1. Contrast in cleft sentences Emilie Destruel (project in collaboration with Dan Velleman, UT Austin) emilie-johnson@uiowa.edu University of Iowa Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt 01/21/2014

2. Goals for today 1.O FFER background on the notions of focus and contrast, 1.M OTIVATE the present study, 1.P ROVIDE empirical evidence for the felicity of the English it- cleft, 1.R EFINE the notion of contrast in discourse-semantics terms, 1.E XPLORE cross-linguistics implications. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 2

3. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 3

4. What is focus? Universal category of information structure (Krifka 2008) Focus evokes a set of alternative propositions which the speaker takes to be salient (Rooth 1992) (1)Q: Who likes Sue? A: [Mary] F likes Sue (alternatives: [Jane] F likes Sue, [Peter] F likes Sue, etc.) A: * Mary likes [Sue] F Focus does not have to be “new”, but must be unpredictable (not yet in the common ground). (Beaver & Velleman 2011) (2)Gary, Larry, Harry, Barry and Mary all showed up at the party. And you won't believe who got the drunkest. It was_____ ! Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 4

5. Two types of focus Informational focus (3)Q: Who is chewing tobacco? A: [John] F is chewing tobacco. Identificational focus Associated with a semantically stronger interpretation:  Exhaustive  Contrastive  Corrective  Verum (4) S1: Last Halloween, John went as Batman. S2: No, John went as [Spiderman] F. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 5

6. How is focus realized? Different across languages (Büring 2008) (5)Q: Who is chewing tobacco? A: JOHN is chewing tobacco English A: C’est Jean qui mâche du tabacFrench A: Está masticando tabaco JuanSpanish Identificational focus must be realized in a special position, via more marked strategy (Kiss 1998) (6) A: It’s John who is chewing tobacco it-cleft Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 6

7. The English it-cleft (7)It’s John who is chewing tobacco. Associated with an exhaustive inference (a) and/or contrast (b) (a) Nobody other than John is chewing tobacco. (b) John as opposed to, for example Mary, is chewing tobacco. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 7

8. Contrast Previously understood on the basis of semantic terms: Exclusion of alternatives (Kiss 1998) Presence of an explicit antecedent focal alternative (Rooth 1992; Schwarschild 1999) Account for why clefts are good as corrections but sound odd as direct answers to explicit wh-questions. … but some facts remain unexplained. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 8

9. Motivation for the current study In contexts where the speaker provides a complete, exhaustive answer, the it-cleft is not always produced. In contexts in which an antecedent is available, speakers may nevertheless choose not to use an it- cleft. (8)S1:Darren sounded really excited about his vacation. I think he’s going to Canada. S2a: Actually, he’s going to Mexico. S2b: ? Actually, it’s Mexico that he’s going to. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 9

10. So … Exhaustivity and presence of a focal antecedent may be necessary conditions, but we think they are not sufficient to explain the natural use of the cleft in English … Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 10 What more is needed ?

11. Specific research questions Under which conditions are it-clefts actually produced in English? What factors are relevant for their felicity? How can the notion of contrast be refined to reflect these factors? What might this mean for the bigger cross-linguistic picture? Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 11

12. Our proposal Broaden the notion of contrast to include two features: L INGUISTIC : Rooth-style contrast with a prejacent proposition.  Makes clefts more felicitous.  Directly promotes cleft production. M ETALINGUISTIC : Conflict with hearer’s expectations.  Takes the discourse in an unexpected direction.  Makes canonical sentences less felicitous, which indirectly promotes cleft production. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 12

13. Roadmap 1.Evidence from a production study 2.Evidence from a rating study 1.Discussion 2.Implications for cross-linguistics data & Direction for future work Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 13

14. PRODUCTION STUDY: THE CONTRA-PRESUPPOSITIONAL USE OF CLEFTS Experiment 1 Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 14

15. Goal of the study A practical goal: how to elicit felicitous it-clefts? An observation: natural English it-clefts often seem to be counter-presuppositional … not informational. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 15

16. Counter-presuppositional context: Your friend says: We were planning Amy's surprise party for weeks. I can't believe someone ruined the surprise. Do you have any idea why Alice told her about it? Correction: Ken. You say: __________________________________ Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 16

17. Informational context: Your friend says: We were planning Amy's surprise party for weeks. I can't believe someone ruined the surprise. Who told her about it? Answer: Ken. You say: ___________________________ Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 17

18. Prediction  Counter-presuppositional contexts will elicit clefts where informational contexts did not. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 18

19. Methodology 2 x 2 design: context (informational/ counter-presuppositional) grammatical function of element in the answer (subject/ object). 15 native English speakers (UT undergraduates). 5 lexicalizations created per context. 2 versions of the written questionnaire. Each participant saw a total of 10 experimental stimuli + 5 fillers. Collected 150 sentences. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 19

