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The importance of a word in a sentence can be emphasized by placing it at the end after a starting “what”
HOW AND WHY “what” HIGHLIGHTS WORDS
The word what can be used not just to ask questions but also as a kind of relative pronoun, meaning “the thing which” (see 200. Special Uses of Relative Clauses, #4). It is with this second meaning that what can highlight particular words. To do so, it must begin a sentence that has the highlighted word at the end after BE, like this:
(a) What causes the most stress is noise.
The highlighted word here is noise. The highlighting informs the reader that this is the main information in the sentence – what the sentence is “about”.
Most sentences contain important and less important information (see 24. Good and Bad Repetition and 156. Mentioning What the Reader Knows Already). However, most do not highlight the important information as directly as (a) does – there will often be no need because clues like the normal word order of English will be enough.
What sentences (and other means of highlighting) become desirable if a writer feels that a misunderstanding is more likely. In this sense, they are “emphatic”, one of a range of possibilities surveyed in the Guinlist post 125. Stress and Emphasis. Here, I wish to look in detail at the nature and problems of highlighting with what.
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THE ESSENTIALS OF “what” HIGHLIGHTING
Most grammar descriptions cover the basics of highlighting with what. As mentioned above, the word itself is a pronoun meaning “the thing which”. Its highlighting use is not actually its only one. Consider this:
(b) What causes the most stress is a fact of life.
In sentence (a) above, what corresponds to, and is identified by, noise at the end. Here, though, the words at the end do not identify what, but instead describe it. What corresponds to an unmentioned idea that the reader is expected to know already from either general knowledge or a previous mention in the text.
With the use in (b), the end of the sentence does not always comprise BE + noun: an alternative ending in (b), for example, might be …is alarming or …needs attention. When such sentences do end with BE + noun, though, a double meaning sometimes arises (see 257. Structures with a Double Meaning 4, #3).
Another means of placing noise at the end of (a) is, of course, the passive voice of the verb (… is caused by noise). However, as indicated above, this is less emphatic than the use of what.
The emphatic highlighting provided by what can also be achieved by starting the sentence with it, like this:
(c) It is noise that causes the most stress.
For details of highlighting in this way, see 190. Special Uses of “it”, #3. The main difference between (c) and (b) is, of course, that the highlighted meaning is at the start rather than the end of the sentence. Sometimes that is better – some sentences are easier to read with the highlighting first. Sometimes, however, there may be a good reason for wanting to highlight at the end (see 265. Grammar Tools for Better Writing).
Very many sentences can be made to begin with what. Moreover, different parts of the same sentence can be placed at the end after a starting what. Consider this:
(d) Plants absorb carbon dioxide at night.
Emphasizing plants (the subject of the sentence), this becomes:
(e) What absorb(s) carbon dioxide at night is/are plants.
Emphasizing carbon dioxide (the object), we have:
(f) What plants absorb at night is carbon dioxide.
Emphasizing absorb (the verb) is a little trickier:
(g) What plants do at night is (to) absorb carbon dioxide.
Here, moving absorb to the end necessitates its replacement by DO. This use of DO is fairly typical, though BE needs another use of itself instead. Verbs with an object (here carbon dioxide) take it with them to the end. In their new position, they usually have no ending (they have the “infinitive” form, with or without to – see 148. Infinitive Verbs without “to”, example #c), unless they correspond to a continuous tense (e.g. are absorbing), in which case they keep -ing.
One other kind of idea that is easily emphasised with what may be illustrated as follows:
(h) What is worrying is that glaciers are melting.
Here, the emphasised words are the understood subject of the main verb (is) but are themselves a subject and verb. If the sentence was written without what, it would begin with it (It is worrying…). For details, see 207. Exotic Grammar Structures 4, #3.
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CONSTRAINTS ON USING “what”
The one part of sentence (d) that cannot be highlighted at the end of a what sentence is at night, a preposition phrase acting like an adverb (saying when the action of the verb occurs). However, some adverb-like preposition phrases are more flexible:
(i) What the ancient Egyptians wrote on was papyrus.
Here, the preposition part of the phrase (on) stays with the verb, but its following noun moves to the end. It is perhaps the type of meaning expressed by the preposition phrase that determines its grammar: time phrases like at night cannot be split, whereas “instrument” phrases (naming tools – see 73. Prepositions for Saying How) can. Others that can be split include to and for before an indirect object (see 126. Verbs with an Indirect Object) and the by associated with passive verbs. All are what I have elsewhere called “grammatical” prepositions (see 111. Words with a Typical Preposition).
Ordinary adverbs like quickly, yesterday and too much also seem unable to be highlighted at the end of a what sentence. Verbs expressing states rather than actions – e.g. EXIST, HAVE and KNOW – do not easily fit there either. Nouns and adjectives in the “complement” position after BE are perhaps rarely highlighted because of repetition like the following:
(j) ?What children are is energetic.
Although nouns with a subject or object function are the easiest to highlight at the end of a what sentence, there are exceptions there too. Consider this:
(k) The British have the fewest public holidays in Europe.
As a general rule, nouns representing human beings, like the British, cannot be highlighted at the end of a what sentence. This is logical because what generally refers to things, not people. However, people nouns are not the only kind that are constrained; others include nouns for places, points in time, reasons, methods and quantities. Even nouns that can be highlighted with what are unable to when the idea of “thing(s)” inside what needs to be added to (see below).
The inability of words to follow what, however, does not mean that they cannot be given the same kind of sentence-end highlighting that what allows.
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SUBSTITUTES FOR “what”
The normal equivalent of what for highlighting human and other exceptional nouns is the + NOUN + wh-. The noun needs to be the name of a wider class containing the meaning of the highlighted noun, e.g. person/people (+ who), place (where), time (when), reason (why), thing (that) and number/amount (that). Thus, (k) can become:
(l) The people (or nation) who have the fewest public holidays in Europe are the British.
An alternative to the people who… is those who… (see 211. General Words for People). An interesting observation about noun substitutes for what is that they tend to be the very same words that equate to question words in indirect questions (see 185. Noun Synonyms of Question Words).
Nouns of this kind can also help to highlight a preposition phrase:
(m) The time when plants absorb carbon dioxide is at night.
(n) The way (in which) most bulky loads are transported is by sea.
An example where what needs to be replaced by the thing(s) is:
(o) The one thing everyone needs is exercise.
Here, it is the need to add the idea of “one” to what that necessitates the change (see 260. Formal Written Uses of “Thing”, #3).
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PRACTICE EXERCISE: HIGHLIGHTING WITH what-TYPE SENTENCES
In this exercise the challenge is to reword given sentences so that the underlined part in each is given what-type emphasis. Two of the rewordings can begin with what, but the others need a noun. Answers are given afterwards.
1. The Russian Revolution began in 1917.
2. Solar power will solve the energy crisis.
3. Gandhi inspired India to achieve independence.
4. Humans first evolved in sub-Saharan Africa.
5. Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere.
6. Every six months a trip should be made to a dentist
7. Malaria is still a threat because the parasites quickly develop drug resistance.
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Answers (other possibilities may exist)
1. The date/year when the Russian Revolution began was 1917.
2. What will solve the energy crisis is solar power.
3. The person who inspired India to achieve independence was Gandhi.
4. The place/region where humans first evolved was sub-Saharan Africa.
5. What carbon dioxide is doing is accumulating in the atmosphere.
6. The frequency with which a trip should be made to a dentist is every six months.
7. The reason why malaria is still a threat is that the parasites quickly develop drug resistance.
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