Reconstruction and Linearity in Long-Distance Cleft Constructions

Abstract

This paper is concerned with cleft constructions and reconstruction effects in English and Japanese. Japanese cleft constructions involve two different syntactic dependencies, movement and deletion. This assumption explains facts that have not been reported in the literature. The reflexive pronoun in (la) and the reciprocal pronoun in (lb) in the focus phrase can be bound either by the higher subject or by the lower subject in the presupposition.

In clear contrast, the lower subject in Japanese cleft constructions cannot bind anaphors in the focus phrase. In (2), only the higher subject can bind the anaphors in the focus phrase. What explains the contrast between (1) and (2)? We argue that an operator in Japanese moves from the position adjoined to the lower clause (tk in (3)), not from the thematic gap position (ek). It is shown that the dependency (ii) in (3) stems from movement, and (i) from deletion. Since Opk (or the focus phrase associated with it) reconstructs only to the position of tk, the anaphor can only be bound by the higher subject, Sallyi-Nom.