh,nreq) (*)t1(27)=2.741, p1=.011 *t2(26)=4.006, p2<.008

(exh,noncon) vs. (nonexh,req) t1(27)=1.368, p1=.183 t2(26)=2.198, p2=.037

(nonexh,nreq) vs. (nonexh,req) (*)t1(27)=-2.688, p1=.012 t2(26)=-1.826, p2=.079

6.3 Discussion

Experiment 1b was intended to replicate the results of Experiment 1a when the items were

more tightly controlled so that Jane’s last remark—the critical it-cleft—had to be referring to the

events in the first sentence. There were concerns in Experiment 1a that participants might have

been ‘repairing’ the nonexhaustive clefts. For instance, in (ex. 25), the participants may have

been accommodating that Tom painted three items (a table, a desk, and a chair) last week, but

yesterday, he only painted one (a chair) so that the target it-cleft was still exhaustive. The items

used in Experiment 1b prohibited this possible interpretation and showed that the results of

Experiment 1a are replicable. As in Experiment 1a, nonexhaustive it-clefts were found to be as

natural as canonical, exhaustive it-clefts but worse than the noncontrastive it-clefts. Furthermore,

30

this result was only found for the nonexhaustive it-clefts in a context where a scalar implicature

should not arise. If a scalar implicature was expected (nonexh, req), then the nonexhaustive it-

cleft was found to be worse than the canonical, exhaustive it-cleft, but did not differ from the

unacceptable, noncontrastive it-cleft. These are the results we would expect if the exhaustivity of

an it-cleft is the result of scalar implicature; nonexhaustivity shouldn’t arise when a scalar

implicature is unexpected.

The results in Experiment 1a, namely the lack of difference between the [required] and the [not

required] conditions, may have been the result of the experimental paradigm instead. In order to

investigate this possibility, we performed a third study on a related phenomenon: in-situ

contrastive focus.

6. Experiment 2: In-situ contrastive focus can be nonexhaustive

In-situ contrastive focus can appear in the same contexts as an it-cleft and, like it-clefts, it

presupposes contrast, but, unlike it-clefts, it is almost always considered to be nonexhaustive (É

Kiss 1998, 2007; Rooth 1985, 1992; von Stechow 1981; Krifka 2001, among others).

Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1a in every way except that the last sentence of each

item, instead of being an it-cleft, contained an in-situ contrastive focus. If Experiment 2 shows

the same patterns as Experiment 1a, then it can be said that Experiment 1a does show that

exhaustivity can fail to arise in it-clefts, and the lack of difference between the [required] and

[not required] conditions was a result of the experimental paradigm.

5.1 Design

5.1.1 Participants

Twenty-four University of Southern California students participated in exchange for $5. None

of them had been participants in Experiments 1a or 1b.

5.1.2 Materials and Procedure

Experiment 2 had the same six conditions as Experiment 1a, and all of the target items were

identical except that the clefted constituent from Experiment 1a appeared in-situ with a

contrastive focus intonation in Experiment 2. Like in Experiments 1a and 1b, the contexts were

31

written, and the final sentence was presented auditorily. The final sentence was the same sound

file for all conditions.

The fillers for Experiment 2 were exactly the same as those in Experiments 1a and 1b. The

procedure was likewise identical. There were ten comprehension questions, as in Experiment 1a.

Condition 1: Exhaustive, Contrastive (exh, con): baseline for acceptability

34) Jane and Tom painted furniture. Tom painted a chair.


Jane responds: “He doesn’t always paint lamps. Yesterday, he painted a chair.”

Condition 2: Exhaustive, Noncontrastive (exh, noncon): baseline for unacceptability

35) Jane and Tom painted furniture. Tom painted a chair.


Jane responds: “Yes. Yesterday, he painted a chair.”

Condition 3: Nonexhaustive, Explicit, All Alternatives Not Required (nonexh, exp, nreq):

acceptable

36) Jane and Tom painted furniture. Tom painted a chair, a desk, and a table.



Condition 4: Nonexhaustive, Explicit, All Alternatives Required (nonexh, exp, req): unacceptable

37) Jane and Tom painted furniture. Tom painted a chair, a desk, and a table.


Jane responds: “No, he didn’t. Yesterday, he painted a chair.”

Condition 5: Nonexhaustive, Implicit, All Alternatives Not Required (nonexh, nonexp, nreq):

acceptable

38) Jane and Tom painted furniture. Tom painted a variety of furniture.


32


Condition 6: Nonexhaustive, Implicit, All Alternatives Required (nonexh, nonexp, req):

unacceptable

39) Jane and Tom painted furniture. Tom painted a variety of furniture.


