Pseudo-Cleft Sentence
A pseudo-cleft sentence is a kind of cleft sentence in which the subordinated clause is a relative clause headed by an interrogative pro-form. In English they are of the form:
- wh-relative clause + be + X
X can be a constituent of one of many varieties.
The so-called 'inverted' pseudo-cleft sentence reverses the order of the two constituents:
- X + be + wh-relative clause
| Pseudo-cleft | Inverted pseudo-cleft |
| What John gave to Mary were flowers | Flowers were what John gave to Mary. |
Sornicola, Rosanna. 1988. "It-clefts and wh-clefts: Two awkward sentence types." JOL 1965–.
Quirk, Randolph, S. Greenbaum, G. Leech, and J. Svartvik. 1985.A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman.
Levinson, Stephen C. 1983.Pragmatics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University.
Jespersen, Otto. 1949.A modern English grammar on historical principles. Part 7. Copenhagen: E. Mungsgaard.
Delahunty, Gerald P. 1984. "The analysis of English cleft sentences." LA.
Crystal, David. 1980.A first dictionary of linguistics and phonetics. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Bromser, B. 1984. "Towards a functional description of cleft constructions." Lingua.
Broader Terms
- BT↑ Complex Sentence
Related terms
- RT⇆ Cleft Sentence
- RT⇆ Interrogative Pro-Form
