The link between information structure and clefts: French il y a clefts and Italian c'è clefts - Lena Karssenberg & Karen Lahousse KU Leuven ...
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The link between information structure and clefts:
French il y a clefts and Italian c’è clefts
Lena Karssenberg & Karen Lahousse
(KU Leuven, Belgium)
Oberseminar Romanistische Linguistik
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
19 October 2016Research project on presentational clefts
in French and Italian (KU Leuven, 2014-2017):
http://www.arts.kuleuven.be/ling/presentationalclefts
• French
o il y a ‘there is’ clefts
o French voici / voilà ‘see.there’ clefts
• Italian
o c’è ‘there is’ clefts
o (Italian ecco ‘see.there’ clefts)
• Project collaborators:
Lena Karssenberg (PhD), Karen Lahousse (supervisor), Andreas Dufter
(co-supervisor), Stefania Marzo & Béatrice Lamiroy (collaborators)Introduction
The cleft family
Cleft = a biclausal structure expressing a single proposition
(1) It’s Klaus who’s dancing.
C’est Klaus qui danse.
È Klaus che balla.
(2) There’s Klaus who’s dancing.
Il y a Klaus qui danse.
C’è Klaus che balla.
• Cross-linguistic category
• Different cleft introducers (it, there, c’est, il y a, c’è, etc.)
(See e.g. Lambrecht 1986, 1988; Davidse 1999; Lambrecht 2001; Huber 2002;
Lambrecht 2002; Dufter 2006; De Cesare 2007; Dufter 2008, 2009; Conti 2010;
Davidse 2014; Lahousse & Borremans 2014; Davidse & Kimps 2016)Il y a ‘there is’ clefts
(3) Il y a Klaus qui danse.
‘There is Klaus who’s dancing / Klaus is dancing’
• Typical of + frequent in spoken French
(Blanche-Benveniste 1997; Katz 2000; Choi-Jonin and Lagae 2005,
confirmed by Karssenberg 2016a, 2016b; Karssenberg and Lahousse 2018)
• Motivations for the use of il y a clefts:
o ‘Presentational’ function: introducing a new referent
(Lambrecht 1986, 1988; Léard 1992; Lambrecht 1994; Ashby 1995,
1999; Lambrecht 2001; Jullien 2007, 2008, see also Giry-Schneider
1988; Willems and Meulleman 2010; Verwimp & Lahousse 2016…)
o Avoiding sentence-initial indefinites
(Jeanjean 1979; Van de Velde 1995; Cappeau and Deulofeu 2001;
Van de Velde 2005; Cappeau and Deulofeu 2006)C’è ‘there is’ clefts
(4) C’è il gatto che ha fame.
there.is the cat that has hunger
‘The cat is hungry.’ (Berretta 1995, our translation)
• Presentational function: introducing a new referent
(Berruto 1987; Berretta 1995; Venier 2002, 2004; De Cesare 2006; 2007;
La Fauci et al. 2010; Marzo & Crocco 2015; Karssenberg et al. under
review)
• Clefts always have Subject Verb Object (SVO) word order equivalent:
~ Il gatto ha fame.
‘The cat is hungry.’
• Why use extra structure (cleft) instead of SVO?
Answer in the literature: information structureInformation structure: terminology (1/2)
2 types of topic
• Aboutness-topic: “that which the sentence is about”, discourse-given
(cf. Lambrecht 1994; Strawson 1964; Gundel 1974…)
(5) (What did the children do next?) The children went to SCHOOL.
(Lambrecht 1994:121)
• Spatio-temporal topic: introduce “a spatial, temporal or individual
framework for the main predication”
(Chafe 1976:50, cf. also Kuno 1972; Prince 1978; Jacobs 2001)
Thetic (=all-focus) sentences: the proposition is predicated of a
spatio-temporal topic
(6) a. Outside the door, there’s a cat. (Erteschik-Schir 2007:17)
b. In meinem Traum war Peter ein Krokodil.
‘In my dream was Peter a crocodile.’ (Jacobs 2001:657)Information structure: terminology (2/2)
• Focus: part of sentence to which hearer’s attention is drawn
= often new information
(Erteschik-Shir 2007:39; Lambrecht 1994 and others)
(7) a. (What did the children do next?) The children went to
SCHOOL.
b. (Who went to school?) The CHILDREN went to school.
