376 Chapter 11 Complex sentences
As clefts consists of a NP predicate and a headless relative clause, just as
is true of relative clauses, there are no long-distance clefts. All apparent long-
distance clefts are prolepsis constructions.
(175) Ina se e-kera Siti ja' (aba'eng) mangkat dha' Jakarta are Kemmes.
Ina REL OV-think Siti COMP she leave to Jakarta day Thursday
‘Ina is who Siti thinks left for Jakarta on Thursday.’
(176) Ali se lo' e-ka-tao-we Rina ja' Deni ma-becce'
Ali REL not OV-KA-know-LOC Rina COMP Deni AV.CS-good
sapedha motor-ra (aba'eng).
motorcycle-DEF he
‘Ali is who Rina doesn’t know that Deni fixed his motorcycle.’
The headless relative clauses in (175) and (176) are prolepsis constructions as
clear from the possibility of the resumptive pronoun aba'eng in each. Direct
clefting with the necessary object voice and locative morphology in the clause
is impossible.
(177) *Ina se Siti ngera (ja' (aba'eng)) mangkat dha' Jakarta are Kemmes.
Ina REL Siti AV.think COMP she leave to Jakarta day Thursday
(Ina is who Siti thinks left for Jakarta on Thursday.)
(178) *Ali se Rina lo' tao (ja') Deni ma-becce' sapedha motor-ra
Ali REL Rina not know COMP Deni AV.CS-good motorcycle-DEF
(aba'eng).
he
(Ali is whose motorcycle Rina doesn’t know whether Deni fixed.)
9.1 The presuppositional clause
The cleft consists of the focused NP predicate and a presuppositional clause.
That is, the headless relative clause sets up the presupposition that there is some
set of elements that satisfies the state of affairs denoted by the relative clause.
The clause in the headless relative clause can generally be verbal, as in the pre-
vious examples, including adjective and PP predicates, (179) and (180) illustrat-
ing the latter types.
(179) a. Ana'-eng Wati se penter.
child-DEF Wati REL smart
‘Wati’s child is who is smart.’