The Co-occurrence of Predicate Clefting and WH-Questions in Trinidad Dialectal English

Abstract

This paper examines the properties of a grammatical construction called a predicate cleft (PC), which occurs in a regional dialect of English, Trinidad Dialectal English (TDE), spoken on the Eastern Caribbean island of Trinidad. The examination of the PC in TDE is of typological interest inasmuch as it resembles similar constructions in certain West African languages. A PC renders focus or contrastive focus to a verb in a given sentence by copying the verb and preposing it. Similar verb focusing constructions have been observed for many West African languages, including Vata and Nweh, as well as for Caribbean Creoles (Koopman 1984, Piou 1982). The PC in TDE is also of theoretical interest when combined with wh-question formation; the wh-subject/object asymmetries explored here provide interesting support for an escape hatch for wh-phrases in an intermediate position between VP and Tense that is comparable to a VP-adjoined position (Chomsky 1986). Evidence is also provided for a CP-like domain lower in the clause; I argue that both a wh-phrase and a verb focused in a PC have focus features that must be checked in a Focus Phrase (FocP). The current investigation enriches the characterization of both PCs and wh-question formation by looking not only at each operation individually but also examining their interaction with one another as well as with adverbs.