LEXICAL EMPHASIS Profª. Flávia Cunha

LEXICAL EMPHASIS It is achieved by means of special words or phrases. Certain words tend to be emphatic because of their lexical, semantic content.

LEXICAL EMPHASIS There are two main reasons for emphasizing a particular word: Emotive emphasis (to confer emotive stress on what is said; to show we feel strongly about what we are saying) e.g. You do look nice today! Your hair looks so good like that.

Contrastive emphasis (to show contrast between, for example, true and false, or present and past, or a rule and an exception) e.g. Why weren’t you at the meeting? - I was at the meeting. I don’t do much sport now, but I did play football when I was younger.

LEXICAL EMPHASIS Emphatic DO: an entire sentence receives greater emphasis if the auxiliary is stressed. DO is introduced when no auxiliary verb is present to carry emphatic stress: It does taste nice!

Do occurs as a marker of emphasis in affirmative declarative sentences which have no BE copula or auxiliary verb. It also occurs in the two following constructions: Emphatic affirmative imperative (even those with the copula) Do come in! Do be honest this time!

Affirmative wh-questions that ask about the subject: What did happen? Who does earn that kind of money?

LEXICAL EMPHASIS Emphatic Reflexive: to emphasize nouns, reflexive pronouns are often used. Consider the following sentences: The owner himself built the house. The owner built the house himself.

LEXICAL EMPHASIS Only sentence a, where the reflexive pronoun directly follows the noun it is modifying, can truly be considered emphatic use of the reflexive pronoun (‘that person/thing and nobody/nothing else’). Sentence b represents an adverbial function of the reflexive pronoun (by himself – ‘alone, without company, without help’).

LEXICAL EMPHASIS Emphatic own Possessive adjectives that modify a head noun can be made emphatic by the addition of own, which in turn can be intensified by the addition of very. The use of emphatic own with a possessive adjective or noun usually signals the meaning of ownership. e.g. After having accepted his analysis of comparative sentences for years, I later developed my own theory about such sentences.

Emphatic Adjectives and Adverbs: Emphatic (intensifying) adjectives occur only in attributive position: e.g. He is a mere child. That is pure fabrication. You bloody fool!

LEXICAL EMPHASIS Emphatic adverbs are mostly degree (intensifying) adverbs and other degree expressions, intensifying the meaning of the words they modify (very, indeed, utterly, definitely, truly, certainly, really, etc.) e.g. I was very surprised indeed. I certainly like that color on you. She’d like a bottle of your very best wine.

Wh- question words can be emphasized by adding: ever, on earth, the hell. e.g. Why ever did he marry her? What on earth is she doing here? Where the hell have you been?

SPEAKING EMPHATICALLY

LEXICAL EMPHASIS Bibliography: Swan, Michael. Practical English usage. (2005) Oxford: OUP. Larsen-Freeman, Diane & Celce-Murcia Marianne. (1983).The Grammar Book: An ESL/EFL Teacher’s Course