A cleft sentence is a sentence formed by a main clause and a subordinate clause, which together express a meaning that could be shown using a simple sentence, but focusing on a particular constituent. This focusing is often accompanied by a special intonation.

In English, a cleft sentence can be constructed as follows:

it + conjugated form of to be + X + subordinate clause

where X is usually a noun phrase. The focus is on X, or else on the subordinate clause or some element of it. For example:

• It is Joey that we're looking for.
• It was money James wanted.
• It was from John that she heard the news.
• It was meeting Jim that really started me off on this new line of work.