the Whiteboard: Emphatic Stress

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Choose the correct option

1. In English you don't have to / have to change the word order to change the meaning.

2. In the sentence "I was extremely tired",

the standard stress is on the word "extremely" / "tired".

3. We often place emphatic stress on adjective / intensifiers

4. You can / can't choose to place stress on adjectives.

5. When we say "so happy: we must stress so / happy.

6. In the sentence "she's so happy that she can't stop smiling", we can / can't leave out the word "that".

7. Emphatic stress can / can't express a negative meaning.

8. It is / isn't always adverbs that receive emphatic stress.

Practice

A) It was very cold. (standard stress)

B) It wasn't really. (emphatic stress)

A) Yes it was! (contrastive stress)

B) I thought it was cold, but not extremely cold.

A) It was absolutely freezing cold. (emphatic stress) It was so cold that I couldn't move my fingers. (standard stress)

A) He's a terrible liar.

B) Really? I thought he was telling the truth.

A) Never! He always lies. He's a terrible liar.

B) Okay. I'll remember that.

A) What on earth made you do that?

B) I thought it would make you happy.

A) I don't believe that at all. It made extremely angry!

B) Okay. Then I'm extremely sorry.

(exercise 2b)

1.	I don't have much time, but I suppose I could do it if it's really necessary.
2.	I can help you with that if you like.
3.	I shall be seeing him tomorrow, do you want me to give him a message?
4.	Cinderella! You shall go to the ball!
5.	But you must remember to leave before midnight.
6.	As a rule, drivers must keep to the speed limit at all times.
7.	You should ask your teacher if you can have an extension.
8.	I should have told you earlier about this, but I forgot.
9.	I may have left it at home, but I was sure I had brought it.
10.	By the way, I might be a bit late this evening; I'm meeting a client.

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