The Spanish pseudo-cleft construction and intensive ser

1. Introduction
Clefting is an operation whereby an NP (noun phrase) or a PP (prepositional phrase) is removed from its usual position in a sentence and inserted into the X position in a sentence having the form it + be + X + embedded clause. In the examples below, the X position is occupied by Pedro and by in the shop:

(1)       Pedro cooked dinner → It was Pedro who cooked dinner.

(2)       I met her in the shop → It was in the shop that I met her.

The effect of clefting is to focalize the NP or PP that is displaced from its usual location. The focalized NP or the PP supplies the addressee with new or ‘missing’ information: who cooked the dinner? Pedro; where did you meet her? in the shop.

2. Peninsular pseudo-cleft
In contrast to English, (Peninsular) Spanish does not allow clefting in the sense just described. Instead, a pseudo-cleft or ‘equative’ construction is used, whereby the verb ser links two syntactically equivalent phrases. In the sentence below, for example, the verb form fue links the NPs el que llamó and el cartero:

(3)       Fue el cartero el que llamó.
           ‘It was the postman who rang.’

The sentence above can be analysed as expressing the content X = Y, where ‘=’ is expressed by the verb ser and X and Y are the NPs el cartero and el que llamó (or vice versa). This analysis is partly obscured by ‘verb first’ word order of (3) but, in fact, either NP can be promoted to preverbal position:

(4)       El cartero fue el que llamó.
(5)       El que llamó fue el cartero.

A variant form of this construction involves quien(-es) ‘who’, as in (6) below:

(6)       Fue el cartero quien llamó.

Both the phrase quien llamó in (6) and el que llamó can be described as free relative NPs, in that a relative pronoun (quien or el que) has been used to create a unit that has the syntactic status of an NP. As with the el que construction illustrated by (3), both of the NPs in (6) can be preposed:

(7)       El cartero fue el quien llamó.
(8)       Quien llamó fue el cartero.

The analysis just sketched can be extended also to sentences such as (9) and (10) below in which a temporal expression and a locative expression respectively are focalized:

(9a)       Es mañana cuando vienen.
(9b)       Cuando vienen es mañana.
(9c)       Mañana es cuando vienen.
             ‘It’s tomorrow that they’re coming.’

(10a)     Es aquí donde ocurrió.
(10b)     Donde ocurrió es aquí.
(10c)     Aquí es donde ocurrió.
             ‘It’s here that it happened.’

In terms of the X = Y schema, mañana and aquí correspond to X while cuando vienen and donde ocurrió correspond to Y (or vice versa). Like quien llamó and el que llamó in the earlier examples the units cuando vienen and donde ocurrió can both be regarded free relative NPs, as they function as NPs and are introduced by relativizers, viz. cuando ‘when’ and donde ‘where’.

When the focalized constituent is a prepositional phrase (PP), European Spanish adopts a similar strategy to that just illustrated, although in this case the units in the X and Y positions are PPs:

(11)      Fue de política de lo que hablamos.
             ‘It was politics that we talked about.’

As with the earlier examples, either phrase in the X and Y positions can be promoted to preverbal position:

(12)      De lo que hablamos fue de política.
(13)      De política fue de lo que hablamos.

Note, however, that the mainstream Latin American equivalent of (11) would be (14) below, which on the face of it appears to be a genuine cleft sentence (with fue having a latent impersonal subject):

(14)      Fue de política que hablamos.

The formulation above would be regarded as ungrammatical by Peninsular speakers.

3. Intensive ser (Caribbean basin, Ecuador, Colombia etc.)
A less widely accepted Latin American variant, known as ‘intensive ser’ or ‘emphatic ser’, appears at first glance to involve ellipsis of the relativizer, together with the accompanying preposition (if one is present). Thus in (15) and (16), for example, the relativizers donde and cuando have been omitted, while in (17) the missing sequence is de lo que:

(15)      Lo vi fue en la tienda.
             ‘<Where> I saw her was in the shop.’

(16)      Yo vengo a tener problemas es ahora.
             ‘Now is <when> I’m starting to have problems.’

(17)      Se muere es de la impresión.
             ‘<Of what> you die is the fright.’

Compare the equivalent Peninsular pseudo-clefts: Donde lo vi fue en la tienda, Cuando vengo a tener problemas es ahora, De lo que se muere es de la impresión/susto.

Some cases of this phenomenon go beyond simple ellipsis, however. Sentence (18) below, for example, seems to be related to (19), but the position of era in (18) rules out an analysis in terms of ellipsis alone:

(18)      Teníamos era que trabajar mucho.
             ‘What we had to do was work hard.’

(19)      Lo que teníamos que hacer era trabajar mucho.

Because the connection between sentences (18) and (19) is not a transparent one, it is probably more appropriate to treat ser in (18) – and perhaps more generally in this construction – as some sort of specialized intensifying or focalizing particle rather than as the identity verb in an elliptical or reduced pseudo-cleft.