Definition and Examples of Cleft Sentences

In English grammar, a cleft is a construction in which some element in a sentence is moved from its normal position into a separate clause to give it greater emphasis. A cleft is also known as a  cleft sentence, a  cleft construction, and a  cleft clause. A  cleft sentence  is a sentence that is cleft (split) so as to put the focus on one part of it. The cleft sentence is introduced by  it, which is followed by a  verb phrase  whose main verb is generally  be. The focused part comes next, and then the rest of the sentence is introduced by a  relative pronoun, relative  determiner, or  relative adverb. If we take the sentence  Tom felt a sharp pain after lunch, two possible cleft sentences formed from it are  It was Tom who felt a sharp pain after lunch  and  It was after lunch that Tom felt a sharp pain. Take, for example, the simple declarative sentence, Jerry went to the movie yesterday. If you would want to emphasize one element or another, the sentence could be rewritten in several different ways: It was  Jerry  who went to the movie  yesterday.It was to the  movie  that Jerry went  yesterday.It was  yesterday  that Jerry went to the movie.   English has many different varieties of cleft constructions, but the two major types are it-clefts and wh-clefts.  Wh- clefts use  wh words, which is most often what in the construction. However, why, where, how, etc. are also possibilities. Examples and Observations It-Clefts It was only last month that  I decided to go back to school.It was my father who  sent Dyer out to proselyte.  It was my father who  had the blue-ice eye and the beard of gold.It was Roosevelt who impetuously blurted out the unconditional surrender ultimatum at a press conference in Casablanca, to the surprise of Winston Churchill, who was sitting at his side and who had no alternative but to nod approval. Wh-Clefts What I needed was a weapon. Other people, hitchhikers, told me they always carried a little something, a knife or a can of Mace, and Id laughed, thinking there was no greater weapon than the human mind. You idiot.Strange, but  what I really wanted was  a dad who would come down to the police station, ​yell his head off, and then take me home to talk about what happened, to come up with a new plan for how Id act in the future, etc. All the other guys had that. But not me. My dad left me alone in jail for the night. Sources Douglas Biber et al.,  Longman Student Grammar. Pearson, 2002George N. Crocker,  Roosevelts Road to Russia. Regnery, 1959David Crystal,  Making Sense of Grammar. Longman, 2004Zane Gray,  Riders of the Purple Sage, 1912Sidney Greenbaum,  Oxford English Grammar. Oxford University Press, 1996David Sedaris,  Naked. Little, Brown Company, 1997Michael Simmons,  Finding Lubchenko. Razorbill, 2005