Consider the sentence:

Applying the Cleft test gives: *It was flowers that my neighbor planted the beautiful over there.

Applying the One-substitution test gives: My neighbor planted the beautiful ones over there.

What might the ungrammaticality of the string generated by the application of the cleft test tell us? Choose all that apply.

Question

Consider the sentence:

Applying the Cleft test gives: *It was flowers that my neighbor planted the beautiful over there.

Applying the One-substitution test gives: My neighbor planted the beautiful ones over there.

What might the ungrammaticality of the string generated by the application of the cleft test tell us? Choose all that apply.

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

Movement tests like clefting are sensitive to what exact string is being targeted: some tests require moving or focusing a full phrase (e.g., a DP/NP), not an internal subpart such as only the noun. In "My neighbor planted the beautiful flowers over there," one-substitution yields "My neighbor planted the beautiful ones over there," which indicates that the whole DP "the beautiful flowers" behaves like a constituent (it can be replaced by "the beautiful ones"). The attempted cleft, however, fronts only "flowers": *"It was flowers that my neighbor planted the beautiful over there." This is ungrammatical because English clefts normally target a full DP/NP (or other clause-sized focus), not a bare noun extracted out of its determiner/adjective. Thus the cleft test fails here for a structural/formational reason rather than proving that "flowers" (or the NP) is not a constituent.

Step-by-step reasoning:
1. Apply one-substitution: replacing the noun with "ones" leaves "the beautiful" intact and yields a grammatical sentence; this supports that "the beautiful flowers" is an NP constituent.
2. Attempt cleft movement of just "flowers": the resulting string is ungrammatical. Since clefts require appropriate categories (DP/NP focus) and are subject to morphological/compatibility constraints, the failure of the cleft does not necessarily mean the original string lacks constituency.
3. Therefore, the cleft test can give false negatives: a target string that is a constituent may still produce an ill-formed cleft due to syntactic/morphological restrictions on clefting.

Why the correct choices are correct:
- "The movement test may fail..." is correct because clefting can be blocked even when the target is a true constituent (as here).
- "We cannot rely on a single test..." is correct because constituency diagnostics are heuristic; multiple tests (substitution, coordination, movement, replacement) should be used together.

Why the other options are incorrect (briefly):
- "Single words such as 'flowers' can never serve as constituents" — false: nouns can be constituents (NPs or N within NP), and substitution/ellipsis can often target them.
- "The string [those beautiful] fails to function as a true constituent" — this is a malformed NP fragment (determiner + adjective without noun), so its ill-formedness doesn't diagnose constituency of the original NP.
- "The string [my neighbor planted] fails..." — irrelevant here; that fragment could be a clause fragment but is not evidenced by the tests given.
- "Cleft constructions in English can never target the direct objects of verbs" — false: clefts can target objects (e.g., "It was the flowers that my neighbor planted"), but they usually must target the correct phrase (the full DP).
- "The string [flowers] fails to function as a true constituent" — contradicted by the one-substitution result.

Conclusion: The ungrammatical cleft shows that movement tests may fail for some target strings and that we should not rely on a single test; this confirms the provided answers.

Similar Questions

True or False: In the sentence “I was surprised to find many fun parties in Scarborough,” the chunk “many fun parties in Scarborough” cannot be a constituent. We can confidently make this conclusion as it fails the omission test (*I was surprised to find __).

What is the motivation for performing constituency tests?

Consider the following sentence: Kate and Anissa walked to the bustling market. Of the following constituency tests (and their corresponding grammaticality judgements), which ones accurately tests the underlined string (Kate and Anissa walked) for constituency? Choose all that apply.

Given the sentence in 1), which string is being tested for constituency in 2)? 1) The loud beautiful bird squawked from the tree. 2) The loud one squawked from the tree.

Which is the most appropriate term for the constituency test applied to the sentence below? (7) Sentence: Our dear friend was so kind for bringing us some delicious red wine from France. Application of Test: Our dear friend was so kind for bringing us wine.

30. What is the main purpose of the lecture?

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