It-cleft and wh-cleft — the pragmatics of focus
The B2 cleft lesson covered the forms: it-cleft (It was Sarah who broke it), wh-cleft / pseudo-cleft (What broke it was Sarah), all-cleft (All Sarah did was break it), and reverse-cleft (Sarah was the one who broke it). By C1 those forms are reflex. What stays interesting is what cleft constructions are doing pragmatically — how they split a proposition into presupposition and assertion, how they chain across paragraphs of argument, how they manage contrastive focus in academic register, how they interact with negation, and how a writer chooses cleft vs pseudo-cleft based on information-structural needs.
This lesson assumes you can produce all four cleft forms. We work on why to use which one when.
Cleft = presupposition + assertion
Every cleft sentence splits a single proposition into two semantic parts:
- Presupposition: a backgrounded claim treated as already accepted by the audience.
- Assertion: the foregrounded claim being added to the discourse.
Consider:
- Sarah broke the vase. (unmarked — no presupposition/assertion split)
- It was Sarah who broke the vase. (presupposes: someone broke the vase. Asserts: it was Sarah, not someone else.)
- It was the vase that Sarah broke. (presupposes: Sarah broke something. Asserts: the something was the vase.)
- What Sarah broke was the vase. (presupposes: Sarah broke something. Asserts: the something was the vase.)
The cleft makes the presupposition non-negotiable in the immediate discourse. To deny it, your interlocutor must do extra work: Wait — actually, nobody broke the vase, that’s a flower vase from yesterday. This is the presupposition shield: cleft constructions make the backgrounded claim hard to challenge.
This is why cleft is the workhorse of argumentation. A debater who says It was the failure of regulators that caused the crisis presupposes that something caused the crisis (uncontroversial) and asserts that the cause was regulatory failure (the contested claim). The opponent must either accept the presupposition or refuse the question entirely.
The cleft-be tense reflects the speaker’s identification
The be in the cleft (It is, It was, What is, What was) carries the tense of the speaker’s identification — usually aligning with the main verb’s time, but not by direct tense agreement. The rule is pragmatic, not syntactic.
- Sarah broke it → It was Sarah who broke it. (past identification of past event)
- Sarah is breaking it now → It is Sarah who is breaking it. (present identification of present event)
- Sarah has been fixing it → It is Sarah who has been fixing it. (present identification: the present-perfect’s current relevance licenses present-tense cleft)
- Sarah will speak tomorrow → It is Sarah who will speak tomorrow. OR It will be Sarah who speaks tomorrow. (both possible; first treats identification as present, second projects it forward)
The cleft be matches the time at which the speaker is making the identification, which usually aligns with the main verb’s time but does not directly inflect from it. Treating it as strict tense agreement leads to overcorrection.
It-cleft in argumentation — presupposition strategy
It-cleft is the most common cleft form in argumentative writing because of its presupposition strategy. A C1 writer can deploy it to lock in a backgrounded claim while debating a foregrounded one.
Pattern: lock in the harder claim, debate the easier one
- Critics argue that the policy is misguided. But it is not the policy’s intent that is wrong; it is the implementation that has failed.
This sentence pair locks in the presupposition something is wrong with the policy (which the critics already accept) and asserts that the locus of wrongness is implementation, not intent. The opponent who wants to defend the policy must now either accept something is wrong (giving ground) or back up to challenge the framing.
A skilled debater uses cleft to pre-resolve the harder question in the act of asking the easier one.
The negative it-cleft — it is not X that
The negative cleft is a precision instrument: it denies the asserted element while preserving the presupposition.
- It is not Sarah who broke the vase. (presupposes someone broke it; denies it was Sarah)
- It was not the regulations that caused the failure. (presupposes failure occurred; denies regulations caused it)
- It is not the question of feasibility that the committee must address. (presupposes the committee must address something; denies the something is feasibility)
The negative cleft is stronger than negation of the unclefted sentence. Sarah didn’t break the vase and It wasn’t Sarah who broke the vase both deny Sarah’s agency, but the cleft form insists that the question is about identifying the agent. The cleft form structures the debate.
