Demonstrative Clefts and Double Cleft Constructions in Spontaneous Spoken English*

The current paper reports on the grammatical structure and discourse role of demonstrative clefts found in spontaneous, spoken language. Constructions such as that s what I think or this is where he s coming from, previously placed under the umbrella of reversed wh-clefts, are shown to exhibit significant differences from these. The inspection of 200,000 words of informal conversation excerpts from the Wellington Spoken Corpus of New Zealand English (WSC) shows that demonstrative clefts constitute the most frequent cleft type in the spoken data. The deictic properties of their cleft constituents, their distinctive function in discourse and prevalence in this linguistic medium set them apart from other cleft types. The paper also discusses a related construction, termed here double cleft, which exhibits syntactic un-integratedness, as in that s what you re supposed to do is rest and this is where he went is Auckland. It is hoped that the findings presented here will contribute to existing knowledge of the grammatical constructions used by speakers of New Zealand English and English worldwide, and to our understanding of the barriers that have to be crossed in the teaching and learning of spoken language.