Jane responds: “No, he didn’t. Yesterday, he painted a chair.”

5.1.2.1 Intonation of Items

The object in each critical sentence was pronounced with a contrastive intonation. The average

pitch rise (ending pitch – starting pitch17) was 122.83 Hz, with a maximum rise of 166.34 Hz and

a minimum of 81.09 Hz.

5.1.3 Predictions

If it is the case that it-clefts are indeed not exhaustive, we predict that Experiment 2 should

find the same pattern of results as in Experiments 1a and 1b. This is because in-situ focus is

known to not be structurally exhaustive (É Kiss 1998, 2007; Rooth 1985, 1992; von Stechow

1981; Krifka 2001, among others). Thus, we expect that a) (exh,con) should be the most natural

condition; b) (exh,noncon) should be the least natural condition; and c) the nonexhaustive

conditions should differ significantly from the (exh,noncon) condition but not from the (exh,con)

condition.

5.2 Results

All participants answered at least 7 of the 10 comprehension questions correctly, and so no

participants were excluded. Figure 3 shows the participants’ average ratings for the six different

conditions. We first transformed the raw responses into z-scores then conducted paired, two-

tailed, Bonferroni corrected t-tests (with α(.05)=.004) by subjects and by items to compare the

conditions to each other. All statistics are in Table 4. (Shading indicates significance; due to

Bonferroni correction, p-values need to be .004 or less for significance.)

33

Figure 3: Results for Experiment 2: the naturalness of in-situ contrastive focus



Like in Experiments 1a and 1b, the (exh,con) condition was used as a baseline for acceptability

and the (exh,noncon) condition was used as a baseline for unacceptability. The (exh, con)

condition was rated to be significantly more natural than the (exh, noncon) condition (see Table

4 for statistics).


The most important pattern from Experiments 1a and 1b was also found in Experiment 2:

speakers found all of the nonexhaustive conditions to be more natural than the noncontrastive

condition, but they did not differ significantly from the acceptable baseline condition (exh,con)

(see Table 4 for statistics). Just like it-clefts then, participants did not find nonexhaustive in-situ

contrastive focus to be unnatural.

Effect of [Required] manipulation

A surprising result in Experiment 1a was that participants did not rate nonexhaustive it-clefts

significantly less natural when the context required that all of the alternatives be listed (nonexh,

1.61

3.14

1.571.78 1.89 1.93

11.5

22.5

33.5

44.5

55.5

6

Conditions

Exp. 2: In-situ Contrastive Focus Ratings1= completely natural; 6= completely unnatural

34

req) versus when the context allowed for only one alternative being mentioned (nonexh, nreq). If

the exhaustivity of the it-cleft is indeed a conversational implicature, we would expect that only

those nonexhaustive clefts in a context that does not require a more informative statement should

be rated as natural. However, Experiment 2, for which we know that exhaustivity is a

conversational implicature, shows the same pattern (see Table 4 for statistics). It can, therefore,

be said that the lack of difference between the [required] and [not required] conditions in

Experiment 1a does not indicate that exhaustivity is structural. The fact that the [required]

conditions did, in fact, differ from the [not required] conditions in Experiment 1b further

supports this.

Effect of Explicit Alternatives manipulation

Like in Experiment 1a, whether the alternatives were listed explicitly or implied as part of a

category did not make a difference (see Table 4 for statistics).

In all then, the results of Experiment 2 confirm the results of Experiments 1a and 1b.

Table 4: Statistical outcomes for Experiment 2 of Bonferroni corrected paired t-tests


Condition 2 By subject By item


(exh,con) vs. (nonexh,exp,nreq) t1(23)=-0.213, p1=.833 t2(23)=-0.313, p2=.757

(exh,con) vs. (nonexh,exp,req) t1(23)=-1.935, p1=.065 t2(23)=-2.078, p2=.047

(exh,con) vs. (nonexh,nonexp,nreq) t1(23)=-2.413, p1=.024 (*)t2(23)=-2.955, p2=.006

(exh,con) vs. (nonexh,nonexp,req) t1(23)=-1.698, p1=.103 t2(23)=-2.251, p2=.032

*(exh,noncon) vs. (nonexh,exp,nreq) *t1(23)=6.030, p1<.004 *t2(23)=12.474, p2<.004

*(exh,noncon) vs. (nonexh,exp,req) *t1(23)=5.426, p1<.004 *t2(23)=9.403, p2<.004

*(exh,noncon) vs.