Cleft chaining in extended argument
In long-form argumentative writing, cleft constructions chain across paragraphs, each one locking in what the previous paragraph established.
The reform of healthcare in the United States has failed for half a century. It is not, as critics charge, an absence of plans that has prevented action; serious proposals from both parties have circulated since the 1960s. It is not even, as defenders sometimes claim, the complexity of the legislation that has blocked passage. What has prevented action is something more uncomfortable: the structural advantage that the status quo confers on incumbent interests. And it is this structural advantage, not any deficit of imagination, that any reform must directly confront.
Five cleft constructions in one paragraph, each one taking what the previous cleft established and using it to set up the next argumentative move. This is cleft-chaining, a signature technique of long-form American op-ed and policy-essay writing (you see it in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, and academic policy journals).
Contrastive focus in academic register
Academic prose uses cleft for contrastive focus — explicitly contrasting one claim with another candidate claim that the reader might have entertained.
- It is not the case that markets always allocate efficiently; it is the case that markets allocate efficiently under specific conditions that this paper aims to characterize.
The first cleft denies a strong claim; the second cleft restates the contested claim with the actual scope (under specific conditions). This denial-then-replacement structure is a workhorse of analytic-philosophy and economics prose.
A weaker form uses wh-cleft for the same function:
- What this paper does not claim is that markets always allocate efficiently. What it does claim is that markets allocate efficiently under specific conditions, which I now characterize.
The wh-cleft variant is slightly more reader-friendly because it foregrounds the proposition before identifying the agent (the paper). The it-cleft variant is slightly more confrontational because it foregrounds the denial. Skilled academic writers choose between them based on rhetorical posture.
Cleft + negation — interaction patterns
Cleft constructions interact with negation in patterns that L2 speakers regularly mishandle. Three interactions matter at C1:
Negation inside vs outside the cleft
- It is Sarah who didn’t break the vase. (cleft asserts Sarah’s identity; negation is inside the relative — Sarah is the one who didn’t break it)
- It is not Sarah who broke the vase. (cleft asserts the negation of Sarah’s identity — Sarah didn’t break it)
These mean different things. The first identifies Sarah as the non-breaker (other people broke it; Sarah didn’t). The second identifies someone other than Sarah as the breaker. The position of not matters.
Wh-cleft with negative scope
- What I don’t like is loud music. (= I dislike loud music)
- What I like is not loud music. (= I like something other than loud music — possibly soft music, possibly silence)
The first negates inside the wh-clause; the second negates the assertion. Native speakers usually choose the first for casual disliking and the second for contrastive emphasis (I like soft music, not loud music).
Cleft negation with even / only
- It is only Sarah who broke the vase. (= Sarah and no one else)
- It is even Sarah who broke the vase. (= unexpectedly, Sarah is the one)
- It is not even Sarah who broke the vase. (= the surprising fact is that even Sarah didn’t break it — someone else did)
The interaction of only and even with cleft produces marked emphasis. Use sparingly; overdone, it makes prose sound contrived.
Cleft vs pseudo-cleft — choosing between them
The two main cleft forms — it-cleft and wh-cleft (pseudo-cleft) — overlap in function but differ in information structure. A C1 writer chooses between them deliberately.
It-cleft: focus on the identified element
- It was the regulation, not the recession, that drove unemployment up.
The it-cleft foregrounds the identified element (the regulation) immediately, and the presupposed clause (that drove unemployment up) follows. The reader’s attention lands on the asserted element first.
Wh-cleft (pseudo-cleft): focus on the action / state first
- What drove unemployment up was the regulation, not the recession.
The wh-cleft foregrounds the action (what drove unemployment up) first, then identifies the agent. The reader processes the question before the answer.
Which to choose
| Choose it-cleft when | Choose wh-cleft when |
|---|---|
| The identified element is short and punchy | The presupposed action is complex and deserves foregrounding |
| You want immediate contrastive focus | You want to build to a slow reveal |
| The audience already knows the action | The audience needs the action specified first |
| Writing for argumentative directness | Writing for rhetorical unfolding |
A test: read the sentence aloud. The element that comes first carries the cognitive prominence. If you want the agent to land, use it-cleft. If you want the action to land, use wh-cleft.
