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ADDING ENPHASISCLEFT SENTENCES

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Ways of Adding Emphasis

I. Cleft Sentences

If we want to give special importance to one part of a sentence,we can put it into a separate clause. There are two commonways of doing this.

One is to use the structure It is/was ... that ...;

the other is to use What . . . is/was ....

Compare:

Harry told the police. ----It was Harry that told the police.

I need a beer. -----What I need is a beer.

The sentence with It gives special importance to Harry; thesentence with What emphasizes a beer.

Sentences like these are called 'cleft sentences' by grammarians(cleft means 'divided').

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A Cleft sentences with It is/was ... that ...

This structure can be used to emphasize almost any part of the

sentence.

Compare:

My mother threw an egg at the Minister of Educationyesterday.

It was my mother that threw an egg at the Minister ofEducation yesterday.

It was an egg that my mother threw at the Minister ofEducation yesterday.

It was yesterday that my mother threw an egg at the Minister

of Education. It was the Minister of Education that my mother threw an egg

at yesterday.

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Notes

The verb cannot be emphasized in this way: you

cannot say *It was threw that ...

When the subject is emphasized, who (referring to a

person) is possible instead of that.

It was my mother who threw...

When the emphasized subject is a pronoun, there is a

choice between subject forms (I, me, etc) and object-

forms (me, him, etc).

It was I who ... It was me that ...Object forms are more

common in informal English.

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Cleft sentences with What ... is/was ...

This structure is used to emphasize the subject or object.Compare:

My left leg hurts. ----What hurts is my left leg.

I like her style. ----What I like is her style.

Who (m) cannot be used in this way for person subjectsor objects. You cannot say, for instance,

*Who telephoned was my uncle.

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Negative Adverbial orOnly/'No Expression +Auxiliary orModal Verb + Subject + Main Verb +Object

3)Never had we heard such a fasicnating story

Despite using the past perfect in sentence3), this formularemains reliable with the present tense also. For example:

4)Rarely will I eat chocolate during the week

5) Under no circumstances should you leave yourchildren unsupervised

Other Negative Adverbials include:rarely, not since,hardly, never before, not until, little, at no timeetc.

No/Only Expressions include:under no circumstances,not only, no sooner, in no way, only whenetc.

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Restructure the following statements to make them more emphatic.

a. We doubt his sincerity.

____________________________________________________

b. I admire the efficiency of the Swiss.

____________________________________________________

c. She hates having to get up at 6 o'clock every morning.

____________________________________________________

d. His approval of the scheme is important.

____________________________________________________

e. Their self-righteousness is annoying.

____________________________________________________

f. You should go to Spain for your holidays. ____________________________________________________

g. I like London because it has beautiful parks.

____________________________________________________

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Join each of the following sentence-pairs using the way

or the fact, and beginning with What ... a. He never makes a fuss. I admire this.

______________________________________________

b. She's always on time. I appreciate this.

______________________________________________ c. This government has treated the Health Service so

badly. This irritates everybody.

_____________________________________________

d. The Health Service wastes less money than it used to.This is of no consequence.

______________________________________________

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Work in pairs. Prepare to talk for one minute on one of the topics

below, or any other topic that you feel particularly strongly about.

Try to use some of these patterns for emphasis:

What really annoys me about ...

What is most surprising ...

It is the way some people ... that ...

What most people don't realize is the fact that ...

TOPICS

litter badly-behaved children smoking

the weather bad drivers learning English

politics people who wear fur coats

football teachers who set too much homework

exams