Variants of the wh-cleft
The one(s) who/that acts as replacement for the now ungrammatical who-cleft:
The one who told me the news was Lizzy herself. (*Who told me the news was Lizzy herself)
All (that) is used instead of *all what. ‘That’ is usually omitted.
All you need is love.
Reversed wh-clefts have the main focus at the beginning of the first unit, not at the end after be, as in regular wh-clefts. Some combinations (that’s what/why/how/the way) are stereotyped, as are the thing is/the problem is, which can also be included here:
All you need is LOVE. (regular wh-cleft)
LOVE is all you need. (reversed wh- cleft)
What you should do is THIS. (regular wh-cleft)
THIS is what you should do. (reversed wh-cleft)
That’s what I told you.
That’s why we came.
The effect is to put the new information as end-focus, but to indicate its selectively New status very clearly. The exclusiveness inherent in an element focused in this way allows the wh-cleft to be used for two important discourse purposes: (a) to introduce a new topic (in the New part), as in 1; and (b) to correct a previous statement or assumption, as in 2.
1 What I don’t understand is why they don’t have a secretary in that place.
2 What he did was take the money and run.
The Wh-cleft identifies a particular element exclusively. In this it differs from the basic clause structure and from the ordinary cleft. Compare:
We all need a holiday. (neutral: no doubt we need other things too)
It’s a holiday we all need. (implied contrast with something else)
What we all need is a holiday. (the only thing focused on)
Wh-clefts are always reversible, and this property distinguishes them from wh- embedded clauses which are not clefts. Compare the following:
What he said was that he didn’t like the play. (wh-cleft)
What he said was very interesting. (nominal relative clause)
The first is a wh-cleft, corresponding to the plain version He said that he didn’t like the play. The next is NOT a wh-cleft. There is no equivalent to the form *He said very interesting. Another way to test this is to try for reversibility. The first is reversible, the second is not:
That he didn’t like the play was what he said.
*Very interesting was what he said.
Certain stereotyped wh-clefts (which are not all reversible) such as What happened was . . . , What I mean is . . . and The thing is . . . are also used for a variety of purposes such as pre-signals to certain speech acts, such as giving an excuse or an explanation:
What happened was that I missed the last train.
The thing is, we have tickets for a concert that evening.
What I mean is we should all try to convince him.
