Constituency tests

 The main constituents of the sentence and clause

are (NP-VP). They may be involved in a number of
processes which change the appearance of a
basic sentence pattern
 The most important sentence processes
(operation) are clefting, pseudo-clefting,
passivisation, pronominalisation & fronting
(topicalisation)
 Such processes affect complete constituents &
enable the student of a language to discover
what the constituents of sentences are.
 It simply means splitting or cutting into two parts
. Clefting is moving some element in a sentence
from its normal position into a separate clause to
give it greater emphasis (focus).
 The pattern is as follows:
 It + Be ( any form) + X + subordinate clause
 [focus]
 The cleft construction places an emphasized or
focused element in the X position in the above
pattern .
 Clause [ with X] → It is X that Clause[without X]
 We can extract a constituent &put it in a more
prominent position by applying the process of
clefting

 Think about how many cleft sentences we can form

from
 Example 1
 Jane gave this book to Bill on Saturday.

 1) It was Jane (that/who) gave this book to Bill on
Saturday
 X = Jane
 2) It was to Bill that Jane gave this book on
Saturday
 X = to Bill
 3) It was on Saturday that Jane gave this book
to Bill
 X= on Saturday
 4) It was this book that/ which Jane gave to
Bill on Saturday
 X = this book
 Clefting cannot affect the string Jane gave
because it is not a constituent in the sentence
 The focus element may be an NP: this book,
Jane or a PP on Saturday, to Bill
 The verb cannot be the head of a cleft
construction
 Most of the silk we see in Britain comes from
silk worms.
 To place more emphasis
 It is from silk worms that most of the silk we
see comes.
 The resulting sentence from the clefting
process is called cleft sentence.
 A cleft sentence is a complex sentence in
which a simple sentence is expressed using a
main clause + a subordinate clause.
 The policeman met several young students in
the park last night.
 1)It was the policeman that/who met………night
 2) It was several young students that the policeman
met in the park last night
 3) It was in the park that the policeman met several
young students last night
 4) It was last night that the policeman met several
young students
 However , we cannot cleft sequences that do
not form constituents
 ≠The policeman met - several young
students in- in the park last night
 It was [the policeman met] that several……night.
 It was[ several young students in ] that the
policeman
 It was [in the park last night] that the policeman
met several young students
 Hence, clefting helps us discover which words in a
sentence form constituents & which do not
 Clefting can be used for stylistic reasons as a
way for combining old information with new
information
 I blame the teachers for his low marks
 It is the parents that I blame for his low
marks
A process closely related to clefting involves
the use of what to form sentences.
Most pseudo-clefts are introduced by what,
but we can also use why, where, how, when
1) What Jane did was give this book to Bill on
Saturday
2) What Jane gave to Bill was this book
N.B. Pseudo-clefting affects whole
constituents
3) What they like is smoked salmon
The underlined parts are the focus elements
 Pseudo- clefting focuses on constituents
such as verbs and their complements
 Example
 What Jane did was give the book to Bill on
Saturday
 What the waiter did was open the beer-tins
first
 The underlined VPs are placed at the end of
the pseudo –cleft sentences
 More examples
 What Bill will do is have a quick shower before
he leaves
 What Anne did was open the box and take
out the gum
 What I am doing is trying to clean up the
mess
 Pseudo-clefting focuses on the VP as a whole
 Only constituent elements can be fronted
 They can be moved to the beginning of the
sentence
 Example
 Mary brought in The Times soon after
breakfast
 Soon after breakfast, Mary brought in The
Times .
 In about 20 minutes, the plane will take off
 It is substitution by pronouns, or more generally
by pro-forms( a word used instead of an NP , Ex :
pronoun. We refer back to the individuals or
entities mentioned by the use of pronouns.
Pronominalisation can affect constituents
 Example
 Bill’s sister announced the news of her marriage
the day before yesterday
 She announced it then
 She & it = personal pronouns
 Then= adverbs ( replacing time adjuncts)
 2) Have you been to Seoul
 I have been there
 3) John asked me to put the clothes in the
closet and I stuffed them there
 Them : the clothes, there : in the closet
 4) If John can [ speak French fluently]- which
we all know he can- we will have no
problems.
 A pronoun can’t be used to refer back to
something that is not a constituent
 It is a process of rearranging sentence
constituents. We use a passive sentence if the
role of the patient is more prominent. We use
an active sentence if the agent role is more
prominent
 Role of agent : person who performs the
activity
 Role of patient: whoever/ whatever
undergoes this activity
 Sometimes in passives the agent role is no
longer obligatorily expressed
 Passivisation affects complete constituents
 Example
 Wild silk moths in countries like India and
Japan also produce it
 It is produced by wild silk moths in countries
like India and Japan.
 The underlined parts are constituents
 Verify whether the underlined part is a
constituent using the constituency tests of
passivisation , pseudo-clefting, and
pronminalisation

 1) His aunt feared that he might catch

something
 Pseudo-clefting
 What his aunt feared was that he might catch
sth.
 Pronominalisation (it, that,what)
 His aunt feared it/that
 passivisation
 That he might catch something was feared by
his aunt

 That he might catch something : is a

constituent
 Constituent Question & Stand – alone test