On so - called truncated clefts

As these authors observe, the sentences in (1) and (2) are similar in both form and meaning. The truncated clefts in (1) look like the clefts in (2) minus the cleft clause, and in the right contexts, each of the sentences in (1) can be used with the meaning of the corresponding sentence in (2). Following a question like Who went to Hamburg?, (1b) can be used to convey what (2b) conveys, and following a knock on the door, (1d) can be used with the meaning of (2d). The issue that I will try to address here is how truncated clefts relate to the general taxonomy of copular clauses developed by Higgins (1979: 204-293) and assumed in much subsequent work on copular clauses. Truncated clefts have a number of characteristic properties (reviewed in section 2) and the question is to what extent these properties can be explained in terms of properties of any of the general classes of copular clauses in Higgins' taxonomy together with specific features of truncated clefts, specifically their subject