Cleft and Focus Constructions | Croatian Grammar

English has a dedicated grammatical machine for spotlighting one part of a sentence: the cleft. To single out Marko as the one who came, English splits the clause in two — It was Marko who came — building a dummy it, a copula, and a relative clause around the focused word. Croatian almost never does this. Instead it concentrates focus by moving the spotlighted constituent and stressing it, optionally reinforced by a small focus particle like upravo or baš. The big-picture truth, the same one that runs through advanced information structure, is that Croatian packages information with word order and stress, not with extra syntax. This page shows the several ways Croatian achieves what English needs a cleft for, and where the calqued pseudo-cleft is and is not acceptable.

The default: bare order plus stress

The unmarked Croatian way to focus a constituent is simply to put it where focus lives and stress it. As laid out on topic, focus, and information structure, the focus slot is normally clause-final, but a fronted-and-stressed element is also read as focal. Take the proposition "Marko came" and watch the focus move with no added words:

Došao je Marko.

It was MARKO who came. — neutral order with end-focus; 'Marko' last and stressed is the answer to 'Who came?'

MARKO je došao.

It was MARKO who came (not someone else). — same focus achieved by fronting + heavy contrastive stress on 'Marko'.

Both render the English cleft It was Marko who came, and neither uses anything resembling it…that. The first leans on the clause-final focus position; the second on contrastive stress over a fronted subject. Croatian speakers choose between them by how sharply they want the contrast: end-focus is the calm, presentational version; fronted-and-stressed is the pointed, "not anyone else" version.

💡

When you feel the urge to build "It was X that…", stop and ask: which single word carries the news? Then either let that word land last (end-focus) or front it and hit it with stress. The cleft's dummy it, copula, and relative clause all evaporate — Croatian does the same job with position and a stressed syllable.

upravo and baš: the focus particles

Croatian can sharpen the focus further with a focus particle placed directly in front of the spotlighted constituent. The two workhorses are upravo ("precisely, exactly — it is none other than") and baš ("exactly, just — this very one"). They do not move anything; they latch onto the focused phrase and pin it, the way a stressed cleft does in English but without splitting the clause.

Particle	Force	English flavour
upravo	pinpointing, "it is precisely this"	"precisely / it is exactly"
baš	emphatic, "this very one"	"exactly / just / the very"

Upravo je Marko to rekao.

It was Marko who said that (precisely Marko). — 'upravo' pins 'Marko' as the focus; closest single-clause match to the English cleft.

Baš tebe sam tražila.

It was you I was looking for. — 'baš' spotlights 'tebe'; the cleft's emphasis without the cleft's syntax.

Upravo zato sam i došao.

That's exactly why I came. — 'upravo' focuses the reason 'zato'; English would cleft it as 'It is precisely for that reason that…'.

These particles are the most direct, register-neutral equivalent of the English it-cleft, and they are everywhere in ordinary speech. The fuller inventory of these little words — baš, upravo, čak, i and their modal cousins — is on emphatic and modal particles.

The pseudo-cleft: Onaj tko… je…

Croatian does have a pseudo-cleft built on a free relative: Onaj tko je došao, bio je Marko "The one who came was Marko." It exists, it is grammatical, and it is occasionally the right tool — but be careful: in many contexts it reads as a heavy calque of English, and a native speaker would simply front and stress instead. Reserve it for genuine identifying or defining contexts, where you really are saying "the X-er is Y," not merely focusing a word.

Onaj tko ovo plati, taj odlučuje.

Whoever pays for this is the one who decides. — a genuine defining pseudo-cleft, idiomatic with the resumptive 'taj'.

Ono što me najviše smeta jest buka.

What bothers me most is the noise. — 'ono što…' pseudo-cleft; acceptable in careful/formal prose, but speech often just fronts: 'Najviše me smeta buka.'

💡

The Onaj tko… je… pseudo-cleft is a real construction but an easy way to sound translated. Use it only for true identifying statements ("the one who pays decides"). For plain focus on a word, don't build a relative clause — front the word and stress it, or add upravo/baš.

Putting the focus last by reordering

Because the focus slot is clause-final, you can also focus a constituent simply by arranging the rest of the clause ahead of it so it lands last. This is the technique behind the active-reordering passive, and it is the most idiomatic Croatian answer to many English clefts.

Ovaj prijedlog je napisao upravo on.

It was he who wrote this proposal. — object-topic first, the focused agent 'on' last and reinforced by 'upravo'.

Sve je to skuhala moja baka.

It was my grandmother who cooked all this. — everything else front-loaded so 'moja baka' lands in final focus.

One focus, several ways

The whole point is that Croatian gives you a graded toolkit for the single English cleft. Here is "It was Marko who broke the window" rendered four ways, from calmest to sharpest:

Croatian	Device	Register / force
Prozor je razbio Marko.	reordering, end-focus	neutral, presentational
Upravo je Marko razbio prozor.	focus particle upravo	pointed, register-neutral
MARKO je razbio prozor.	fronting + contrastive stress	sharp contrast, spoken
Onaj tko je razbio prozor jest Marko.	pseudo-cleft	formal/identifying, can sound calqued

Prozor je razbio Marko, a ne Ivan.

It was Marko who broke the window, not Ivan. — end-focus on 'Marko' with an explicit contrast; no cleft needed.

Whatever you front, remember that the second-position clitics re-anchor behind the first stressed constituent automatically — Upravo *je Marko…, Prozor **je razbio…* — exactly as described on the second-position rule.

Common Mistakes

❌ Bilo je Marko koji je došao.

Calque — this word-for-word copy of 'It was Marko who came' is not how Croatian clefts; use order + stress or 'upravo'.

✅ Upravo je Marko došao.

It was Marko who came. — focus particle 'upravo' on the spotlighted subject.

❌ To je bio prozor koji je Marko razbio.

Calque — English 'It was the window that Marko broke' should not become a relative-clause cleft.

✅ Marko je razbio prozor, a ne vrata.

It was the window that Marko broke, not the door. — 'prozor' fronted into clause-final focus and pinned by the explicit contrast; the neutral SVO string alone wouldn't spotlight it.

❌ Upravo Marko je to rekao.

Clitic misplacement — the particle 'upravo' plus 'Marko' is one focused phrase, so the clitic 'je' must follow it: 'Upravo je Marko…'.

✅ Upravo je Marko to rekao.

It was Marko who said that. — 'je' in second position after 'upravo'.

❌ Onaj tko je razbio prozor je Marko (to just say MARKO did it).

Overbuilt — a pseudo-cleft for a simple focus sounds translated; only use it for genuine identifying statements.

✅ Prozor je razbio Marko.

Marko broke the window. — bare reordering focuses 'Marko' with no relative clause.

Key Takeaways

Croatian has no routine cleft; where English builds It was X that…, Croatian moves the focused constituent and stresses it.
The default is bare order plus stress — end-focus (Došao je Marko) or fronting with contrastive stress (MARKO je došao).
upravo and baš are focus particles that pin the spotlighted word in place (Upravo je Marko to rekao); they are the closest register-neutral match to the English cleft.
The pseudo-cleft (Onaj tko… je…) exists but easily sounds calqued — reserve it for true identifying statements, not plain focus.
Reordering to put the focus last (Prozor je razbio Marko) is the most idiomatic answer to many clefts; clitics re-anchor to second position automatically.

Now practice Croatian

Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.

Start learning Croatian→