(Lambrecht 1994:121)
• Background: non-focal part of the sentence that speaker doesn’t wish
to emphasize
• Three articulations:
o topic-comment
o all-focus
o focus-backgroundThe Focus Marking Hypothesis
• Underlying motivation of clefts (in general)
= prevent the hearer from interpreting the sentence as having a topic-
comment articulation
= introduce a focal referent
(Erteschik-Shir 2007:119; Lambrecht, 1988, 1994, 2001)
• Criticism: it-clefts, c’est-clefts and wh-clefts can express topic-
comment (Prince 1978; Doetjes et al. 2004; Hedberg and Fadden 2007;
Dufter 2008; Lahousse & Borremans 2014)
(8) A: – But why is the topic so important?
B: – Apparently, it is the topic that enables the listener to
compute the intended antecedents of each sentence in the
paragraph. (Prince 1978:902)
Clefted element = what the relative clause is about + discourse-given
à it-clefts not always focus markersIl y a + c’è clefts ~ focus marking
What about il y a clefts and c’è clefts?
• What is their information structure potential?
• Can they still be seen as focus markers?
à corpus analysisThis talk • Corpus extraction • Information structure articulations • Source of focus-marking • Other functions of clefts (unrelated to information structure) • Conclusion
Corpora
Corpora
1. Le Monde 1998 (cf. Verlinde & Selva 2001)
o Journalistic texts: formal written French
o 25.7 million words
2. Yahoo Questions and Answers 2006-2009 (Hendrik De Smet)
o Internet discussion forum: informal written French
o French part: 6.1 million words spelling mistakes
not corrected!
3. Discours sur la Ville / CFPP 2000
o Transcriptions of spoken interviews
o 550.000 words (38,9 hours) (cf. Branca-Rosoff et al 2012)
4. Italian: La Stampa 1998
o Journalistic texts
o 25 million words (first half used)Distribution in the corpora
FRENCH ITALIAN
CFPP2000 Yahoo Le Monde La Stampa
(spoken) (informal (formal (journalistic)
written) written)
il y a cleft
occurrences 235 262 71 111
Word count ± 14.25
in corpus 550,000 6.1 million 25.7 million
million
Frequency
(occurrences 427 clefts / 44 clefts / 3 clefts / 8 clefts /
/words in million million million million
corpus)Information structure
articulationsResearch questions
1. Information structure potential of il y a / c’è clefts:
which articulations can they express?
2. Do il y a clefts and c’è clefts always introduce a focal constituent?
i.e. do the corpus data corroborate the claim that these clefts
are focus markers?All-focus il y a clefts
(9) Ceci dit, au moindre doute, je passe un coup de fil, et il y a
trois personnes qui descendent dans la seconde.
‘With that said, if there is any doubt I make a call, and three
people come down within a second.’ (Le Monde)
• All-new event in discourse (thetic sentence)
• Element introduced by il y a
o ≠ discourse-given
o ≠ what the sentence is about
• Prototypical il y a cleftAll-focus c’è cleft
(10) [Newspaper article about police patrols]
"Doppia Vela 21, il tedesco s'è convinto a pagare il totale della
corsa". "Va bene, allora spostatevi in via Gioberti, c'è un uomo che
dà in escandescenze e tenta di abbattere la porta di casa". "Ricevuto".
“Hello Headquarters, the German tourist has decided to pay for the
whole ride.” “Alright, then go to the street via Gioberti, a man is
having a tantrum and is trying to tear down the front door of his
house.” “Roger that.” (La Stampa)
• All-new event in discourse (thetic sentence)
• Element introduced by c’è
o ≠ discourse-given
o ≠ what the sentence is about
• Prototypical c’è cleftAll-focus il y a cleft with double contrast
(11) A: Atterissage de l'airbus à New-York? [video link] Le co-pilote n'etait t-il
pas un arabe (lol) et traiter les arabes de terroriste.
B: il y'a un pilote qui arrive a poser un avion sur l'eau et évite la perte de
160 personne, et d'un autre coté il y'a toi qui n'arrive même pas a faire
une phrase compréhensible!!!
