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Cleft Sentences
Cleft Sentences
Cleft means “divided”.In a cleft sentence we express the information which could be
provided by a simple sentence with a complex sentence. This complex sentence is
divided into a main clause and a dependent clause. These two parts have their own verb.
Clefts are typically used to give extra emphasis to a part of the sentence. They are
mainly used in the written language because we cannot give an extra emphasis to a part
of the sentence through the intonation. Although they are very common in spoken
English as well.
Structure:
where it is a cleft pronoun and the emphasized phrase is usually a noun phrase
(although it can also be a prepositional phrase, and in some cases an adjectival or
adverbial phrase). For example:
Structure:
In these sentences What means “ the thing(s) that. The emphasized phrase usually
contains a bare infinitive or TO+INF.
* The boys are taking Sandy to the match. What the boys are doing is taking Sandy
to the match.
* I want a new coat for Christmas What I want for Christmas is a new coat.
This type of Cleft sentence can change its order and as a result we get the 3rd type.
Structure:
* I want a new coat for Christmas What I want for Christmas is a new coat.
It is sometimes very effective to use ALL instead of WHAT in a cleft structure if you
want to focus on a particular thing and nothing else:
I touched the bedside light and it broke. All I did was (to) touch the bedside light and
it broke.
• Inferential cleft It is not that he loves her. It's just that he has a way with her
that is different.
• There-cleft: And then there's a new house he wanted to build.
• If-because cleft: If he wants to be an actor it's because he wants to be famous.