11E: Adding stress (revision)

Mastering Emphatic Structures

Learn how to use emphatic pronouns, emphatic do, and cleft sentences to add emphasis and clarity to your English sentences.

Emphatic Pronouns:

• Emphatic pronouns are used to emphasize a noun or pronoun in a sentence.

• They include: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, and themselves.

• Example: I myself will take care of it.

Emphatic Pronouns:

Trivia: Emphatic pronouns are used to add emphasis and intensity to a sentence. They are also known as intensive pronouns.
Emphatic pronouns are not used to replace nouns, connect clauses, or indicate possession.

Multiple Choice

What are emphatic pronouns used for?

• To replace nouns in a sentence

• To emphasize a noun or pronoun in a sentence

• To connect two sentences together

• To indicate the tense of a sentence

Emphatic "do":

• This structure is used to emphasize an action/ event expressed in a verb phrase.

• "do", "does" or "did" is placed in front of the infinitive of the verb

• Example: I do enjoy a nice grammar lesson!

Multiple Choice

What is the purpose of using emphatic do in a sentence?

• To emphasize the action in the sentence

• To make the sentence negative

• To form a question

• To indicate the tense of the sentence

Cleft Sentences:

• Cleft sentences are used to emphasize a particular part of a sentence.

• They consist of a main clause introduced by "it is/was ..." and a subordinate clause introduced by 'that', 'who'.

• The emphasized part is moved to the beginning of the sentence.

• Another possible structure is "what ... is/was..."

• Example: It was John who won the competition.

  What I really hate is a poor example sentence.

Multiple Choice

What are cleft sentences?

• Sentences that are split into two parts.

• Sentences that emphasize a particular element.

• Sentences that are used in formal writing.

• Sentences that express strong emotions.

Use different means of adding stress to the following sentences!

Multiple Choice

... who found his missing book.

• Mary it was

• Mary

• It was Mary

Multiple Choice

... about the place is the weather.

• What I don't like

• That I don't like

• The reason I don't like

Multiple Choice

What we did is ... a letter of apology.

• write

• wrote

• writing

Multiple Choice

The place ... the long beach outside the city.

• where I love

• that I love

• which I love

Poll

How well can you handle "stress" in English sentences?

• Easy peasy!

• It's alright!

• I
  I'd like to do some more training.

• I don't quite get it.