A: ‘Landing of the airbus in NY? [link] Wasn’t the co-pilot an Arab (lol), and
to treat Arabs like terrorists!’
B: ‘There’s a pilot who manages to land a plane on the water and avoid
the deaths of 160 people, and on the other hand there’s you who can’t
even write a comprehensible sentence!!!’ (YCCQA)
• Contrast 1: Two referents (a pilot vs. you)
• Contrast 2: who manages to vs. who can’t even write…
(See Karssenberg 2016; Karssenberg & Lahousse 2018)All-focus c’è cleft with double contrast
(12) “In secondo luogo - ha aggiunto Prodi - voglio poi vedere come fa
Bossi con quelli che le debbono pagare al posto suo (le tasse),
perché se c'è qualcuno che non le paga ci sono degli altri che ne
devono pagare il doppio e credo che questo creerebbe grossi
problemi.”
‘“Secondly – added Prodi – I want to see how Bossi will handle
those who have to pay taxes in his place, because if there’s
someone who doesn’t pay them, there are others who have to pay
double, and I think that this would create big problems.”’ (Stampa)
• Contrast 1: two referents (someone vs. others)
• Contrast 2: not paying vs. paying double
• Not noticed before in literature
(see Karssenberg et al. under review)Focus-background il y a cleft
(13) - A: ‘I’m looking for new car models that cost less than €10.000’
- B: bonjours. il y a la citroen c1 qui est a moins de 10 000 euros.
‘Hello. There’s the Citroën C1 that costs less than €10.000.’ (YCCQA)
• Relative clause = discourse-given, background
• Clefted element (la citroen c1) = saliant information / focus
• This articulation not often mentioned in literature on il y a clefts
(but see Verwimp & Lahousse 2016 and elements in Lambrecht 2001;
Léard 1992)
• BUT: almost 25% of the il y a clefts in our corpora à not negligable
(Cf. Karssenberg & Lahousse 2018)
Cf. English there clefts: Davidse 1999; 2000; 2014; Davidse & Kimps 2016Focus-background c’è cleft
(14) Molti chiedono anche l'istituzione di una figura che rappresenti il
minore: l'avvocato dei bambini. "Non sono d'accordo (…), perché
c'è già il pm che può rivestire questo ruolo, magari si può
rafforzare il suo potere d'intervento".
‘Many people ask the institution to provide a figure who represents
minors: a children’s advocate. “I disagree (…), because there’s
already the prosecutor who can take on this role, maybe his
right to intervene can be strengthened”. (La Stampa)
• Rel. clause = discourse-given (this role = represent minors)
• Clefted element (the prosecutor) = salient information
• This articulation not mentioned before in Italian literatureDouble focus il y a cleft
(15) Ceux qui avaient prévenu que le système de préretraite des
médecins libéraux (...) est fort coûteux, et en partie non financé,
ne s'étaient pas trompés. (...) entre 1997 et 2007 ce dispositif
coûtera 7,1 milliards de francs, alors qu'il n’y aura que 4 861
médecins à en profiter.
‘Those who predicted that the prepension system for liberal
doctors would be very costly and partly unfunded weren’t wrong.
Between 1997 and 2007 this measure will cost 7,1 billion Franks,
whereas there will only be 4861 doctors who will profit from it.’
(Le Monde)
• ‘Only 4861 doctors’ = focus (new + salient)
• Contrast ‘cost 7,1 billion Franks’ vs. ‘profit from it’
• Relative clause à contrastive focus
• Double focus cleft (cf. also Dufter 2008; Hedberg 2013; Büring 2014
about double focus it/c’est clefts)Are il y a / c’è clefts focus markers?
• So far so good:
o all-focus
o focus-background clefted element always focal
o double focus
• BUT --- French + Italian: a few discourse-given referents
• Referents always (partially) focal
à il y a + c’è never introduce regular topicsIl n’y a que + spatio-temporal topic
(16) [newspaper article about Turkey]
But the most important part of Atatürk’s influence on his country
seems inerasable. And anyway nobody seriously speaks of
questioning his work. Et il n'y a qu'en Turquie que le dirigeant du
parti intégriste a pu faire alliance (…) avec une femme aussi
visiblement occidentalisée que Tansu Çiller (…).
