CU TRC CU CH (Cleft sentences) posted Nov 15, 2011, 6:44 PM by Tran Dien Trong ting Vit mnh khi

mun nhn mnh mt yu t no trong cu ta thng ni "y chnh l" V d: Cu bnh thng: Ngi n ng git con h. Khi mun nhn mnh ngi git con h ta ni: y chnh l ngi git con h. Cn mun nhn mnh con h ta ni: y chnh l con h m ngi n ng git. Trong ting Anh mun nhn mnh nh vy ngi ta dng cu trc cleft sentences ( cu ch) . Thut ng "cu ch" c l xut pht t hnh tng "ch"cu ra chen cc cm t khc vo nhn mnh. C hai hnh thc dng cu ch nhn mnh: - Dng mnh quan h V d: Cu thng: Tom killed the tiger. ( Tom git con h) Cu nhn mnh Tom: The person who killed the tiger was Tom ( ngi m git con h chnh l Tom ) Cu nhn mnh con h: The animal that Tom killed was the tiger. ( con vt m Tom git chnh l con h ) - Dng cu trc It is/was .......that/who/when V d: cng trong cu trn : It was Tom who killed the tiger

It was the tiger that Tom killed. Cch thc dng cu ch loi ny nh sau: Nu mun nhn mnh cm t no th ch vit em cm t gia i t was/is v who/that/when, cc yu t khc gi nguyn Nu l qu kh th dng was, hin ti dng is,cm nhn mnh l thi gian th dng when, ngi dng who, cn that th dng cho mi i tng. V d: Cu thng: I bought the book in the shop near my school. => It was the book that I bought in the shop near my school. I bought the book in the shop near my school. => It was in the shop near my school that I bought the book. => It was the shop near my school where I bought the book. I bought the book in the shop near my school. => It was I that /who bought the book in the shop near my school.

Cleft Sentences A declarative sentence, such as David studied English at Oxford can be reformulated as: It was David who studied English at Oxford This is called a CLEFT SENTENCE because the original sentence has been divided (or "cleft") into two clauses: It was David and who studied English at Oxford. Cleft sentences focus on one constituent of the original sentence, placing it after it was (or it is). Here we have focussed on the Subject David, but we could also focus on the Direct ObjectEnglish: It was English that David studied at Oxford or on the Adjunct at Oxford It was at Oxford that David studied English

Cleft constructions, then, exhibit the pattern: It + be + focus + clause Definition: A construction in which some element in a sentence is moved from its normal position into a separate clause to give it greateremphasis. The two major types of cleft constructions in English are it-cleftsand wh-clefts (see below).

"There are two major types of cleft constructions: it-clefts and wh-clefts.

it-cleft: 1 It's a man I want. (FICT) <compare: I want a man.> wh-cleft: 2 What I want is something to eat, now! (CONV) <compare: I want something to eat.> Clefts are used to bring particular elements of the clause into additional focus . . .. The extra focused element normally appears early in it-clefts and late in wh-clefts. Thus in 1 a man is focused, and in 2 something to eat is focused." (Douglas Biber et al., Longman Student Grammar. Pearson, 2002)

"What I needed was a weapon." (David Sedaris, Naked. Little, Brown & Company, 1997)

"A cleft sentence is a sentence that is cleft (split) so as to put the focus on one part of it. The cleft sentence is introduced by it, which is followed by a verb phrase whose main verb is generally be. The focused part comes next, and then the rest of the sentence is introduced by a relative pronoun, relative determiner, or relative adverb. If we take the sentence Tom felt a sharp pain after lunch, two possible cleft sentences formed from it are It was Tom who felt a sharp pain after lunch and It was after lunch that Tom felt a sharp pain." (Sidney Greenbaum, Oxford English Grammar. Oxford Univ. Press, 1996)

"The cleft sentence is a very easy way of highlighting different parts of a clause. The clause is 'cleft' into two components, related in the following way:

At the beginning is the pronoun it followed by a form of the verb be

After the verb comes the focus of the cleft sentence (shown in bold below). This is then postmodified by a clause containing the rest of the information in the original sentence. "To illustrate this, here is a clause where the elements are in the expected order: Di read a poem in the cafe last night. The following clefted options are now available:

It was Di who read a poem in the cafe last night. It was a poem that Di read in the cafe last night. It was in the cafe that Di read a poem last night. It was last night that Di read a poem in the cafe.