*t1(23)=4.391, p1<.004 *t2(23)=7.827, p2<.004

*(exh,noncon) vs.

(nonexh,nonexp,req)

*t1(23)=3.532, p1<.004 *t2(23)=7.638, p2<.004

35


(nonexh,exp,req)

t1(23)=-1.348, p1=.191 t2(23)=-1.682, p2=.103

(nonexh,nonexp,nreq) vs.

(nonexh,nonexp,req)

t1(23)=0.077, p1=.939 t2(23)=0.084, p2=.934



t1(23)=-2.391, p1=.025 t2(23)=-2.397, p2=.023

(nonexh,exp,req) vs.

(nonexh,nonexp,req)

t1(23)=-0.678, p1=.505 t2(23)=-1.002, p2=.325

5.3 Discussion

In Experiment 2, nonexhaustive in-situ focus was more natural than noncontrastive focus. This

is evidence that exhaustivity for in-situ focus is not a presupposition or assertion of the structure,

but more likely, as is commonly assumed in the literature, arises as a result of a conversational

implicature such as the one outlined in Section 3. Experiment 2 replicated the results of

Experiment 1a, including the lack of difference between the [required] and the [not required]

conditions. In light of the fact that Experiment 1b did, in fact, find a difference between the

[required] and [not required] conditions, it is therefore likely that the lack of result in Experiment

1a was due to the experimental paradigm, and that the exhaustivity of the it-cleft can be said to

arise in the same manner as the exhaustivity of in-situ contrastive focus: as the result of a

conversational implicature.

7. General Discussion

Experiments 1a and 1b were designed to show that there are cases when exhaustivity fails to

arise in it-clefts, suggesting that exhaustivity is a conversational implicature of the English it-

cleft. Experiment 2 was designed to confirm the results of Experiment 1a with a structure known

to be structurally nonexhaustive. Experiment 2 showed the same pattern for nonexhaustive in-

situ focus (with explicitly listed alternatives) as Experiments 1a and 1b: in all experiments, the

nonexhaustive conditions were more natural than the unacceptable noncontrastive condition, but

not significantly less natural than the acceptable (exh,con) condition. Whatever the source is of

the exhaustivity intuition in in-situ contrastive focus then, it is likely the same for the it-cleft.

36

This is important because in-situ contrastive focus is not usually considered to be structurally

exhaustive. This suggests strongly that the exhaustivity of it-clefts is also nonstructural.

There is further evidence in the [required] conditions that exhaustivity is nonstructural. In

Experiments 1a and 1b, the [required] conditions were rated as more natural than the

ungrammatical (exh,noncon) baseline condition. At first glance, this seems to argue against the

implicature analysis in Section 3, because when a more informative statement is required,

exhaustivity should arise. However, contrastiveness is a part of the structure of an it-cleft and an

in-situ contrastive focus, and it is more unnatural to violate a structural requirement than it is to

violate an implicature. This is the result we see: violating the exhaustivity implicature that arises

in conditions (nonexh,exp,req) and (nonexh,nonexp,req) is more natural than violating the

structural requirement for contrastiveness of condition (exh,noncon).

Somewhat harder to explain is that the [required] conditions did not differ from their [not

required] counterparts, but this could be a result of the complexity of the task. Judgment tasks are

well known to be difficult for participants, and this one asked the participants to take into

account many very subtle differences in the contexts of the target sentences. Experiment 1b

provides evidence that there is in fact a difference between the [required] and the [nonrequired]

conditions: in this experiment, the [required] nonexhaustive it-clefts were rated better than the

noncontrastive it-clefts, but the [nonrequired] it-clefts were rated as worse than the canonical,

exhaustive, contrastive it-clefts. Experiment 1b, because it had only four conditions, had more

power than Experiments 1a and 2. The lack of result between the [required] and [nonrequired]

conditions is most likely a result of task sensitivity.

Overall, Experiments 1a, 1b, and 2 show that nonexhaustive it-clefts are not perceived as being

unnatural, but rather seem to pattern more like fully canonical, exhaustive it-clefts. They support

analyzing the exhaustivity of the English it-cleft (and in-situ contrastive focus as well) as a

conversational implicature arising from the maxims of Quantity and Quality.

Corroborating these results are natural language examples of nonexhaustive it-clefts, such as

examples (40) and (41) found in a corpus of Twitter data (courtesy of Dirk Hovy and the Natural

Language Group at the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute). The

most common examples of non-exhaustive it-clefts are the so-called information-presupposition

clefts (Prince 1978) (ex 42). Frequently, these are put on the side as requiring a separate analysis,

37

but if exhaustivity is nonstructural, then this isn’t necessary, and these nonexhaustive it-clefts

can be given the same structure as the exhaustive it-clefts they so closely resemble.