Reverse wh-cleft / all-cleft variants
- The regulation was what drove unemployment up. (reverse pseudo-cleft — flips the wh-cleft)
- All that drove unemployment up was the regulation. (all-cleft — emphasizes exhaustivity)
These variants narrow the focus further: reverse pseudo-cleft is theme-marked (the regulation is the topic, the action is the comment); all-cleft adds the exhaustivity claim (only this, nothing else).
Marked vs unmarked theme
In Hallidayan terms (which underlies a lot of contemporary academic writing pedagogy), every English sentence has a theme (the topic position, sentence-initial) and a rheme (the comment, sentence-final). Cleft constructions are the principal mechanism for marking theme — making the topic position do work it wouldn’t otherwise do.
- Unmarked theme: Sarah broke the vase. (Sarah is theme, broke-the-vase is rheme — default order, no marking)
- Marked theme via it-cleft: It was the vase that Sarah broke. (the vase is now the marked theme; Sarah’s agency is presupposed)
- Marked theme via wh-cleft: What Sarah broke was the vase. (the action of Sarah-breaking-something is marked theme)
- Marked theme via fronting: The vase, Sarah broke. (the vase is marked theme without cleft — see lesson 13 on fronting)
A C1 writer can produce all four forms. Native readers infer rhetorical posture from the choice. Choosing the right theme-marking strategy is the heart of skilled English prose at C1 and beyond.
A useful self-check on cleft use: in any paragraph you’ve written, count the cleft constructions. If you have zero, your prose may be too flat — every sentence has unmarked theme, which reads as uninflected. If you have more than two per paragraph, you may be overusing the construction; cleft loses force through repetition. The right rate for argumentative writing is roughly one cleft per two paragraphs.
Common Russian-L1 problems with cleft pragmatics
- Producing cleft for unmarked focus: Russian-speakers sometimes produce It is the report that I sent when the unmarked I sent the report is the right form. Cleft is marked; reserve it for actual focus.
- Over-clefting in academic prose: stacking three or four clefts in one paragraph (see KnowledgeCheck above). One cleft per paragraph is the working rate.
- Tense mismatch in cleft be: producing It was Sarah who breaks it (past cleft, present relative). Cleft be aligns with the time of identification, usually matching the main verb’s time.
- Negation scope errors: confusing It is Sarah who didn’t break it with It is not Sarah who broke it. The position of not matters semantically.
- Choosing it-cleft when wh-cleft is more natural: in many spoken AmE contexts, What I want is a coffee is more natural than It is a coffee that I want. The choice depends on information structure.
- Misreading the presupposition: producing a cleft whose presupposition the reader hasn’t accepted. A cleft that smuggles in a contested presupposition is a rhetorical move that can backfire if the audience notices.
- Using which instead of that in cleft relatives: AmE strongly prefers that in restrictive cleft relatives. It was the report that I sent, not It was the report which I sent (the second is BrE-leaning and sounds slightly stiff in AmE academic prose).
Summary
- Cleft = presupposition + assertion. The presupposed clause is hard for the audience to challenge; the asserted element is the contested claim. This is what cleft does pragmatically.
- Cleft be tense reflects the time of the speaker’s identification, usually aligning with the main verb’s time but not by direct agreement.
- It-cleft in argumentation locks in the harder claim while debating the easier one. Used for presupposition strategy in op-ed and policy writing.
- Cleft chaining in long-form argumentation links clefts across sentences, each one building on what the previous one established.
- Contrastive focus in academic register uses denial-then-replacement cleft patterns: It is not X; it is Y, with the following scope.
- Cleft + negation has scope distinctions: not inside vs outside the relative produces different meanings.
- It-cleft vs wh-cleft is a choice about which part of the proposition gets foregrounded. It-cleft foregrounds the agent; wh-cleft foregrounds the action.
- Marked theme is the Hallidayan term for what cleft does. Choose your theme-marking strategy (it-cleft, wh-cleft, reverse, all-cleft, fronting) by rhetorical purpose.
- Working rate: roughly one cleft per two paragraphs in argumentative prose. More is over-marking; zero is under-marking.