My Battle With Grammar
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Belarus
October 17, 2008
Here we are - after long struggle with my natural laziness - finally my new lesson is posted! Go to lesson page and rate it, rate it, rate it!!!
Giving emphasis: Cleft sentences
(Introduction)
The usual word order for a sentence in English is
SUBJECT + VERB + OBJECT + [ADVERBIAL PHRASE]
Ex. I enjoy learning English [here at Ebaby!]
(subject) (verb) (object) (adverbial phrase)
However, if we want to emphasise that I particularly enjoy learning English (more that anything else), we can use a cleft sentence. It begins with a what clause and the verb be:
Ex. What I enjoy most is learning English.
Ex. What I like most about you is your sense of humour.
Similarly, if we want to emphasise a noun, we use a cleft structure with it + be + noun + that/who:
Ex. Jenny spends all her money on shoes.
It is Jenny who spends all her money on shoes.
or: It is shoes that Jenny spends all her money on.
We can also use an it- cleft sentence to focus on other parts of the sentence:
Ex. It was in London that he met his first wife. (place)
Ex. It was only when he phoned that I realised what had happened. (time)
Ex. It is learning English that I find most enjoyable nowadays. (gerund action)
It was just brief introduction to cleft sentences. This topic, actually, is advanced but not that hard as you can see And now, please, write here in comments what you liked the most about this lesson (using the cleft sentence, of course)
More entries: I've passed my Masters!!! (3), My new lesson (2), Foreign Words and Phrases (10), Are you a true maniac? (5), I'm super great! (3), Frustration... (4), Suggestions, Conditionals (2), Quantifiers, Articles
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12:32 AM Nov 09 2008 |
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Pavlionka
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04:22 PM Nov 02 2008 |
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pop272001
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