‘And only in Turkey can the leader of the party start and alliance
with an occidentalized woman like Tansu Çiller.’ (Le Monde)
• Clefted element in Turkey
o discourse-given: mentioned in previous context
o spatio-temporal / frame topic
• Relative clause = discourse-new informationProblem for the focus-marking hypothesis?
• Embedded in ne… que ‘only’ (focus particle) à contrastive topic
• Contrastive topics = topical and focal properties at once
(see e.g. Erteschik-Shir 2007; Büring 2014; Constant 2012)
à Doesn’t refute the Focus Marking Hypothesis:
il y a never introduces a regular topicC’è + discourse-given referent
(17) [Press conference about an asteroid approaching earth]
Naturalmente i giornalisti ne escono malconci. C'è una che chiede:
"Riuscirete ad evacuare la città prima dell'arrivo dell'asteroide?". Le
rispondono: "Riusciremmo, se non fossimo continuamente interrotti
dalle vostre domande”.
‘Of course, the journalists do not remain unharmed. There’s one [of
them] who asks: “Will you be able to evacuate the city before the
asteroid hits?”. They answer her: “We would, if we weren’t
continuously interrupted by your questions.”’ (La Stampa)
• Una ‘one [of them]’ = what the sentence is about à aboutness-topic
(18) ‘What about the journalists? Tell me about the journalists.
- C'è una che chiede: …
‘There’s one [of them] who asks:…’C’è + discourse-given referent
• Unprototypical topic: specific indefinite
o non-specific indefinite is new to both speaker and hearer
o specific indefinite is new only to the hearer.
“Specific indefinites contain a modifier which minimally indicates
that the speaker has a particular referent in mind.”
(Erteschik-Shir 2007:52)
• Specific indefinite à topical + focal properties
(19) a. A person I know is famous.
b. A personfoc [Itop know_] (Erteschik-Shir 2007:52)
(20) Unafoc [degli giornalistitop]
‘Onefoc [of.the journaliststop]’C’è + discourse-given referent
• English, French, …: overt expression of anaphoric link
(21) a. (There’s) one of them (who) asks
b. Il y en a une qui demande…
EXPL there of.it has one that asks
‘There’s one of them who asks: …’
• Not a regular topic
à Doesn’t refute Focus Marking Hypothesis
• Infrequency of discourse-given referents behind il y a / c’èOverview articulations
French Italian
Literature: Literature:
• All-focus • All-focus
• (Focus-background)
Corpus analysis: Corpus analysis:
• + All-focus with double contrast • + All-focus with double contrast
• + Double focus • + Focus-background
• + Contrastive topic-comment • + Contrastive topic-comment
Larger variety of articulations than previously assumedAre il y a / c’è clefts focus markers?
YES, il y a / c’è clefts are focus markers:
① No regular topics in the corpus data
② Difficulty of construing an il y a / c’è sentence with a
(non-contrastive) topic:
(22) A: – ‘What is Klaus doing? What about Klaus?’
B: – # Il y a Klaus qui danse.
# ‘There’s Klaus who’s dancing.’No 1-to-1 mapping of
cleft type + articulation of whole sentence
• ‘il y a / c’è cleft’ = ‘all-focus’
• Matić et al. (2014:3) à a grammatical form may narrow down the
possible focus structures to a few articulations, but the articulation that
the utterance really has is dependent on discourse context
à il y a + c’è clefts narrow down the possibilities to “not a regular
topic”, but this still leaves several options
o all-focus (with/without double contrast)
o focus-background
o contrastive topic + comment
o double focusSource of focus marking: Not the cleft format, but the expressions il y a & c’è
Source of focus marking
• Il y a / c’è sentences without relative clause (i.e. ‘existential sentences’)
à also argued to introduce discourse-new referents
(Breivik 1981; Abbott 1993; Francez 2007; Breivik & Martínez-Insua
2008; Bentley 2013; Bentley et al. 2015)
• Il y a & c’è cannot be followed by a regular topic (e.g. Bentley et al. 2015)
(23) a. ‘Where are the towels?’
b. # L’é i sugaman te la casèla.
