fronting

prepositon + plural time

One could argue that being able to front the following ‘indefinite’ time phrases shows evidence of a higher CEFR level. A search in iWeb corpus for: . _II _NNT2 , 1 . AT TIMES, 11672 C1 → C2 She still misses him at times,  but we all do. listen   Kit accused me of only being along for the ride  while at times  I wished he‘d fall in the river and drown,  so I could watch. At times, I actually like it. listen 2 . WITHIN […]

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WHAT IS IT YOU WANT? (relative clause question)

Let’s analyse questions that have relative clauses to give emphasis.  So usually, we would say something like: What do we want to ask?  What are we trying to find out here? You can see the normal auxiliary verbs ‘be’ and ‘do’ get removed and relative clauses are added in the EXPERT EXAMPLES: What is it that we want

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‘What you see is what you get.’ (CLEFT CLAUSE)

The English Grammar Profile C1 point 10 in the category of FOCUS is defined as: ‘What’ + noun or pronoun + verb phrase as subject + ‘be’, for focus. Note that Pearson lists this point: GSE 59 B2 clauses with ‘What …’ to emphasise the topic or main point. For example: What we need now is a good night’s sleep. What I said was that I don’t need your help.

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The + thing | fact | point | problem | reason + is (FOCUS)

In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 5 in the category of FOCUS is defined as: ‘The thing, fact, point, problem, or reason + is (that)’ for focus. For example: The fact is I can’t take any more of your money unless I raise the rates on you. listen   However, we believe the structure should not be limited to just the article ‘the’.  For example: My point

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