Cleft Sentences

You're in the middle of a story, or an argument, or a text to a mate, and one bit of the sentence matters more than the rest. Your friend scores the winning goal, and "She scored the winning goal" just doesn't cut it — so you say it differently. "It was her who scored the winning goal." Or maybe: "What she did was score the winning goal." Same facts. Completely different feel. One of them practically has a spotlight on it.

That's a cleft sentence — a sentence that's been deliberately split (that's what "cleft" means — split) so one particular piece gets all the attention. You've been using these your whole life without knowing they had a name. Here's the thing: once you do know the pattern, you stop reaching for it by accident and start using it on purpose — to correct someone, to build tension in a story, to make an exam answer land harder.

Nobody's born knowing this stuff. But it's not complicated once you see the shape of it, and that's what we're doing here.

Before you read on, here's where we're heading. By the end you'll be able to: - Recognise an it-cleft and a wh-cleft on sight, and say what each one is emphasising. - Build both patterns yourself, confidently, from an ordinary sentence. - Choose the right one depending on whether you're correcting, explaining, or adding drama. - Spot when you've overdone it — because you can, and it shows.

Beginner (Foundation): What's Actually Being Split

Let's start with a plain, ordinary sentence — nothing fancy:

"Lena finished the project yesterday."

Nothing wrong with it. It just doesn't tell your reader which bit matters most. Everything sits there in a flat, even line — who, what, when — with no particular emphasis anywhere.

Now say you want to make dead certain everyone knows it was Lena — not her group partner, not anyone else. You reshape the sentence:

"It was Lena who finished the project yesterday."

Notice what happened. The sentence split into two chunks: 1. "It was Lena" 2. "who finished the project yesterday"

That's an it-cleft. The pattern is:

It + be (is/was/will be) + [the focused bit] + who/that + [the rest of the sentence]

More examples:

• "It was the dog that ate the last biscuit." (emphasis: which animal)
• "It's tomorrow that we get our results back." (emphasis: when)
• "It was in the library that he found it." (emphasis: where)

Whatever sits between "It was" and "who/that" is the star of the sentence. Everything else is just backstage, filling in the rest of the story.

There's a second pattern that does a similar job differently — the wh-cleft, sometimes called a pseudo-cleft:

Wh-word (what/where/when/who) + clause + be + [the focused bit]

• "What she loves is dancing."
• "What I need is a quiet room."
• "Where I feel happiest is by the sea."

Here the emphasised bit comes at the end, not the middle. "What she loves" behaves like a chunky noun — a bit like the noun clauses you may have already met elsewhere in this library — and "is dancing" tells you what fills that slot.

Same underlying fact, three different deliveries:

• Plain: "Josh called me last night."
• It-cleft: "It was Josh who called me last night."
• Wh-cleft: "What Josh did was call me last night."

None of these change what actually happened. They just move the spotlight.

Common Mistake: Thinking a cleft sentence adds new information or changes the meaning. It doesn't. "It was Tom who broke the window" tells you exactly what "Tom broke the window" tells you — it's just been rearranged so Tom gets the emphasis.

Quick recap: - A cleft sentence splits information into two chunks to spotlight one part. - It-cleft: It + be + focus + who/that + rest of the sentence. - Wh-cleft: wh-word + clause + be + focus. - The meaning stays exactly the same — only the emphasis moves.

Intermediate (Development): Building Them on Purpose

Right, you've seen the shape. Now let's actually build these things step by step, and — more importantly — work out when they're worth reaching for.

Building an it-cleft

Start with something ordinary:

"The coach praised Mia after the match."

Decide what you want in the spotlight. Say it's Mia:

"It was Mia who the coach praised after the match." (More naturally: "It was Mia that the coach praised after the match." Both who and that are fine here — who tends to sound a touch more careful.)

You can shift the spotlight onto any part:

• Focus on time: "It was after the match that the coach praised Mia."
• Focus on the doer: "It was the coach who praised Mia after the match."

Pro-Tip: Writing a story for an exam and need a dramatic beat? Reach for an it-cleft: "It was then that I realised the door had been locked the whole time." It slows the moment down and makes it land.

Building a wh-cleft

Take: "I enjoy playing football."

Say you want "playing football" in the spotlight. Build the wh-clause from the rest:

"What I enjoy is playing football."

More:

• "I hate getting up early." → "What I hate is getting up early."
• "My favourite part was the ending." → "What I liked best was the ending."

You can use other wh-words too — where, when — though they read a bit heavier, more suited to descriptive writing or speeches:

• "Where I do my homework is at the kitchen table."
• "When I feel most relaxed is after exams are over."

Choosing which one — and whether to bother at all

Here are three versions of the same event:

1. "Amira lost her bag on the bus." (plain)
2. "It was Amira who lost her bag on the bus." (focus on Amira)
3. "It was on the bus that Amira lost her bag." (focus on location)

All three are correct. Which one you pick depends on what your reader already knows and what's actually the news. If everyone already knows Amira lost something and the question hanging in the air is where, then version 3 is the one that satisfies that curiosity. If the tension in your story is who's to blame, version 2 does the job.