# ‘There are the towels in the drawer.’ (Bentley 2013:686)
• Introducing a non-topical referent = property of all il y a / c’è sentences
‘focus marking’ ≠ property of il y a / c’è clefts,
but of expressions il y a / c’è
(cf. Karssenberg 2016 about French)Independent confirmation: psycholinguistics
• Psycholinguistic experiments about cross-linguistic equivalents of il y a
• Besserman, Love & Shapiro (2015), Besserman (2014)
o Visual world paradigm
o When English existential there is used, people look more often at
discourse-new referent (significant effect)
• Grondelaers, Brysbaert, Speelman & Geeraerts (2002)
o Self-paced reading
o Dutch ‘er’ = equivalent of English ‘there’, French ‘y’, syntactically
optional
o Insertion of ‘er’ speeds up reading when combined with unexpected
NP, slows down reading when combined with expected NP
(See also Grondelaers 2000; Grondelaers et al. 2007; 2009)Are il y a / c’è clefts focus markers?
• YES: il y a & c’è clefts never introduce a regular topic
• BUT: it’s not the cleft format that does the focus marking, it’s the
introducing expressions il y a & c’è
• Il y a / c’è clefts prevent a topic-comment interpretation
à Il y a / c’è sentences (among which clefts) prevent a topic-
comment interpretation
• Furthermore, clefts not exclusively used for expression of information
structure: il y a / c’è clefts also have other functions à à àOther functions of clefts (not information structure) (a) scope (b) reinforced negation
(a) Clefts and scope
• Other functions of clefts (not information structure)
o avoiding scope ambiguities (Dufter 2006; 2009)
o rhetorics (Jacob 2015)
• About it / c’est / è clefts:
“By virtue of splitting up a single clause into two and singling out
one major constituent, clefting is an excellent device to bring this
constituent unambiguously under the scope of operators such as
negation, hedges or the like.” (Dufter 2009:108)
• But: not so relevant in Italian (= quite tolerant of operators such as
negation over single constituents, Dufter 2009)
• What about c’è clefts?
Our corpus data à other type of scope effect(a) Plural reading of singular indefinite NPs
(24) [Interview between author of the article and a politician]
Da quando si parla di giustizia in Bicamerale, ogni giorno, c’è un
procuratore che ripete: non ci lasciano lavorare, i processi non si
fanno per colpa della classe politica... "Se si riferisce alle
dichiarazioni di Borrelli al Corriere, non mi interessano. (…)". Mi
riferisco anche a Colombo.
‘Ever since there is talk about justice in the Bicameral, every day
there’s a prosecutor who repeats: they don’t let us work, the trials
don’t take place because of the political class…”If you’re referring
to the statements made by Borrelli to Corriere, I’m not interested in
them. (…)” I also refer to Colombo. (La Stampa)
• Singular indefinite NP with plural reference
(not the same prosecutor every day)(a) Plural reading of singular indefinite NPs
• Subject-Verb word order à plural reading becomes difficult
(25) Ogni giorno, un procuratore ripete: non ci lasciano lavorare.
‘Every day, a prosecutor repeats: they don’t let us work.’
• Kurtzman & MacDonald’s (1993) “Single reference principle”
indefinite NPs in subject or topic position are taken to
refer to singular referents
• Cleft = referent not in subject/topic position
à allows for a plural reading
= extra function of c’è cleft(b) ‘Reinforced negation’
(26) ”(…) ma nessuno ha mosso un dito. Non c'è stato uno che si sia
avvicinato e mi abbia teso la mano”.
‘(…) but nobody moved a finger. There wasn’t anyone who came
closer and gave me a hand.’ (La Stampa)
Subject-Verb version:
~ Nessuno si è avvicinato e mi ha teso la mano.
‘Nobody came closer and gave me a hand.’
• Same propositional content as SVO equivalent, but cleft instantiates
‘reinforced negation’
(cf. Cinque 1991; Godard & Marandin 2006; Mosegaard Hansen & Visconti
2009 for other types of reinforced negation in Italian)(b) ‘Reinforced negation’
• Cappelle et al. (2016): negative polarity items in existential
sentences trigger a reinforced reading
(27) a. There wasn’t a grain of truth in X.
b. There wasn’t a damn thing to V.
c. Il n’y a pas l’ombre d’un doute.
