Rule reminder

Left dislocation (dislocazione a sinistra): the topic is moved to the front and resumed by a clitic pronoun — 'Marco, l'ho visto ieri' (Marco, I saw him yesterday). Cleft sentence: 'È Marco che ho visto ieri' (It is Marco that I saw yesterday). Key difference: left dislocation establishes a TOPIC (what the sentence is about); cleft creates FOCUS (what is new/contrastive information). Left dislocation does NOT exclude alternatives; cleft often implies exclusivity.