This is the bit people miss: clefts work best when they answer a question the reader is already half-asking. Use one when there's genuinely something to correct, contrast, or spotlight — not just because it sounds more impressive.

Common Mistake: Overusing clefts. If every other sentence in your essay starts "It was X who…", your teacher will notice — and not kindly. Two or three well-placed clefts in a piece of writing do far more work than ten scattered everywhere.

Quick recap: - Build an it-cleft by moving the bit you want emphasised straight after "It was." - Build a wh-cleft with a wh-word + clause + be + the focused bit. - Pick your focus based on what your reader is genuinely wondering about. - Use clefts sparingly — like a strong spice, not a sauce you drown everything in.

Advanced (Mastery): Old Information, New Information, and Knowing When to Stop

If you're still with me, here's where it actually gets interesting — where clefts start doing subtle work with tone and meaning, not just structure.

Old information vs new information

Look at this exchange:

A: "I thought it was Ben who cheated on the test." B: "No, it was Liam who cheated on the test."

Notice: "who cheated on the test" is old news — A's already said it. The genuinely new piece is "Liam," and that's exactly what sits in the spotlight slot, straight after "was." If B had tried to cleft the other way —

"It was cheating on the test that Liam did."

— it would sound off, because "cheating on the test" isn't what's actually in dispute. The name is. This is the real skill behind clefts: work out what your reader already knows, and put the genuinely new bit in the spotlight. Get that wrong and the sentence feels lopsided even if it's technically grammatical.

Tense moves freely

You're not stuck with "was." The verb be in a cleft takes whatever tense the meaning needs:

• "It is focus that helps me study." (present)
• "It will be next term that we move schools." (future)
• "What I liked was the ending." / "What I like is the ending." / "What I will remember is the ending."

The cleft is just a frame — the tense inside it behaves exactly as it would in a plain sentence.

Cousins of the cleft

You'll bump into structures that do a similar job without being technically clefts:

• All-clefts: "All I want is some peace and quiet."
• The thing is… / The problem is…: "The thing is, I've already done my homework." "The problem is that I don't understand question 5."

These aren't classic clefts, but they earn their place the same way — they flag "something important is coming" before delivering it.

Register — dressing a cleft up or down

Clefts flex depending on context. In a formal essay:

• "It is through the character of Scout that the reader comes to understand prejudice in the novel."

In an argument with a friend:

• "It was you who said that, not me!"
• "What I really want is pizza."

Same machinery. Wildly different mood. The vocabulary around the cleft does the dressing — the structure itself doesn't care whether you're being formal or furious.

Pro-Tip: In an exam essay, a well-placed cleft makes a strong topic sentence or a memorable closing line. Save it for the sentence you most want the examiner to remember, not for every third line.

Quick recap: - Clefts push old (known) information into the tail end and keep the new bit spotlighted. - Tense inside a cleft behaves normally — past, present, future, whatever fits. - "All I want…" and "The thing is…" are cleft-like cousins doing similar work. - The same structure can sound formal or casual — your word choice sets the tone, not the grammar.

UK vs US Usage

Good news here: it-clefts and wh-clefts work identically in UK and US English. The structures, the meanings, the way they shift focus — all shared, no real divergence to trip you up.

You'll see the usual spelling differences drifting through examples — colour [US: color] — but that's got nothing to do with clefts themselves. The one small, genuine tendency worth knowing: American writers lean slightly more often on that rather than who in it-clefts about people ("It was Sarah that won"), where UK writing leans marginally toward who. Both are correct, both are common, both are understood everywhere. Don't lose sleep over it.

Key Takeaways

• A cleft sentence splits ordinary information to spotlight one part of it.
• It-clefts: It + be + focus + who/that + the rest — sharp and direct.
• Wh-clefts: wh-word + clause + be + focus — smoother, good for explaining or defining.
• The underlying facts never change; only the emphasis does.
• Use clefts when there's a genuine question, correction, or contrast to serve — not as decoration.

Check Your Understanding

1. Turn this into an it-cleft emphasising the person: "Harry found my phone in the library."

2. Turn this into a wh-cleft emphasising the activity: "I enjoy reading fantasy novels."

3. Which part is emphasised here? "It was during lunch that the fire alarm went off." a) the fire alarm b) during lunch c) went off

4. Rewrite for extra emphasis: "I was really scared at that moment."

5. Is this an it-cleft or a wh-cleft? "What annoys me most is being interrupted."

Internal Links

This article should link to: - 3.2 Relative Clauses (for the who/that clauses inside it-clefts) - 3.4 Noun Clauses (for the what/where/when clauses inside wh-clefts) - 4.3 Inversion (another word-order trick for emphasis) - 4.4 Fronting (moving elements forward for focus) - 6.4 Sentence Variety (using clefts as one tool among several for livelier writing)

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