For those times when even the passive voice falls short of giving us the desired emphasis for a statement, the English language allows recourse to a construction known as
the cleft sentence, which “cleaves” or splits a single-clause sentence into two clauses for semantic or stylistic emphasis. It is the written equivalent of speaking louder to draw attention to the most important points of what we are saying.
Cleft sentences take two common forms. The first is
the “it” cleft, which exhibits the pattern “
It + be + [subject of focus] + [action or defining clause],” as in “
It was the accusers themselves who fudged the data.” The other is
the pseudo-cleft or “wh-” cleft, which normally takes the form “
Wh- + [subject] + [verb] + [form of be] + [rest of the predicate],” as in “
What she did was a wonderful thing.” Both depart from the usual declarative form to achieve a stronger, defensive emphasis. (The straightforward form of the “it” cleft above is, of course, “The accusers themselves fudged the data”; that of the “wh-” cleft, “She did a wonderful thing.”)
The “it” cleft. With this sentence construction, the empty function word “it” works to highlight an object of special focus, or theme. The sentence assumes a tone and form that seeks to correct someone’s wrong idea; the negator “no” or “not,” if unstated, can normally be presumed to precede it.
For instance, someone may have just said pointedly: “The accused, Your Honor, fudged the data.” The defensive—perhaps outraged—reply would likely be an “it” cleft: “
No, Your Honor,
it was the accusers themselves who fudged the data.”
An “it”-cleft sentence always has a dependent clause introduced by the subordinators “that” or “who” or by none at all, and that dependent clause normally ends the sentence for emphasis: “It was her
that I wanted all along.” “It is Alberto
who can make things possible for us.” The “it”-cleft thus achieves double emphasis: one for the cleft’s theme, and the other for the chosen end-focus.
Like the plain passive-voice construction, the “it”-cleft gives wide latitude in emphasizing any of the following in the scheme of things:
the actor,
the indirect or direct object, or
the act itself.
Consider this simple declarative sentence: “The judge gave the erring lawyer a sharp rebuke.” It can take any of these three “it”-cleft forms that revolve around the same idea but with different shades of meaning: “
It was the judge that gave the erring lawyer a sharp rebuke.” “
It was the erring lawyer that the judge sharply rebuked.” “
It was a sharp rebuke that the erring lawyer got from the judge.”
The pseudo-cleft or “what” cleft. This construction fashions both the main verb and theme (main idea) of the sentence into a noun clause, then uses that noun clause to begin the sentence. Instead of “it,” however, the pseudo-cleft uses “what”—or "where" and "when"*—to introduce that clause.
The pseudo-cleft allows several variations of a statement to emphasize a different theme each time. For the simple declarative statement like, say, “We brought Eve some luscious fruits,” the pseudo-cleft can do the following:
1. Emphasize the direct object (“luscious fruits”) from the doer’s (“we”) standpoint: “
What we brought to Eve were luscious fruits.”
2. Emphasize the direct object from the doer’s standpoint, but less assertively: “
What were brought by us to Eve were luscious fruits.”
3. Emphasize the direct object from the receiver’s (“Eve’s”) standpoint: “
What Eve got from us were luscious fruits.”
4. Emphasize the action: “
What we did was to bring luscious fruits to Eve.”
5. Emphasize all the elements: “
What happened was that we brought luscious fruits to Eve.”
Clefts are potent, high-energy devices for achieving emphasis, but we must use them with restraint—certainly not as habitual forms of expressing ourselves. To overuse them is to trivialize not only the very things we want to emphasize but the rest of our composition as well.
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*Examples of place and time or occasion as theme: 1. Place: “Where we brought the luscious fruits to Eve was at Rizal Park.” 2. Time or occasion as theme: “When we brought the luscious fruits to Eve was during her debut when she turned 18.” This is a condensed version of the author’s 825-word essay that appeared in his book Give Your English the Winning Edge
, © 2009 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
Read this essay and listen to its voice recording in
The Manila Times:
When even the passive voice won’t suffice(Next:
Dealing with problematic pronoun usage- 1) May 18, 2023
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