Cleft Sentences

Cleft Sentences

Are used...
1. to help us focus on a particular part of the sentence
2. to emphasise what we want to say
Are useful in...
1. writing where we cannot use intonation for purposes of focus or emphasis
2. speech.
Cleft structures include
1. the reason why
2. the thing that
3. the person/people who
4. the place where
5. the day when
6. what-clauses
  1. linked to the clause that we want to focus on with is or was.
  2. often used with verbs expressing an emotive response to something like
    1. adore
    2. dislike
    3. enjoy
    4. hate
    5. like
    6. loathe
    7. love
    8. need
    9. prefer
    10. want
  3. often used with does/do/did and with the verb happen when we want to give emphasis to the whole sentence
  4. use all instead of what in a cleft structure if you want to focus on one particular thing and nothing else
preparatory it
1. use it in cleft sentences and join the words that we want to focus on to the relative clause with...
  1. that
  2. who
  3. when

Resource summary

	Created by rosgabi30 over 9 years ago