Rule reminder

Cleft sentences are more frequent in spoken Italian than in formal writing, because speech relies on them to compensate for the absence of written prosodic stress. In spoken Italian: 'Chi è che ha fatto questo?' (very colloquial), 'Cos'è che hai detto?' In formal/written Italian, clefts appear but are more restrained; academic writing often prefers pseudo-clefts or specific noun phrases. Register markers: 'fu...che' (formal/historical), 'è stato...che' (colloquial/modern), 'è...che' (neutral).