Joe:
>Do the following examples of wh-clefts seem grammatical (and fairly
>natural)?
>
>1. Exactly what this faith is should be a determination of the Roman
> Catholic Church.
## Grammatically ok, but what does "determination" mean here? Maybe:
'something that the RC C should decide'?
>
>2. What Amy is in the play should be a joint decision, I think.
## Ok.
>
>Also: if these sentences are okay, would they count as ascriptive
>(predicational) or equative (specificational)? I don't think that
>they fit confortably in either category:
## They seem to me to be clearly ascriptive, in spite of your doubts. Compare:
3. What we should do is unclear/a problem/something we need to consider.
If this is so, I wouldn't call them wh-clefts, since they don't have an
unclefted alternative. Compare a straightforward wh-cleft like (4).
4. What we should do is our homework. (from: We should do our homework.)
Richard (= Dick) Hudson
Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London,
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT.
+44(0)20 7679 3152; fax +44(0)20 7383 4108;
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/home.htm
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