The usefulness of the cleft sentence partly resides in its unambiguous marking of the focus of information in written English, where the clue of intonation is absent. (GCE, p. 951)
[原译]断裂句的一个用处是在没有语调提示之处,它明确无误地标示出书面英语信息焦点所在。(《当代英语语法》)
这个句子似乎欠通,请分析。
译者忽略了或者忘记了 where 可以用作关系副词, 引出定语从句来修饰前面的名词或名词短语。例如:
-
That's the place she was born. 这就是她出生的地方。
-
There are very few areas in the world where apricots can be grown successfully. (TOEFL) 世界上杏树能生长的地方很少。
-
The painter lived more than a decade in Europe, where he could be in close contact with other cubists. (TOEFL) 这位画家在欧洲住了10多年，在那里他得以同其他的立体派画家进行密切的接触。
-
. . . we found ourselves on the shores of Lake Ennerdale, where Bill asked me to marry him. (Hillary, Living History) ……我们不知不觉地来到艾纳戴尔湖畔，比尔在那里向我求婚。
在你所提出的句子里, where 从句是 written English 的非限制性定语从句, 而不是 marking 的状语从句。
[试译]断裂句是很有用的,原因之一,就是它能在没有语调线索的书面英语里把信息焦点明确地标示出来。