Syntactic construction where a single clause has been divided into two clauses. The term ‘clefting’ refers to the transformation in generative transformational grammar which derives the cleft sentence from basic sentences: Caroline found...

/kleft/ n. A marked structure in which a focused constituent is extracted from its logical position and often set off with some additional material, including an extra verb. The unmarked sentence John bought a car yesterday is related to several...

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A cleft sentence is a sentence formed by a main clause and a subordinate clause, which together express a meaning that could be expressed by a simple sentence. Clefts typically put a particular constituent into focus. This focusing is often accompanied...