Clefting - Definition

A cleft sentence is a way of focusing on a particular part of a sentence.

Normally you use it to focus on a noun phrase. For example you might use:

• It was money James wanted

rather than

• James wanted money.

However, you can also focus on a clause element or a whole clause. For example:

• It was from John that she heard the news
• It was meeting Jim that really started me off on this new line of work.