The research focuses on the organisation of syntax in spoken New Zealand English. Work over the past twenty five years has demonstrated that the syntax of spoken language, especially unplanned speech, differs greatly from the syntax of written language. More specifically, while some constructions are only/mainly found in writing, others are mostly found in speech. Among the latter, we find examples such as (a) That’s what I had in mind and (b) That’s what I thought. These types of clefts are much more frequent in spontaneous spoken English than other cleft types: twice more frequent than IT-clefts, three times more common than basic WH-clefts, and over ten times more widely used than reversed WH-clefts.
      Clefts denote structures which result from (typically) simple sentences (though not exclusively) which are "cleaved" for the purpose of highlighting one component constituent. For instance, the sentence Mary bought a red jumper can be "cleaved" to highlight the subject as in It was Mary who bought a red jumper, or it can be "cleaved" to highlight its object (It was a red jumper that Mary bought). Furthermore, clefts come in three major types: IT-clefts, WH-clefts and reversed WH-clefts, as exemplified below:

(1) IT-cleft                        It was a red jumper that Mary bought.

(2) WH-cleft                    What Mary bought was a red jumper.

(3) Reversed WH-cleft       A red jumper is what Mary bought.

      Despite the fact that the construction exemplified in (a) and (b) has not been investigated in great detail, its existence and frequency in spoken language has been noted in the literature and various suggestions have been put forward regarding its classification. Some researchers consider it to be a reversed WH-cleft (Collins 2004, Hedberg 1988, Lambrecht 2001, Weinert and Miller 1996), while others regard it as an IT-cleft (Huddleston and Pullum 2002), and others still (Biber et al 1999) treat it as separate cleft type altogether. An earlier paper by Ball (1977) introduced the label TH-cleft, as a cover term for examples similar (though not identical in structure or function) to those given above, e.g., (c) Those are my cigarettes you are smoking!, which she argues should be classified as IT-clefts.
      The current work investigates the two types of clefts exemplified in (a)-(c) in terms of 23 different properties, relating to their structure and syntax on the one hand, and their function in discourse on the other. These properties have been identified by consulting existing literature on clefts and data from the Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English (approx. 200,000 words of spontaneous conversation). The clefts are contrasted and compared with IT-clefts, WH-clefts and reversed WH-clefts found in the same portion of the data.
      One of the most problematic features investigated concerns the fact that clefts are often "un-integrated" or loosely integrated inside the syntactic structure which they are part of, while still being tightly connected within the discourse portion in which they are found. Examples include: That's what you have to do is nest, and That is what he thought about all day his work. Previous studies suggest that in spoken language the distinction between the syntax of clauses and the overall organisation of a piece of discourse is not clear; clauses that do not appear to be syntactically subordinate may nonetheless be subordinate in terms of the discourse. This is problematic for existing syntactic theories which rely on tightly integrated structures.
      The research will contribute to existing knowledge of the grammatical constructions used by speakers of New Zealand English and English worldwide. Given the significant differences between the grammar of spoken language and the grammar of written language, this work will contribute to our understanding of the barriers that have to be crossed in the teaching and learning of spoken language, as well as those which arise for second language learners.