Gramatyka · C1
Cleft sentences: it was… that, what… is
A cleft sentence splits one clause into two so that one element carries the emphasis. It was the delay that caused the problem puts the weight on the delay. What we need is a decision puts the weight on a decision. Clefts are how written English does what speech does with stress.
In speech you emphasise a word by saying it louder. Writing cannot do that, so English restructures the sentence instead.
The it-cleft puts the emphasised element straight after it was or it is, and everything else follows in a that-clause: it was the tone, not the decision, that annoyed me.
The wh-cleft, usually a what-cleft, front-loads the whole idea and delivers the emphasised part last: what annoyed me was the tone. Because English tends to save the important information for the end, this is a very natural way to build to a point.
Both structures are common in formal writing and in careful speech, and both are marked at C1 as evidence of range.
Teraz użyj
11 zadań z tej strony. Nic nie jest zapisywane poza twoim własnym kontem.
Ćwiczenia i wyjaśnienia są po angielsku. To celowe: chodzi o to, by myśleć w języku, którego się uczysz.
Pytanie 1 z 11
annoyed me was the tone, not the decision itself.