‘There isn’t a shadow of a doubt’ (Cappelle et al. 2016: 37)
• The denial of a minimal degree (a grain of truth, a damn thing, …)
“reinforces the absence of anything higher” (Cappelle et al. 2016: 37)
(28) Ammettiamolo: non c'è un milligrammo della sua fama che non
sia meritato.
‘Let’s admit it: there isn’t a milligram of his fame that he didn’t
earn.’ (La Stampa)Conclusion
Conclusion –
il y a & c’è clefts and information structure
• Corpus analysis of il y a / c’è clefts: variety of different articulations
o all-focus (with/without double contrast)
o focus-background
o double focus
o contrastive topic-comment
• Never a regular topic à confirms hypothesis that il y a / c’è clefts mark
following referents as non-topical / focal
• BUT - Il y a / c’è sentences without relative clause never introduce
regular topics either
à expressions il y a / c’è responsible for focus marking, not cleft format
• Clefts also have other functions (unrelated to information structure)
• No one-to-one form-function pairing of ‘cleft’ + ‘information structure’Thank you! Merci!! Grazie! Vielen Dank! Dangschee!
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c’è + contrastive topic
• [Beginning of article] Lido Vieri, preparatore dei portieri del Toro, è anche uno
studioso di questo ruolo speciale, diverso da tutti gli altri. Forse, il più delicato
sotto il profilo psicologico. Se un attaccante, un centrocampista o un
difensore sbagliano, c'è il portiere che può metterci una pezza. Se sbaglia lui,
non c'è rimedio. E il portiere è uno degli elementi-cardine, si punti al primo posto
o si lotti per la salvezza.
• ‘Lido Vieri, trainer of the goalkeepers of Toro, also studies in depth this special
role, different from all the others. Maybe even the most delicate one
psychologically. If an attacker, a midfielder or a defender make a mistake,
there’s the goalkeeper who make up for it. If he makes a mistake, there’s no
remedy. And the goalkeeper is one of the pivotal elements, he is in first position
and struggles for salvation.’
• Contrastive topic: se ‘if’ clause with contrastive referents necessary:
() ‘What about the goalkeeper, what’s special about him?’
- Se un attaccante, un centrocampista o un difensore sbagliano, c'è il portiere
che può salvare il gioco.
- # C’è il portiere che può salvare il gioco.c’è + discourse-given referent (non-topical)
• Dunque si cambia, e più che tornare al passato si torna alla tradizione: il
bagnino, la piadina, la spiaggia, la famigliola, perfino l'orchestra Casadei e vai
con Romagna mia. Si è mosso il marketing, e basta guardare uno dei cento
spot pronti per questi due mesi di tv. C'è il bagnino, appunto. Sparite la
discoteca, la bellona che va a ballare, la notte folle. C'è il bagnino che
promuove il mare, la spiaggia, la vela, il golf, Riccardo Muti che dirige il
Ravenna Festival. Messaggio dello spot: torna la Romagna dei vecchi valori,
formato famiglia.
• ‘And so you change, and rather than returning to the past, you go back to
traditions: the lifeguard, the piadina, the beach, the family, even the Casadei
Orchestra and come to my Romagna. Marketing tactics have changed, just
watch one of the hundred commercials aired on TV the past two months.
There’s the lifeguard, indeed. No more disco, gorgeous dancing women or
crazy nights. There’s the lifeguard who promotes the sea, the beach, sailing,
playing golf, Riccardo Muti who heads the Ravenna Festival. Message of the
commercial: the Romagna of old values is back, family size.’
• the lifeguard ≠ ‘what the sentence is about’
• Discourse-given focusPlural reading of singular indefinite NPs – another example
(i) Diceva Sergio Escobar, che dopo neppure due anni ha lasciato l'Opera
per il Piccolo Teatro di Milano, che ad ogni nuova iniziativa, ad ogni
conquista, c'era sempre qualcuno che tirava fuori "gli scheletri
dall'armadio". Dai e dai, il teatro è ormai uno scheletro senza
neppure armadi.
‘Sergio Escobar, who left the Opera for the Piccolo Teatro di Milano
after not even two years, said that with every new initiative, every
victory, there was always someone who pulled the skeletons from
the closet.’
~ Ad ogni conquista, qualcuno tirava sempre fuori “gli scheletri
dall’armadio”
‘With every victory, someone always pulled out the skeletons from
the closet.’You can also read
