Cleft and Pseudo-Cleft Sentences

Sometimes a neutral sentence is not enough. You do not just want to say Jan did it — you want to say it was Jan, and nobody else. Afrikaans gives you a dedicated grammatical machine for this: the cleft sentence. You take one constituent, wrap it in Dit is ... wat ..., and the whole sentence reorganises itself to put a spotlight on that one element. There is a mirror-image construction, the pseudo-cleft (Wat ek wil hê, is rus), which spotlights a whole predicate instead. This page is about both, and about a choice English speakers rarely think about: in Afrikaans you can almost always achieve emphasis two ways — by clefting, or by simply moving the word to the front. Knowing when to reach for which is the difference between correct C1 prose and merely grammatical sentences.

This page deliberately leaves general fronting to its own treatment — see focus and fronting. Here we concentrate on the two cleft constructions and how they sit alongside that simpler option.

The basic it-cleft: Dit is X wat...

The core pattern is fixed and worth memorising as a template:

Dit is/was + [the focused constituent] + wat/wie/dat + [the rest of the clause, verb-final]

You split (hence cleave, hence cleft) one ordinary sentence into two pieces. The copula is (or past was) introduces the spotlighted element; a relative-style clause carries everything else, with its verb pushed to the end exactly as in any relative clause.

Start from the neutral sentence Jan het dit gedoen (Jan did it). To put the spotlight on Jan:

Notice what happened to the verb. In the neutral sentence the order was Jan het dit gedoen. Inside the cleft, het is shoved to the very end: ...wat dit gedoen het. This is the single most important structural fact on the page, and the one English speakers most reliably get wrong.

In each case the formula is identical: Dit is/was + the highlighted bit + a connector + a clause whose verb sits at the end. The cleft says, in effect, "of all the things this sentence could be about, focus on this one."

Choosing the connector: wat, wie, or dat

The little word after the focused constituent depends on what kind of thing you are spotlighting.

In everyday speech wat does the lion's share of the work — Afrikaans speakers cheerfully cleft people with wat: Dit is Jan wat dit gedoen het is completely standard. The connector dat appears when the spotlight falls on an adverbial — a time, place, manner, or reason — rather than on a participant.

That last one clefts a whole reason-clause (omdat hy laat was) and still binds the remainder with dat. The construction scales up neatly: whatever you put in the focus slot, the Dit is ... dat/wat ... frame holds.

Agreement: the verb stays singular with dit

A point that trips up even advanced learners: the copula in the cleft agrees with dit, not with the focused noun. Dit is grammatically singular and neuter, so the verb is is (or was) regardless of whether the spotlighted element is plural.

You say Dit *is die kinders — singular *is — even though kinders is plural. Compare English, which also resists they are the children who... in this frame and keeps it is. The logic is the same in both languages: the dummy dit / it is what the copula agrees with. For more on this empty, grammatically-required dit, see the pronoun dit.

The pseudo-cleft: Wat..., is...

The pseudo-cleft turns the construction inside out. Instead of leading with Dit is, you lead with a free relative clause built on wat (what...), and you deliver the focused element at the end, after the copula:

Wat + [clause, verb-final] + , is + [the focused element]

This spotlights a different kind of thing. Where the it-cleft is best at isolating a single participant (it was JAN), the pseudo-cleft is best at foregrounding a whole predicate or a thing-as-the-point — the answer to an implicit "what...?" question.

The opening Wat... sets up an expectation — what I want, what bothers me — and the sentence resolves it after the comma with the punchline: rus, die geraas. Because the wat-clause is subordinate, its verb again goes to the end: Wat ek wil *hê, ..., Wat my **pla, ...*.

That final example is elegant: the pseudo-cleft can deliver a whole dat-clause as its focus. Wat hy gesê het, is dat... foregrounds the content of what was said, building a little drumroll before the actual report.

The real choice: cleft versus plain fronting

Here is the insight that English-centred descriptions flatten. Afrikaans does not only have clefts — it also has free fronting, where you simply move the emphasised element to the front of an ordinary main clause and let the verb invert to stay in second position. So for almost any emphasis you want, you have two tools.

Take "Jan did it, emphatically." You can cleft:

Or you can front, which keeps a single main clause and triggers verb-second inversion:

Both are emphatic; they differ in flavour and force. The cleft is stronger and more exclusive — it actively rules out alternatives ("it was Jan, not anyone else"). It is also heavier, more deliberate, more written. Plain fronting is lighter and faster: it foregrounds without the contrastive sledgehammer, and it stays in a single clause. Spoken Afrikaans leans on fronting plus stress; careful or written Afrikaans, and any context where you are explicitly correcting a wrong assumption, reaches for the full cleft.

This three-way range is a genuine stylistic asset. A confident writer alternates: a plain fronted sentence for momentum, a cleft for the one point that must not be missed. Read more on the lighter option in focus and fronting, and on the heavier, formal end of the it-cleft in it-clefts in depth.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• The it-cleft is Dit is/was
  • focus + wat/wie/dat
    • a verb-final clause. It spotlights one constituent and rules out alternatives.
• The pseudo-cleft is Wat... , is... — a free relative that foregrounds a whole predicate, answering a hidden "what?" question.
• The copula agrees with the dummy dit, so it stays singular is/was even before a plural noun. See the pronoun dit.
• In both constructions the second clause is subordinate, so its verb goes to the end — the number-one English-speaker error.
• Afrikaans lets you choose between a cleft and plain fronting (focus and fronting): the cleft is heavier and contrastive, fronting is lighter and faster. Mastering the choice is what marks fluent, stylish prose.