Cleft Sentence Quiz

10 Questions

A cleft sentence is a complex sentence that has a meaning that could be expressed by a simple sentence.

To emphasize a particular constituent.

It's money that I love.

It is a cleft pronoun that acts as the subject of the main clause.

A cleft sentence has the dependent clause before the main clause, while a regular sentence has the main clause before the dependent clause.

It has a main clause and a dependent clause

To emphasize a particular constituent

A noun phrase

To emphasize a specific element of the sentence

It has an inverted word order

Study Notes

A cleft sentence is a sentence that emphasizes a particular piece of information by dividing the sentence into two clauses, with the emphasized information in the first clause.
The purpose of using a cleft sentence is to draw attention to specific information, to add emphasis, or to create a sense of drama.
An example of a cleft sentence is: "It was the new policy that surprised everyone."
In a cleft sentence, 'it' is a dummy subject that takes the place of the actual subject, serving as a placeholder to introduce the emphasized information.
A cleft sentence is different from a regular sentence in that it has a more complex structure, with a split between the emphasized information and the rest of the sentence.
A characteristic of a cleft sentence is that it uses a placeholder subject (usually 'it') to introduce the emphasized information, and often uses a be-verb to link the two clauses.
The function of 'it' in a cleft sentence is to act as a placeholder subject, allowing the speaker or writer to emphasize a particular piece of information.
In a cleft sentence, X can be a noun phrase, a pronoun, a verb phrase, or a prepositional phrase, among other possibilities.