Abstract
Clefts (Norwegian: Utbryting) is a common phenomenon in Norwegian. It is traditionally considered primarily a focus construction (see e.g. Norsk referansegrammatikk), however it is also common in wh-questions, and pointing to clefts as a focus construction does not explain their frequent use in such questions. Among wh-questions, clefts are used more often when the wh-element is hva ‘what’ or hvem ‘who’, than when it is hvor ‘where’, hvordan ‘how’ or hvorfor ‘why’. Clefts are used more often when the question asks for a subject, object or complement to a preposition, than when it asks for an adjunct. If a cleft question asks for a subject, the cleft clause is introduced by the complementizer som, otherwise there is typically no complementizer. Clefts are obligatory in one kind of special questions, surprise-disapproval questions, and very common in the kind of questions dubbed again-questions in this thesis. On the flipside, cleft questions cannot be used as positively polar rhetorical questions, i.e. questions that are uttered to convey that no value for the variable exists. Standard questions as well as other kinds of special questions are typically non-cleft questions, but some contexts prefer the question to be a cleft question. On the other hand, some contexts also prefer the question to be a non-cleft question. This pattern of use in questions can be explained if clefts, rather than seen only as a focus construction, is analysed as having two defining properties. First, clefts always contain an exhaustivity presupposition that has the same form both in wh-questions and in declaratives, namely that the clefted constituent is not a proper part of the maximal individual for which the predicate holds, following Büring and Kriz (2013). Secondly, the denotation of cleft questions does not contain two propositions that are present in the denotation set for their corresponding non-cleft versions: The one where there is nothing for which the predicate holds, and the one where it holds for everything (relevant). In total, then, cleft questions come with an exhaustivity presupposition, obligatorily making them mention-all questions, as well as an existential and an anti-universal presupposition. All of these three presuppositions distinguish cleft questions from non-cleft questions, as non-cleft questions do not actually carry an existential presupposition, only an existential conversational implicature, which can more easily be cancelled.