C1-GRAMMAR CLEFT SENTENCES
Cleft Sentences’ Undoubted Existence
(reading not recommended until it has been seen in class)
I’m very sorry
to tell you that there is no doubt about the existence of such things as
“Cleft Sentences”. They have no legs, they have no tentacles, they don't even have tails or big mouths, but they do exist, and what comes is a conclusive
proof of this statement:
· It was from Krypton, a planet outside our
galaxy, that Superman, also known
as
Clark Kent, was sent in a desperate attempt
to save his life.
You may not
believe in Superman, you may not believe in Clark Kent, you may not believe
in Krypton, but in “Cleft Sentences” you must, for there you have one, right
before your eyes.
We must say here
that there are many types of Cleft Sentences, with different subjects
(beginnings), but, following Quirk, we use the term “cleft” for those that
begin with “it”, the res being pseudo-cleft sentences.
What are
“Cleft Sentences” for?
“To make my
English much more difficult”, that’s what you’ve just thought.
And you might be
right, but besides making your English much more difficult they do have
another purpose:
What can the purpose of something called “cleft sentence be”?
Here we go:
·
Highlight part of a sentence,
in other words: to emphasize part of a sentence.
·
Again, you might not believe
it, but in the sentence given the emphasized or highlighted part is
.....”Krypton”.
·
Imagine the following
dialogue (1):
·
Or you may imagine this other
highly cultural dialogue (2):
In the first
cultural dialogue, Peter needs to emphasize “Krypton” in opposition to
Johnny’s belief that Superman came from Saturn; in the second and highly
cultural one, Peter needs to emphasize “Christopher Columbus” against
Johnny’s opinion that “a” (he says “a”, that is: “un tal”) Mr Hernán Cortés
did it. This is the reason of their existence and use.
But
don’t be sad,
don’t cry,
don’t break
down,
there is still
more on “cleft sentences”
The
skeleton of a “Clefty”
For more
intimacy, let’s call them “clefties”
(“clefty” being the singular).
Well, these clefties have no legs, have no
tentacles, no tails, but, just like you, they have a skeleton.
Let’s look
through the microscope into a simple example:
·
It was Neil Armstrong who first set foot on
the moon.
the sentence in boxes:
skeleton:
And like you,
they have secrets, which, like your own secrets, everybody gets to know:
1.
The subject is always “it” (good news), even if you are going
to talk,
or write, about one individual or 159 people.
2.
The verb is always “to be” in the third person singular,
because the subject is “it”,
even if you are going to talk, or write, about
159 people or 351 cellular phones.
“It was Mr Cortés and Mr Columbus who came to see you”
3.
The verb, to be, tells us the time reference: past, present,
future, or the modality:
“It must be your brother who wants to get in touch
with you. He’s so heavy”
4.
The pronoun: two possibilities:
WHO: look at the examples given and notice
that the highlighted element (Neil Armstrong/Mr Cortés and Mr Columbus/your
brother) is the subject (a personal subject, of course) of the verb that
comes after it (set foot/came to see you/wants to get in touch).
THAT (famous “THAT” that cannot always be
omitted): it is used when the highlighted element is not the subject of the
verb that comes after it. Let’s have a look at some examples of this well
kept secret:
a) It was in London that they met (place)
b) It was yesterday that she phoned (time)
c)
It was in his new pyjamas that he went to the ball (complement)
d) It was by helicopter that he got to the
top of the mountain (transport)
e) It was Queen Victoria that John met at the
disco (object of verb “meet”)
And.......... almost anything can be highlighted, or
emphasized, but don’t shout it out, keep it a secret. Look at the following:
My heavy uncle went to the ball with Ann in his new purple suit on horseback last Saturday
g f e d c b a
a) It was last Saturday that my heavy uncle went
to the ball with Ann in his new purple suit on horseback.
b) It was on horseback that my heavy brother went
to the ball with Ann in his new purple suit last
Saturday.
c) It was in his new purple suit that my heavy
uncle went to the ball with Ann on horseback last
Saturday.
d) It was with Ann that my heavy uncle went to
the ball in his new purple suit on horseback last Saturday.
e) It was to the ball that my heavy uncle went
with Ann in his new purple suit on horseback last Saturday.
f) It was went..... NOOOOO! This cannot be highlighted by means of clefties for
clefties detest
highlighting verbs.
g) It was my heavy uncle who went to the ball
with Ann in his new purple suit on horseback last
Saturday.
But let’s try something else:
h) It was heavy that my uncle.....NOOOOOOO! Clefties also detest
adjectives as subject complement, “¿atributo?”.
Clefties
in Spanish: good news and bad news
The good news is
that in Spanish we have a similar skeleton, I mean syntactic structure; the
bad news is that the relative pronoun used does not always coincide with the
English one.
So, in
It was Cortés who conquered Mexico →
Fue Cortés
quien conquistó Méjico
there’s absolute
coincidence,
but in
It was on
Friday that they met → Fue ayer cuando se conocieron
there is not
absolute coincidence, for in English “that” is used as linking pronoun
whereas it is “cuando” that is used in Spanish (see the clefty in this last sentences?).
Why not “When” and “where”
Yes, they are
used, although only in some cases.
This is about
all you need to know about clefties,
formally Cleft Sentences. Or you might be interested in the fact that “cleft”
is one of the past participles (there are three) of the verb “cleave”, which
means “split, sever (cut)”, and, as you can see a “cleft sentence” is a
sentence that has been split in several parts.
Don’t be afraid,
or lazy: make your own examples of “clefts” and say them aloud; record them
if you can and then listen to them.
|
It has been really really useful as I found a clue to fix my knowledge.
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