top of page

Cleft Sentence for Focus

Clefts function to give prominence to a particular part of a sentence. They do this by splitting the sentence into two clauses (hence the name ‘cleft’ from ‘cleave’) and assigning a verb to each noun phrase. The sentence can be cleft by using wh-words, expletive - It, and sometimes with phrase like ‘all that’. The part of the clause to be emphasised can be subject; subject complement; direct object of verb; verb phrase; adverbial phrase; adjective phrase; infinitive phrase; gerund phrase; complement phrase/clause of adjective and verb; noun phrase with noun + complement; subordinate clause and the clause itself.

Want to read more?

Subscribe to grammarwithstyle.net to keep reading this exclusive post.

19 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

‘WOULD ALWAYS’ & ‘USED TO’

‘Used to’ expresses the idea that something was an old habit that stopped in the past. It indicates that something was often repeated in the past, but it is not usually done now. It also talks of past

‘Would Prefer’ & ‘Would Rather’

PRESENT/FUTURE Preference of the same person ‘would prefer’ is used in for specific instances and in response to offer of choices, whereas ‘prefer’ is more general and a declarative statement applicab

Expression of Sufficiency

‘Sufficient’ is not same as ‘plenty, abundant, ample’ – all of which stress on ‘how much more compared to what is normal’. On the other hand ‘sufficient’ stresses on ‘more than minimum’ which often me

bottom of page