40) It was the headline that got to me, that and being tired/cranky ;D (Twitter corpus)

41) It was the music that we enjoyed -- the fireworks and the Overture is awesome too!

(Twitter corpus)

42) It was only a few years ago that an up-and-coming member of the House Democratic

leadership pointed to a cozy arrangement in the Republican-written Medicare

prescription-drug program as a symptom of everything wrong with Washington.

Tumulty, Karen. “PhRMA Deal Puts Obama, Congressional Dems at

Odds.” Time.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1915139,00.html

(Aug. 7, 2009): Feb. 25, 2010.

8. Conclusion

The exhaustivity of the it-cleft does not need to be derived from the syntactic/semantic

structure of the it-cleft, but can, in fact, be derived as a conversational implicature, arising from

the interaction between the maxims of Quality and Quantity.

When the conversation does not require a more informative statement, then the it-cleft can be

interpreted as nonexhaustive. Experiments 1a and 1b provided evidence of this. Nonexhaustive

it-clefts were not rated as unacceptable, but instead patterned with the canonical, grammatical

exhaustive it-cleft. Experiment 2 confirmed the results of Experiments 1a and 1b, showing that

participants reacted to insitu focus, commonly supposed to be nonexhaustive, the same way as

they reacted to it-clefts.

Of course, there are still many mysteries to be investigated, first and foremost the incredible

strength of the exhaustivity intuition for the it-cleft that drove Horn (1981) to assert that it could

not be canceled18. He suggests that the markedness of the structure is responsible, but there is

not, so far, any specific evidence for this.

Despite these difficulties, though, it still remains that a nonstructural approach covers more of

the available data. For instance, it neatly explains why exhaustivity fails to arise in downward

38

entailing environments and allows all types of it-clefts to be analyzed in the same fashion. We

conclude then that the exhaustivity of the it-cleft is best described as a conversational

implicature.

39

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* The authors would like to thank audience members at the Questions in Discourse workshop (held at Universität

Göttingen in September 2014), especially David Beaver, Joseph DeVeaugh-Geiss, Manuel Kriz and Anna Szabolcsi,

for their helpful comments and suggestions. Experiments 1a and 2 were conducted as part of Byram Washburn’s

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Kaiser and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta.

1 Labeling this relative clause is just a matter of convenience. This paper remains neutral about the syntactic details

of the it-cleft.

43

2 Wedgwood (2005) uses Hungarian examples such as these, where among others is included in the preverbal focus

position, to show that the Hungarian preverbal focus position is not semantically exhaustive. É Kiss (2010) refutes

the usefulness of an example such as this, claiming that all it does is extend the scope of focus to include among

others. In other words, the meaning of (2) would be roughly that nobody except Lansdale and the other people

indicated by as much as anyone established Diem in power. We wish to observe that Lansdale as much as anyone, if

it is available as the scope of focus in an it-cleft, is not available as the scope of focus when associating with only,

although it is able to associate with the nonexhaustive also.

i. *Diem was only established by Lansdale, as much as anyone.

ii. Diem was also established by Lansdale, as much as anyone.

3 Kiss 1998, 248: “The identificational focus expresses exhaustive identification; information focus merely marks

the non-presupposed nature of the information it carries.”

4 This analysis is taken from Matsumoto (1995) (who is in turn following Horn (1972, 1989)), but it is not intended

as an endorsement of the Informativity Scale view of scalar implicature, and the concerned reader should note that

the experimental items that follow are compatible with multiple ways of deriving a scalar implicature.

5 While informativity is, by far, the most common mechanism for ordering a Horn scale, it should be noted that other

types of relationships (ex: military rankings) will create implicatures. For example, the utterance A private must

salute a major implicates that a private must also salute a general. (Hirschberg 1985, Horn 1989, Matsumoto 1995)

6 This explanation is Matsumoto (1995)'s Conversational Condition:

The choice of W instead of S must not be attributed to the observance of any information-selecting Maxim

of Conversation other than the Quality Maxims and the Quantity-1 Maxim (i.e. the Maxims of Quantity-2,

Relation, and Obscurity Avoidance, etc.)

(Matsumoto 1995, pg. 25)

7 The context set is referred to as ‘salient’ in order to emphasize that the clefted constituent is not chosen from all

items in the world, but only from those items that are understood by the speaker and hearer to be relevant or

plausible. For instance, in the example below, the context set of the clefted constituent only includes shoes that are

likely to be worn to prom and probably excludes hiking boots and sneakers.

i) Jane went shopping for shoes for prom yesterday. It was a pair of flats that she eventually bought.

