ABSTRACT
The most usual sentence in Catalan, as in English, is an active sentence with a subject carrying out the action of the verb. An important device used to focus on a part of the sentence is splitting the sentence by means of a cleft structure. Impersonal sentences can be purely impersonal, with no subject at all, mostly relating to atmospheric circumstances or similar, or they can include an impersonal subject, or be built as a pronominal passive. The impersonal pronoun hom can appear in very formal texts. It agrees with the verb as a third person singular, and has no referential meaning at all. Hom can be preceded by un to stress singularity or to reference oneself, but it cannot take any adjectives. In normal speech hom is not used, and its role is performed by the impersonal third person pronoun es.