20. Results (raw numbers) Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 20

21. Difference in distribution of sentence form across both contexts is highly significant. (χ 2 (1) = 36.24, p<0.01) The odds of using a cleft is 13.1 times higher given the counter-presuppositional context than the informational context. Difference in distribution of sentence form in informational context is highly significant. (z = 7.27, p<0.01) Difference in distribution of sentence form in counter- presuppositional context is not highly significant. (z = - 0.57, p=0.5) Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 21

22. Interim discussion It-clefts are actually produced, mostly to offer a correction to a presupposition. They do make really bad direct answers. While clefts are clearly contrastive, clefting is not the only strategy available to speakers. Canonicals (with prosodic prominence) are also produced.  So, what makes a cleft a better alternative? Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 22

23. RATING STUDY: DEGREE OF BELIEF OR DEGREE OF AT-ISSUENESS? Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 23 Experiment 2

24. The intuition behind this study… The production study can only tell us so much about the cleft’s use. Question: what difference actually matters between the informational & counter-presuppositional contexts? Intuition: cleft is doing more than just linguistic contrast... Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 24

25. The cleft seems increasingly better when the speaker’s expectations are expressed more strongly, and the conflict with hearer’s expectations intensifies. (related to Zimmerman 2008, 2011)  Two types of expectations seem important: Expectations about the world (Strength of belief) Expectations about the discourse (At-issueness) Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 25

26. Strength of belief Expectations involving speaker’s beliefs about the world (common ground) … expressed as assertions or presuppositions. Gradient notion: “no overt belief” “weak belief” “strong belief” More strongly expressed beliefs lead to stronger conflict between interlocutors. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 26

27. At-issueness Expectations the speaker has about the direction in which discourse is progressing… … expressed by marking (part of) the proposition as: At-issue: asserted content. “The main point of the utterance” Non-at-issue: presupposed content. “propositions which the sentences are not primarily about” (Simons et al. 2010, Tonhauser 2012, Tonhauser et al. 2013) Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 27

28. Hypothesis Both factors Strength of belief and At-issueness play a role in the felicity of the it-cleft: clefts will become increasingly felicitous as strength of belief increases, and vice-versa for canonicals. clefts will become increasingly felicitous when the proposition corrected is not-at-issue, and vice-versa for canonicals. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 28

29. Stimuli Contexts: “This bean dip is fantastic. I really want the recipe... …Who made it ?” Informational …I guess maybe Shannon made it.” At-issue weak belief …Shannon made it.” At-issue strong belief …I can’t believe Shannon made it.” Counter-presuppositional Responses to rate: Actually, Tim made it. Canonical Actually, it was Tim who made it. It-Cleft Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 29

30. Methodology Felicity judgment task on 1-5 point likert scale: 1- not natural at all, I would never say this. 3- sounds natural, I would sometimes say this. 5- extremely natural, exactly how I would say this. 12 native English speakers (undergraduates at St Edwards University). 5 lexicalizations created per context. Each participant saw a total of 20 experimental stimuli (5 in each context). Collected a total of 240 ratings. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 30

31. Results (raw numbers, collapsed for GF) Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 31

32. Ratings of canonicals by context (based on 240 observations) Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 32

33. Ratings of it-clefts by context (based on 240 observations) Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 33

34. For clefts: ANOVA shows a significant effect of context on rating (p<0.001). Tukey’s HSD test shows significant differences between: Informational and low contrast (p=0.015) Informational and strong contrast (p<0.001) Informational and counter-presuppositional (p<0.001) For canonicals: ANOVA shows a significant effect of context on rating (p<0.001). Tukey’s HSD test shows significant differences between: Counter-presuppositional and informational (p<0.001) Counter-presuppositional and low contrast (p<0.001) Counter-presuppositional and strong contrast (p<0.001) Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 34

35. DISCUSSION Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 35

36. Canonicals Canonicals are significantly worse in the counter- presuppositional context than in the other three. Strength of belief is not significant, but at-issueness plays a role. Our interpretation:  The use-conditions of the canonical must make reference to the distinction at-issue/ non-at-issue.  Canonical sentences are preferred when used to address or contradict at-issue (asserted) content.  Canonical sentences signal “things are proceeding as normal” and are infelicitous in contexts where the component contradicted is non-at-issue. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 36

37. It-clefts It-clefts are significantly worse in the informational context than in the other three. Strength of belief has some effect, but it only slightly significant. Our interpretation:  All it takes for the clefts to be felicitous is linguistic contrast …  but for clefts to be preferred, the canonical must not be available, and that due to metalinguistic contrast: conflict about the direction of the discourse. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 37

38. Competition is key! Clefts and canonicals are in competition. Clefts are felicitous when the canonical is a “bad” option. Specifically, clefts are better than canonicals in the counter-presuppositional context due to a combination of two effects: Clefts improve because there’s an antecedent. Canonicals degrade because the antecedent is not-at- issue. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 38

39. Summing up Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 39 It-clefts are used in English when the corresponding canonical is less felicitous or unavailable. The notion of contrast must include a metalinguistic component: conflict with hearer’s expectations, specifically about the advancement discourse. So far, the only statistically significant feature is at-issueness: canonicals are worse when addressing non-at-issue content. In-line with results on Chinese (Greif 2012) where increased phonetic marking and clefts are produced with corrections of presupposed information.

