Re: Pseudo-cleft ``who''

Brian M. Scott wrote:
> >> That it was a politician who nominated them caused the
> >> trouble.
>
> >> (with, of course, a different meaning).
>
> > There are two possible meanings for it, depending on
> > whether the ``who'' heads a restrictive relative clause
> > or an annex clause.
>
> And exactly the same possibilities would exist if 'they'
> were substituted for 'who'; it could still mean either
>
> (1) What caused the trouble was the circumstance
> that a politician nominated them.
>
> or
>
> (2) What caused the trouble was the circumstance
> that the entity here referred to as 'it' was a
> member of the set
>
> {x : x is a politician & x nominated them}.
>
> What's your point?
>
> Note that in context the two are very unlikely to be
> confused, since for (2) the antecedent of 'it' had better be
> obvious. Out of context the natural interpretation is
> obviously (1).
>
> [...]


The ``who'' shades it towards the relative clause, and the ``that'' towards
the annex clause.

The annex clause's ``that'' isn't a relativizer, but part of the formula for the
extraposition ``it was X that Y,'' where X can be almost any component of the
unextraposed clause, extraposed for focus or simplification.

It was quickly that he ran.

I suppose a personal adverb should get ``who''

It was personally who he served me.

Watch for it.

--
Ron Hardin
rhhardin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.
.

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