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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdccs6!ix652
From: ix652@sdccs6.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: redundancy in language and mis-pronunciations
Message-ID: <1223@sdccs6.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 3-Dec-83 13:46:03 EST
Article-I.D.: sdccs6.1223
Posted: Sat Dec  3 13:46:03 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Dec-83 22:46:58 EST
References: <1834@fortune.UUCP>, <4085@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: U.C. San Diego, Computer Center
Lines: 30

The construction:

        What this computer does is sort records

is an example of what Higgins (1979) called a pseudo-cleft
construction. 

He analysed these constructions as specifying a value or a set
of values for a variable.  Thus in the example above, the variable
is "what this computer does", and the value is "sort records".

Rather than being equivalent in meaning to their non-clefted counterparts,
pseudo-clefts tend to have an "exhaustiveness implication" associated
with them.  Thus

        What I saw on the table was John's apple and Bob's orange

has as an implication that I only saw 2 things on the table.  Not so
for the non-clefted

        I saw Johns's apple and Bob's orange on the table.

Finally, pseudo-clefts can often be confused with the superficially
similar free relative construction:

Pseudo-cleft	What John is is important to himself.

Free Relative	What John is is important to him.

For more, see Higgins "the pseudo-cleft construction in English"