The requirement of saliency is very common, if not universal. For instance, if a teacher uttered (ii), he/she is not

asking for a list of all people in the world who are currently talking, but just for the list of people who are currently

talking in his/her classroom. Only the people currently in the classroom are a relevant/plausible/salient answer to

the question.

ii) Who is talking?

44

8 An immediately apparent problem is the symmetry problem first identified in von Fintel and Heim (1999): both β

and β’ are more informative than α so when a speaker utters α, a hearer should be led to believe that both β and β’

are false. However, note that α and β are both upward entailing while β’ is neither upward or downward entailing

(as shown in (i)). Since Horn scales must be uniformly monotone, this means that α and β can be on the same

informativity scale while α and β’ cannot.

i. Q:{x: Tom painted x yesterday morning} P:{x: Tom painted x yesterday}

It was a chair and nothing else (from β'): neither upward nor downward entailing (neither the larger nor the

smaller set entails the other)

P: It was a chair and nothing else that Tom painted yesterday morning > Q: It was a chair and nothing else

that Tom painted yesterday. (He might have painted other stuff in the afternoon.)

Q: It was a chair and nothing else that Tom painted yesterday > P: It was a chair and nothing else that

Tom painted yesterday morning. (He could have painted the chair in the afternoon.)

9 There are numerous experiments showing that the L+H* pitch contour used to mark focused constituents,

including the clefted constituent, throughout this experiment invokes alternatives as would be predicted by a theory

such as Alternative Semantics (Rooth 1992). For example: Braun and Tagliapietra (2010), Byram Washburn

(2013), C. Kim et al (2008, 2015), Gotzner et al (2016), Husband and Ferreirra (2015).

10 This is justified by making the uncontroversial claim that the clefted constituent is focused/is a kontrast/receives

identificational focus, but it should be noted that some theories of focus deny alternatives/contrast entirely: for

example, Schwarzschild (1999)’s theory of Givenness. These theories then, while not saying anything specifically

about clefts, might potentially take some issue with the generalization here.

11 An anonymous reviewer observes that the word again in Kevin’s remark (I bet Tom painted only a chair again,

didn’t he?) might help establish that there is no suitable alternative in the context. It seems that Tom painted a chair

is the only alternative Kevin would be willing to consider.

12 If the stressed syllable began or ended with a stop or an unvoiced sound then the closest preceding pitch was used

as the starting or ending pitch.

13 Another possibility is that these it-clefts were always contradicting assertions. Destruel and Velleman (2014)

showed persuasively that it-clefts are most acceptable when contradicting nonasserted parts of the discourse. This

experiment was run before their paper was published, but a future version of this experiment might use their insights

to create more acceptable materials.

14 An anonymous reviewer observes that the participants may also have been accommodating an implicit indeed, as

in “Yesterday, it was indeed a chair that Tom painted.”

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15 This interpretation might have been particularly available if the word yesterday had been contrastively accented so

we would like to emphasize that yesterday was not pitch accented in any of the materials for Experiment 1a. We ran

a small perception study with four participants to check this. The materials for the perception study were the same as

those in Experiment 1a, except that there were no contexts given, and five of the fillers were rerecorded with an

L+H* accent on yesterday. The participants were asked to listen to the sentences then type which words, if any, they

felt had been emphasized. Out of 112 tokens, the participants only said that yesterday was emphasized twice

(99.98% in favor of yesterday not being emphasized), and the two instances of saying that yesterday was

emphasized were on different items. This is despite the fact that the participants were 99.95% accurate in identifying

that yesterday was pitch accented in the five fillers we had rerecorded. This small study shows that yesterday did not

have the proper prosody to be contrastively accented in the items used in Experiment 1b.

16 We thank audience members at the Questions in Discourse workshop (held at Universität Göttingen as part of the

‘Exhaustiveness In It-Clefts’ project) and an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this potential problem;

Experiment 1b addresses this concern.

17 Just like in Experiments 1a and 1b, if the object began or ended with a stop or an unvoiced sound, then the nearest

preceding pitch was used as the starting or ending pitch.

18 Though the strength of exhaustivity in the it-cleft does still remain a mystery, Destruel (2012) observes that

exhaustivity can be canceled if there are two speakers:

i. A. It was a pizza that Mary ate.

B. Indeed, it was a pizza and a calzone.

university of southern california · the information structure differences between the cleft types...

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