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Anonymous Posted 9 years ago
Vocabulary

Cleft sentence

"It is unclear what stepped up sanctions against the North Korea would look like." (CNN.)

I think that the sentence above is a cleft one and what stepped up sanctions against the North Korea would look like an indirect question.

Am I right?

  

Top answer

Yes. "stepped-up" should be hyphenated. "against the North Korea" should be "against North Korea".

— GPY

  • Yes.
  • "stepped-up" should be hyphenated.
  • "against the North Korea" should be "against North Korea".
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4 Answers
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Yes.

"stepped-up" should be hyphenated.

"against the North Korea" should be "against North Korea".

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anonymousI think that the sentence above is a cleft one

Not at all. That would be something like sentence (2) below, derived from (1). All clefts are of the form It is/was [highlighted element] that ....

(1) The form of such sanctions is unclear.
(2) It is [the form of such sanctions] that is unclear.

What you h

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I have trouble seeing this as an indirect question.

What if I said this? I don't see a question involved at all.

eg I know what stepped-up sanctions against North Korea would look like.

or

eg What stepped-up sanctions against North Korea would look like is easy to understand.

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It is unclear what stepped-up sanctions against North Korea would look like.

No: it’s not a cleft, but an extraposition construction where the underlined interrogative content clause (indirect question) has been extraposed to the end of the sentence and replaced by the dummy subject “it”. The basic version would be

What stepped-up sanctions against North

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