Cleft sentence structures in English are one of the most powerful — and least discussed — tools for controlling where a reader’s attention lands. Used widely in British and American journalism, academic writing, and literary prose, cleft sentences let you split a single idea across two clauses so that one part carries maximum emphasis. If you read English newspapers from London, Buenos Aires, Mumbai, or Tokyo, you are already encountering cleft structures constantly. This guide names them clearly, shows you how each one works, and explains why writers reach for them.
In everyday speech, word order already signals importance — English speakers naturally stress the last content word in a sentence. But in writing, that trick doesn’t travel. Clefting is the written language’s answer: it uses syntax itself to say “this part matters most.”
1. The Classic It-Cleft
The it-cleft is the most recognisable cleft sentence structure in English. It follows the pattern It + be + focused element + that/who clause. The word it here is entirely empty — it refers to nothing. It exists only to hold open a space so the focused element can arrive with weight.
| Compare |
| Plain She left the meeting early. |
| It-cleft It was she who left the meeting early. |
| The second sentence focuses entirely on the person. The action becomes background. This is clefting doing its work. |
It-clefts are widely used across Indian English writing, South American academic prose translated into English, and formal British journalism. The reason is practical: when a sentence contains several facts, the it-cleft tells the reader which one to carry forward.
2. The Wh-Cleft (or Pseudo-Cleft)
The wh-cleft puts a what-clause at the beginning and the focused element at the end, after be. The pattern is What + clause + be + focused element. It is very common in spoken English but appears extensively in essay writing and editorial opinion pieces across English-language publications in Asia and Europe.
| EXAMPLE |
| What surprised everyone was the speed of the decision. |
| The wh-clause builds up the context; the main clause delivers the point. The reader is walked toward the key information rather than hit with it upfront. |
Notice how wh-clefts feel slightly more conversational than it-clefts. That is because in speech, we often construct sentences this way — beginning with the known and ending with the new. Writers who use wh-clefts well create prose that feels both structured and natural.
3. The Reversed Wh-Cleft
Flip the wh-cleft and you get the reversed pseudo-cleft, where the focused element comes first: Focused element + be + what-clause. This version is particularly emphatic and is common in written arguments where the writer wants to state their conclusion before explaining it.
| EXAMPLE |
| The training data is what determines the model’s behaviour. |
| This structure appears frequently in technology journalism worldwide — from Germany’s tech press writing in English to India’s startup media. It leads with the claim, then frames it. |
4. All-Cleft
The all-cleft uses all as a focusing device and implies that the focused action is the only one that matters — nothing more, nothing less. The pattern: All + subject + do/did + be + infinitive. It appears frequently in minimising or corrective statements.
| EXAMPLE |
| All she did was ask a question. |
| The all-cleft corrects an assumed exaggeration. In discourse, it pushes back against overstatement. Writers use it when they want to trim down a claim. |
5. Nominal Relative Cleft
Instead of what, this variation uses other nominal relative pronouns — whoever, wherever, whenever, however. It works the same way structurally but opens the focus to a wider, unspecified referent.
| EXAMPLE |
| Whoever designed this interface understood the user’s needs completely. |
| The anonymous subject carries focus. The structure is used when the identity is unknown but the fact still needs emphasis. Common in editorial and analytical writing. |
6. Time, Place, and Reason Clefts
Clefts can focus not just on people or things, but on time, place, and reason. These use when, where, and why instead of that after the focused element. They are extremely common in formal writing across journalism and academic discourse.
| Three Types |
| It was in 1971 when the agreement was first signed. It is in the footnotes where the most important qualifications appear. It was the ambiguity of the contract why the deal collapsed. |
7. Inferential Cleft (the “if anyone” type)
The inferential cleft is rarely named in grammar guides, yet it appears constantly in persuasive prose. It uses a conditional or quantifier structure to focus a claim: If anyone knows X, it is Y or Of all the things that matter, it is Z. It carries a rhetorical charge that direct statements do not.
| EXAMPLE |
| If anyone understands the cost of delay, it is the engineering team. |
| This structure implies a comparison without naming the comparison. The reader infers that others understand less. Used widely in speeches, op-eds, and professional reports. |
Cleft sentence structures in English do not add information — they redistribute its weight.
Wrapping up: cleft sentence structures in English
All seven of these cleft sentence structures in English are doing the same fundamental thing: breaking a single proposition into two clauses so that one part becomes foreground and the other becomes ground. The choice between them is a choice about rhythm, rhetorical effect, and the relationship between given information and new information. Once you can name these structures, you will find them on every serious page of English writing you read — from a financial report in Frankfurt to a feature story in Singapore.
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