[Grammar] is the sentence an emphatic sentence or a relative clause?

[alisa]

I cannot figure out whether the sentence "It is the small house that we can replace with a big one. " is a relative clause or an emphatic sentence.

 

[emsr2d2]

I cannot figure out whether the sentence "It is the small house that we can replace with a big one" is a relative clause or an emphatic sentence.

Welcome to the forum. :hi:

Note my correction above. Don't put a space before closing quotation marks, and when the surrounding sentence continues after the quotation, don't use the full stop inside the quotation marks. (Note that if the quoted sentence ends with a question mark or an exclamation mark, those marks should be included inside the quotation marks.)

Where did you find that sentence? We need the source and the author.

Why do you need to know if it's a relative clause or an emphatic sentence?

 

[alisa]

Thank you for your correction. This sentence comes from an English teacher who is my colleague. He said it is an emphatic sentence. But i think it can also be a relative clause in some context. The reason why I want to know if it's a relative clause or an emphatic sentence is that I wanna know the grammar more exactly.

 

[5jj]

"It is the small house that we can replace with a big one.

The words that I have put in bold font are a relative clause.

There is nothing about the whole sentence that makes it emphatic.

 

[5jj]

I have told you that part of that sentence is a relative clause. A relative clause cannot be any kind of a sentence.

I don't know what your teacher understands by 'emphatic sentence'. As I have also told you, there is nothing about the whole sentence that makes it emphatic.

 

[tzfujimino]

He said it is an emphatic sentence. But i think it can also be a relative clause in some context.

When you say "an emphatic sentence", do you mean "an it-cleft sentence"?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/dictio...cleft-sentences-it-was-in-june-we-got-married

 

[5jj]

That link doesn't work for me, tzfujimino.

 

[Phaedrus]

I don't know what your teacher understands by 'emphatic sentence'.

The sentence

(1) It is the small house that we can replace with a big one.

may be interpreted as deriving from

(2) We can replace the small house with a big one.

The "it" cleft in (1) focuses the "the small house" (the direct object) in (2) and, by focusing it, may be said to emphasize it. Other possible "it" clefts derivable from (2):

(3) It is we who can replace the small house with a big one. [focuses the subject of (2)]

(4) It is with a big one that we can replace the small house. [focuses the adverbial prepositional phrase in (2)]

 

[emsr2d2]

That link doesn't work for me, tzfujimino.

Nor me. It did, however, automatically download a .woff file (a format I wasn't familiar with). I immediately deleted it without opening it, as I always do with unknown/unexpected downloads.

 

[Phaedrus]

I cannot figure out whether the sentence "It is the small house that we can replace with a big one. " is a relative clause or an emphatic sentence.

If, setting the terminological inaccuracies aside, I understand the spirit of this question, Alisa means to ask whether the sentence is identifying some house as "the small house that we can replace with a big one" or whether the sentence is clarifying/emphasizing what it is that "we" can replace with a big house.

Her teacher seems to think that it can only be interpreted in the latter way (essentially, as an "it" cleft), in which case the sentence must presuppose that there is, in the context, something that "we" can replace with a big house, the cleft sentence identifying that thing as being the small house.

However, Alisa is right, if I hear her correctly through her terminological inaccuracies, that the sentence can also be interpreted as performing an identification. On this interpretation, "It" refers to something in the world and could be replaced by "This (house)" or "That (house)."

This is the small house that we can replace with a big one.
That is the small house that we can replace with a big one.

It is obvious that those two sentences are not different ways of saying "We can replace the small house with a big one." However, on the other ("it"-cleft) reading of "It is the small house that we can replace with a big one," the sentence is just another way of saying "We can replace the small house with a big one."

By using that other way of saying the sentence, the speaker focuses the direct object in the basic sentence from which the cleft sentence derives. This focusing has an emphatic quality, as evidenced by the fact that, in live speech, the part of an "if"-cleft following "It is" naturally receives stress.

It is the small house that we can replace with a big one.

 

[tzfujimino]

That link doesn't work for me, tzfujimino.

I hope this one works:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/amp/british-grammar/cleft-sentences-it-was-in-june-we-got-married

Nor me. It did, however, automatically download a .woff file (a format I wasn't familiar with). I immediately deleted it without opening it, as I always do with unknown/unexpected downloads. (emsr2d2)

I didn't mean any harm, but I'd like to apologize for any discomfort(?) you might have experienced.

 

[5jj]

I hope this one works:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/amp/british-grammar/cleft-sentences-it-was-in-june-we-got-married

It does, thanks.

 

[Phaedrus]

Since we've left off talking about the question, could we shift the tangent from a discussion of links to how the following should be translated?

3. it 作形式主语与强调句的区别：强调句的it be…. that 去掉之后，句子成分依完整

Tzfujimino, in case the non-English words and characters in that quote are Japanese, could you translate that for us?

At the following website, that is what is printed two lines above the very sentence that Alisa has asked about.

https://www.lewenku.com/l1723038.html

Based on the "it . . . be . . . that" part of the quotation (every other part of the quotation, I cannot comprehend in the slightest), I'm guessing it's about cleft sentences.

 

[tzfujimino]

Tzfujimino, in case the non-English words and characters in that quote are Japanese, could you translate that for us?

At the following website, that is what is printed two lines above the very sentence that Alisa has asked about.
https://www.lewenku.com/l1723038.html

I'm afraid that's not written in Japanese - it's Chinese, Phaedrus.

According to Google Translate, it means "The difference between it as a formal subject and an emphatic sentence: the it be.... that of an emphatic sentence is removed, and the sentence components are intact."

The writer seems to be saying that these two sentences below are different in construction:

It is our hope that we can replace the small house with a big one. (The writer probably means the "it" in this sentence is a "formal subject", and I think he/she is trying to say that the "it" refers to the following that-clause.)

It is the small house that we can replace with a big one. (The writer probably means this one is an "emphatic sentence", which I believe he/she means is an "it-cleft" sentence.)

 

[Phaedrus]

I'm afraid that's not written in Japanese - it's Chinese, Phaedrus.

According to Google Translate, it means "The difference between it as a formal subject and an emphatic sentence: the it be.... that of an emphatic sentence is removed, and the sentence components are intact."

The writer seems to be saying that these two sentences below are different in construction:

It is our hope that we can replace the small house with a big one. (The writer probably means the "it" in this sentence is a "formal subject", and I think he/she is trying to say that the "it" refers to the following that-clause.)

It is the small house that we can replace with a big one. (The writer probably means this one is an "emphatic sentence", which I believe he/she means is an "it-cleft" sentence.)

Thanks very much, Tzfujimino. Yes, I agree (in the light of the Google translation that you have provided) that the writer is contrasting a sentence containing "it"-extraposition ("It is our hope that we can replace the small house with a big one" is a different way of saying "That we can replace the small house with a big one is our hope") with a sentence that is (or is very naturally interpreted as) an "it"-cleft.

"It is the small house that we can replace with a big one" cannot be interpreted as involving extraposition. It can be interpreted either as an "it"-cleft sentence, as the author(s) intended it (the sentence is equivalent in meaning to "We can replace the small house with a big one," with the difference that the "it"-cleft focuses the direct object and thereby emphasizes it), or as a sentence identifying something (some house referred to by "it") as the small house that "we" can replace with a big one.