🇬🇧 ADVANCED ENGLISH SYNTAX • CEFR C1 - C2 / IELTS 8+ • 10 MIN READ

English Cleft Sentences: It-Clefts & Wh-Clefts for Powerful Emphasis

A cleft sentence ("cleft" means divided or split) splits a single thought into two clauses to give prominence or contrast to a specific element. Instead of the flat statement "David paid for dinner", clefting allows you to state emphatically: "It was David who paid for dinner" or "What David did was pay for dinner".

⚡ The Two Primary Cleft Archetypes

1. It-Cleft (Focus on Person, Thing, Time or Reason)

IT + BE + [Emphasized Unit] + THAT/WHO + [Rest of clause]

"It was yesterday that we finalized the deal."

2. Wh-Cleft / Pseudo-Cleft (Focus on Action or Object)

WHAT + [Clause] + BE + [Emphasized Unit]

"What we need is a sustainable roadmap."

1. Mastering It-Clefts (Focus Shifting)

Consider this baseline sentence: "Helen discovered the security breach on Monday." Look how an It-cleft cleanly shifts emphasis to isolate any single component:

Element Emphasized	Cleft Sentence	Contrastive Implication
Subject (Agent)	It was Helen who discovered the breach...	(Not Mark or the external auditor)
Direct Object	It was the security breach that Helen discovered...	(Not a minor configuration error)
Time Adverbial	It was on Monday that Helen discovered the breach...	(Not late Friday evening)
Reason Clause	It is because she was vigilant that the data was saved.	(Highlighting the decisive causal factor)

2. Wh-Clefts and Extended Variations

Wh-clefts are celebrated in academic writing and formal debate because they build anticipation before delivering the key revelation:

Focus on Action: What the team did was completely redesign the algorithm.
Focus on Object: What you need most right now is rest.
All-Cleft (Minimizing): All I'm asking for is ten minutes of your time.
The Person / The Reason: The person who inspired me the most was my grandmother. / The reason why we resigned was unprecedented micromanagement.
Reverse Pseudo-Cleft: Patience is what you really lack.

3. Critical Pitfall: Subject-Verb Agreement in Clefts

🚨 Beware the Plural Predicate Trap!

In It-clefts, the preparatory subject "It" ALWAYS takes the singular verb is / was, even when followed by a plural noun:
• ✓ It was the architects who redesigned the building. (NOT *They were the architects who...)
In What-clefts, if the following complement is plural, formal English allows either is/was or are/were, but are/were is preferred when plural nouns follow directly:
• ✓ What we require are tangible results.