Understanding the Meaning of a Cleft

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(JGI/Jamie Grill/Getty Images)

English
 English Grammar
o An Introduction to Punctuation
 Writing
By 
Richard Nordquist
Updated June 24, 2019

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 I'd 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 I'd act in the future, etc. All
the other guys had that. But not me. My dad left me alone in jail for the
night."