Cleft Sentence ‘It Will Be Tomorrow That ~ ’?

CalifJim

deepcosmosthe old information is emphasized, which is already understood between speaker and hearer

??? I have never heard of this. You can highlight any phrase from the base form (the uncleft form) of the sentence. Highlighting consists of putting the phrase between "It is/was" and "that".

Base sentence:
The schedule will be announced tomorrow.
Highlighting 'the schedule':
It is the schedule that will be announced tomorrow.
Highlighting 'tomorrow':
It is tomorrow that the schedule will be announced.

The cleft sentence you quoted is only unusual in that it puts the verb tense of the original (will be) in the highlighted position AND in the residue. CJ

Hi, CJ, sincerely appreciate your fine response.

(1) If my original example has been amended into "It will be tomorrow that the schedule is announced." is this still correct grammatically? Since there has been no clear comment with examples in the quite well known grammar books (of course, I have read only a few books), I understand the cleft sentence starts with “it is/was/could have been” only.

(2) About my comment - "the old information is emphasized, which is already understood between speaker and hearer", I've seen the explanation in this link - https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/cleft-sentences-it-was-in-june-we-got-ma...

deepcosmos(1) If my original example has been amended into "It will be tomorrow that the schedule is announced." is this still correct grammatically?

Yes.

deepcosmosSince there has been no clear comment with examples in the quite well known grammar books (of course, I have read only a few books), I understand the cleft sentence starts with “it is/was/could have been” only.

No. I think they added 'was' and 'could have been' only to show that a large variety of possibilities exist with the cleft sentence structure. Those are not the only forms that can occur in a cleft sentence. While, in fact, you can use any verb group that has the verb "be" as the main verb (It would have been, It might have been, It has been, It had been, It will be, It would be, etc.), the only two that are regularly used are It is and It was.

deepcosmos(2) About my comment - "the old information is emphasized, which is already understood between speaker and hearer", I've seen the explanation in this link - https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/cleft-sentences-it-was-in-june-we-got-ma ...

I took a look at that, and you've got it backwards. They use "focus" where I have used "highlight". That's the part between It is and that, in other words the first part. "focus" or "highlight" means "emphasize". So it's the new information at the beginning that is focused on, highlighted, or emphasized, not the old information. The old information is at the end, after "that", and that is not where the emphasis lies.

A:

Sharon’s car got broken into yesterday, did it?
WRONG INFO

B:

No. It was Nina’s car that got broken into!
.......... NEW INFO ......... OLD INFO
.......... EMPHASIS ...... UNDERSTOOD ALREADY

They're trying to explain that you can use a cleft structure to correct misinformation. Was it Sharon's car? No, that's wrong. It was Nina's car. You highlight (or focus on or emphasize) the part that makes the correction.

(This is not the only use for the cleft structure, however.)

CJ

CalifJimNo. I think they added 'was' and 'could have been' only to show that a large variety of possibilities exist with the cleft sentence structure. Those are not the only forms that can occur in a cleft sentence. While, in fact, you can use any verb group that has the verb "be" as the main verb (It would have been, It might have been, It has been, It had been, It will be, It would be, etc.), the only two that are regularly used are It is and It was.

Hi, CJ, really appreciate your excellent explanation, master!

CalifJimI took a look at that, and you've got it backwards. They use "focus" where I have used "highlight". That's the part between It is and that, in other words the first part. "focus" or "highlight" means "emphasize". So it's the new information at the beginning that is focused on, highlighted, or emphasized, not the old information. The old information is at the end, after "that", and that is not where the emphasis lies.

Thanks for our correction.