An Analysis of But/Other Than-Correlatives as 'But/Than' Clefts

Abstract

There is some disagreement among scholars and dictionaries concerning the categorial statuses of but/than, especially in cases where but or other than is followed by a to-infinitive, root infinitive, gerund, AP, and the like. In this paper, these tricky cases are assumed to be a kind of but/other than-correlative construction, where but or than is treated as correlative coordinate conjunction. The paper proposes 'but/than-clefts' for these correlative constructions and presents semantic and syntactic evidence of their similarity to wh-clefts. Semantically, but/other than-correlatives are the same focusing devices as wh-clefts in that the highlighting effect can be created by the focused element's being singled out from the rest of the members of the set. Syntactically, but/than-clefts take the same syntactic categories in the focus position as wh-clefts. Functionally, given the but/than-clefting, but/other than-correlatives are viewed as expressing 'NP only VP' in a roundabout way for a rhetorical purpose, compared with their assumed underlying sentences. This paper also shows that the only difference between wh-clefts and but/than-clefts relates to the difference in the highlighting effect created depending on whether for the selection of the focused element, the focused element itself or the remaining elements is/are excluded from the whole set.