0
Deepcosmos Posted 4 years ago
Grammar

Cleft sentence joined with a relative clause

Hello, everyone,

“He gave me the antique necklace for my birthday that helped me understand that he truly loved me.”

When I convert this sentence above into a cleft one to stress the underlined part, I think two ways below are possible;

1) It was the antique necklace that helped me understand that he truly loved me<,> that he gave me for my birthday.

2) It was the antique necklace that he gave me for my birthday that helped me understand that he truly loved me.

I assume the first one is better, since we usually distinguish the stressed part from others and so it has been set off with comma, but would wait for your valuable opinions.

  

Top answer

deepcosmos I assume the first one is better No. Use the second one. When highlighting an element in a sentence in a cleft construction, you have to take all its modifiers along with it in the highlighted portion.

— CalifJim

  • deepcosmos I assume the first one is better No.
  • Use the second one.
  • When highlighting an element in a sentence in a cleft construction, you have to take all its modifiers along with it in the highlighted portion.
  • But keep in mind that you won't be able to make the cleft construction sound good if there are too many modifiers associated with the highlighted element.
  • ) CJ
Free · every Monday

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.

3 Answers
0
deepcosmosI assume the first one is better

No. Use the second one.

When highlighting an element in a sentence in a cleft construction, you have to take all its modifiers along with it in the highlighted portion. But keep in mind that you won't be able to make the cleft construction sound good if there are too many modifiers associated with the highl

0
0
deepcosmos2) It was the antique necklace that he gave me for my birthday that helped me understand that he truly loved me.

I take the antique necklace that he gave me for my birthday as a NP where the clause that he gave me for my birthday is a relative clause modifying the head of the phrase, i.e. "necklace". I understand that the NP

0
0
deepcosmos1) It was the antique necklace that helped me understand that he truly loved me.

You can write it that way, but the last idea does not fit.

deepcosmos2) It was the antique necklace that he gave me for my birthday that helped me understand that he truly loved me.

That is the correct cleft version.

0

Related Questions