40. CROSS-LINGUISTIC IMPLICATIONS Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 40

41. What’s next: cross-linguistically Felicity contexts for clefts (and other strong focus constructions) are supposed to be the same crosslinguistically… … So why don’t all languages use clefts in the same contexts?  A speculative hypothesis: the felicity conditions for canonical sentences vary. A canonical sentence signals “things are proceeding as normal” – but what’s “normal” could vary. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 41

42. What’s normal? ENGLISH: “Don’t use canonicals to address not-at-issue content.” (normally, we discuss what’s at issue) FRENCH: “Don’t use canonicals for subject focus.” (normally, subjects are old information/ topics) K’ICHEE’: “Don’t use canonicals for transitive subject focus.” (normally, transitive subjects are old information) HUNGARIAN: “Don’t use canonicals for partial answers.” (normally, complete answers are preferred) Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 42

43. What’s next: English A more thorough ratings experiment – having two additional contexts:  Informational  At-issue weak belief  At-issue strong belief  Not at-issue weak belief  Not at-issue strong belief  Counter-presuppositional A production experiment covering all contexts. Run the experiment in the oral modality. Supplement with corpus data. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 43

44. Thank you very much! Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 44 And thanks to: David I. Beaver Aixin Tan Malte Zimmermann Mira Grubic And our participants (the undergraduates at UT Austin & St Edwards University)

45. References Declerck, R. (1984). The pragmatics of it-cleft and wh-clefts. Lingua, 64, p.251-289. Greif, M. (2012). Corrective focus in Mandarin Chinese: a question of belief? Muenchen: Lincom Europa. Katz, J. and E. Selkirk. (2011). Contrastive focus vs. discourse-new: Evidence from phonetic prominence in English. Language, 87, p. 771-816. Kiss, K. E. (1998). Identicational focus versus information focus. Language, 74, p. 245-273. Rooth, M. (1992). A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics, 1, p. 75- 116. Schwarschild, R. (1999). Givenness, avoidf and other constraints on the placement of accent. Natural Language Semantics, 7, p. 141-177. Tonhauser, J. (2012). “Diagnosing (non)- at-issue content”. In Proceedings of under- represented languages of the Americas (SULA) 6, p. 239-254. UMass: Amherst, GLSA. Velleman, D., Beaver, D., Destruel, E., Bumford, D., Onea, E., and Coppock, E. (2012). It- clefts are IT- (inquiry terminating) construction. In Proceedings of SALT 22, p. 441-460. Zimmermann, M. (2008). Contrastive focus and emphasis. In Acta Linguistica Hungarica, p. 347-360. Zimmermann, M. (2011). The grammatical expression of focus in West Chadic: Variation and uniformity in and across languages. Linguistics, 49, p. 1161-1211. Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 45

46. APPENDIX Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 46

47. Stimuli sample from newly conducted rating experiment (1) Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 47 Informational a.Speaker A: This bean dip is fantastic. I really want to get the recipe. Who brought it? b.Speaker B: Lyle brought it. vs. Speaker B: It’s Lyle who brought it. At-issue weak belief a.Speaker A: This bean dip is fantastic. I really want to get the recipe. I think Sharon brought it. b.Speaker B: No, Lyle brought it. vs. Speaker B: No, it’s Lyle who brought it. Not at-issue weak belief a.Speaker A: This bean dip is fantastic. I really want to get the recipe. But Sharon -- who I'm guessing brought it -- already left. b.Speaker B: No, Lyle brought it. vs. Speaker B: No, it’s Lyle who brought it.

48. Stimuli sample from newly conducted rating experiment (2) Destruel, Semantics Colloquium Frankfurt, 01/21/14 48 At-issue Strong belief a.Speaker A: This bean dip is fantastic. I really want to get the recipe. It turns out that Sharon brought it. b.Speaker B: No, Lyle brought it. vs. Speaker B: No, it’s Lyle who brought it. Not At-issue Strong belief a.Speaker A: This bean dip is fantastic. I really want to get the recipe. But Sharon, who brought it, already left. b.Speaker B: No, Lyle brought it. vs. Speaker B: No, it’s Lyle who brought it. Counter-Presuppositional a.Speaker A: This bean dip is fantastic. I really want to get the recipe. I can’t believe that Sharon brought it -- she’s normally not a very good cook. b.Speaker B: No, Lyle brought it. vs. Speaker B: No, it’s Lyle who brought it.