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JungKim Posted 8 years ago
Grammar

Mixing it-cleft with pseudo-cleft

Michael Stein, a Texas native born in the early 1980's, is quoted in Rolling Stone as saying: And then I got an SH-101 off of Craigslist, and I was like, "This is it. It's analog. That's what it is that I like." The last sentence, (1) "That's what it is that I like.", basically means (2) "That's what I like.", which in turn basically means (3) "I like that." Syntactically, I think that (2) is a pseudo-cleft of (3) using "what", and (1) is an it-cleft of (2); that "what" in (2) is a fused relative; and therefore that "what" in (1) is also a fused relative. Is this analysis correct? If so, is it commonplace to mix it-cleft with pseudo-cleft like this?
  

Top answer

The outer structure is an inverted pseudo-cleft. What ... like is that is a pseudo-cleft.

— CalifJim

  • The outer structure is an inverted pseudo-cleft.
  • What ...
  • like is that is a pseudo-cleft.
  • That is what ...
  • like is the inverted pseudo-cleft.
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1 Answers
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The outer structure is an inverted pseudo-cleft.

What ... like is that is a pseudo-cleft.
That is what ... like is the inverted pseudo-cleft.

The inner structure is a cleft.

Unclefted form: I like that.
Clefted form highlighting 'that': It is that that I like.

The first 'that' of the cleft form to the front, making it 'what':

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