A cleft sentence is a special grammatical construction used to emphasize specific parts of a sentence. Instead of using a simple sentence structure, we split the information into two clauses to highlight what's most important. For example, instead of saying 'John bought the book yesterday', we can say 'It was John who bought the book yesterday' to emphasize that John was the one who did the action.
There are three main types of cleft sentences. First, the it-cleft, which follows the pattern 'It plus be plus focus plus relative clause', like 'It was Mary who called'. Second, the wh-cleft or pseudo-cleft, which uses 'wh-clause plus be plus focus', such as 'What I need is coffee'. Third, the reverse wh-cleft, where the focus comes first, followed by be and the wh-clause, as in 'Coffee is what I need'. Each type serves to emphasize different elements of the sentence.
Let's break down the structure of an it-cleft sentence. Starting with a simple sentence like 'Tom ate the apple', we can transform it into 'It was Tom who ate the apple'. This cleft structure has three main components: first, the dummy subject 'It was' which serves as an empty placeholder; second, the focused element 'Tom' which is what we want to emphasize; and third, the relative clause 'who ate the apple' which contains the remaining information. The primary function is to highlight the subject Tom as the most important element.
Cleft sentences can emphasize different parts of a sentence depending on what information needs highlighting. For subject emphasis, we might say 'It was Sarah who won the race' to focus on who performed the action. For object emphasis, we use 'It was the book that I lost' to highlight what was affected. For adverbial emphasis, we say 'It was yesterday when he arrived' to stress the timing or circumstances. The main purpose is to highlight specific information and create contrast or clarification in communication.
To summarize, cleft sentences are powerful grammatical tools that split information into two clauses to emphasize specific elements. The three main types are it-cleft, wh-cleft, and reverse wh-cleft structures. They're commonly used for contrast, clarification, and creating focus in both formal writing and spoken English. Whether you're answering questions with emphasis or highlighting important information in academic discourse, cleft sentences help you direct your audience's attention exactly where you want it. Now you understand this essential grammatical construction!