| Emphatic do | do / does / did + base verb carries the stress | She did tell me. |
| It-cleft | It + be + focus + who / that + clause | It was Tom who broke it. |
| Wh-cleft | What + clause + be + focus; or reversed: focus + be + what + clause | What I need is a holiday. |
| Noun frames | all, the thing, the reason and the place open the clause | All I want is peace and quiet. |
| C1Clause as focus | the focus can be a clause: only when, not until, because | It was only when she left that I realised. |
| C1Explanatory cleft | rejects one reason and gives the real one | It isn't that I don't like her; it's that I'm busy. |
| C1Answers | a cleft answers a wh-question; the main stress falls on the focus | Who broke it? — It was Tom. |
| C2Infinitive focus | after a form of do, the focus is a bare or to-infinitive | All you have to do is (to) press the button. |
| C2Stance frames | the fact is, the thing is and similar frames open a statement | The trouble is that the shop closes at five. |
| C2Formal writing | formal clefts point back to a reason or a context | It is for this reason that the committee refused. |
| C2Topic first | the topic comes first, then a clause with its own subject | As for Tom, he has gone home. |
| Trap | who or that replaces the focus: no second subject or object | It was Ana that I met. |