Focus

and
Emphasis
× In communicative settings, speakers and
writers of English are able to draw attention
to particular parts of a message in a variety
of linguistic ways.
× They do so to emphasize or to make
prominent new or contrastive information.
× Examples:
a. I have always loved the arts. I myself have no
talent.
b. Add your favorite recipes to your very own
Recipe Book ...
The following underlined words and phrases in
sentences reflect special focus or emphasis on
information created.
Focus and emphasis can be expressed in three
different ways:
(1) Phonologically (through special stress and
intonation)
(2) Lexically (through special words and phrases),
(3) Syntactically (through marked word order or
special focus constructions).
The Forms That Focus and Emphasis
Can Take
1. Phonological Form
Examples:
a. JOHN cooked the dinner. (not someone
else)
b. John COOKED the dinner. (as opposed to
doing something else with respect to the
dinner)
2. Lexical Devices
a. Emphatic Do
An entire sentence receives greater emphasis if
the auxiliary is stressed.
Examples:
It does taste nice!
Who does earn that kind of money?
Do come in!
b. Emphatic Reflexive Pronouns
Emphatic reflexive pronouns generally follow the nouns
they refer.
Examples:
× The president himself has insisted that he is in good
health. .. (International News, 2012)
× The artists themselves rarely saved their work.
(Smithsonian, August 2004)
c. Emphatic Own
Possessive determiners (and sometimes nouns with a
possessive inflection) that modify a head noun can be
made emphatic by the addition of own.
Examples:
It takes a real effort to remind myself of my own priorities.
(Good Housekeeping, January 2012).
They can't handle their own children.
d. Emphatic Adjectives and Adverbs
 Certain adjectives can be used for emphasis
that may occur only in attributive position.
Examples:
a pure delight
an outright lie
a mere child
 Emphatic Adjectives may occur in both attributive
and predicative positions.
Examples:
• A complete victory
The victory was complete.
• Their extreme condemnation
Their condemnation was extreme.
• His great folly
His folly was great.
 Emphatic adverbs intensify adjectives and
verbs.
Examples:
That is totally untrue.
I utterly regret having done that.
I really hope you come.
3. Syntactic Means: Marked Word Order
Marked word order can be defined as the
movement of a constituent into a position in the
sentence where we would not ordinarily expect to
find it.
a. Object-Subject-Verb Word Order
Fronting the object to first position in a sentence tends
to be a stylistic feature of spoken rather than written
English.
Examples:
"I'll tell the grocer. Him I see every day:' (City of Many
Days, Mercury House, 1993)
"Her I would have thrown out of the courtroom... " (CNN
Crossfire, 1993)
Fronted objects can appear in contexts where a
strong contrast is being made:
Him I like; her I don't. (I like him but I don't [like] her.)
John I can comprehend; the others speak
gibberish.(I can comprehend John-but the others
speak gibberish.)
b. Predicate Adjective/Noun Fronting
Fronting a predicate adjective or noun to initial
position is also a possibility in certain written
genres, such as fiction:
 Ambitious she must have been, or she wouldn't
have come.
 A professor he was, but in name only.
c. Fronting with Subject-Operator Inversion
In some instances, fronting a negative adverbial
constituent (e.g., never; not, in no way) or an
adverbial constituent expressing extent,
degree, or comparison (e.g., [so+ ADJ]) gives a
more emphatic or exclamatory reading to
the sentence as a whole.
The following are examples from COCA:
Negative fronting:
 ... never have I felt so honored and humbled by an
experience. ( USA Today, Jan 2011)
 Under no circumstances should you hit 'Reply All' in
response to a company-wide message unless every
single person needs to read what you have to say. (PC
World, Sept. 2011)
Extent/degree/comparison fronting:
 So absurd was the request, he felt like laughing.
(Ransom, Pocket Books, 1999)
 Even more shocking were the identities of the
two men behind [the diabolical plan.](ABC 20/20
March 27, 2009)
 Special Focus Constructions
Two other important focus constructions, which we
discuss here, are it-clefts and wh-clefts.
a. It-Clefts
 Unmarked: John wants a car.
Cleft: It's a car that John wants (not a house).
 Unmarked: The manager mows the lawn.
Cleft: It's the manager who mows the lawn (not a
gardener).
b. Wh-Clefts
Wh-clefts (also referred to as pseudoclefts) are the other
important focus construction in English that we discuss
in this chapter. Consider the following examples:
 What he is is a complete fool.
Where we found the key was in the flowerpot.
What I said was that we shouldn't go there.
What he does is get himself in trouble
COMPLEMENTATION
Complements are constituents which are
needed to complete the meaning of a verb,
an adjective, or sometimes a noun.
 The Form of Complements
1. ORDINARY THAT-COMPLEMENTS
Tensed that-clauses are one of the most frequent types of
clausal complement, especially in conversation and fiction
(Biber,Johansson, Leech, Conrad, & Finegan, 1999):
× Scientists claim [that the earth is getting warmer].
× We expected [that nothing worthwhile would come
from our efforts].
× Most people know [that bears don't make good pets].
 The Form of Complements
2. SUBJUNCTIVE COMPLEMENTS
The subjunctive is used to emphasize urgency or importance.
Examples:
 I suggest that she consult a doctor. (NOT I suggest that she
consults a doctor.)
The negative forms are made by putting not before the simple
form of the verb.
 I recommend that she not accept that job. (NOT I
recommend that she does not accept that job.)
 The Form of Complements
Passive subjunctive verbs are made by putting ‘be’ before the
past participle form of the verb.
 It is essential that she be told the truth.

Common words and expressions followed by the subjunctive

are: ask, advise, demand, propose, insist, request,
recommend and suggest, essential, important, imperative,
critical, vital, necessary etc.
 The Form of Complements
3. INFINITIVE COMPLEMENTS
Infinitive complements exhibit considerable syntactic variation
since they have five subtypes :
1. believe type: The students believe their professor to be
amazing.
2. advise type: We advised them to play baseball in the park.
3. attempt type: I attempted to avoid the ice on the road.
4. want type: I want to clean the house.
(for/to infinitive): I want (for) him to clean the house.
5. let type: The teacher let the students go home early. (bare stem)
 The Form of Complements
4. GERUND COMPLEMENTS
a. Subject Complements:
 His hobby is playing computer games.
 My least favorite chore is cleaning the
bathroom.
 His problem is not coming to class on time.
 The Form of Complements
b. Object Complements
Gerunds may also be used (though this not
common) as object complements:
× Ms. Jones considers tardiness being more than
five minutes late for class.
× How can you call this nonsense writing creatively?
Object complements with gerunds are possible with
only a few verbs. The most common ones are call
and consider.
 The Form of Complements
c. Possessive Gerund
Examples:
 I appreciate his taking care of the dog.
 Ben disliked Susan's making phone calls to
Collin.
 Chris prefers his doing other things with his
time.
 The Form of Complements
5. THE SUBJECT-PARTICIPLEC OMPLEMENT
There is one additional complement type in which –ing
appears, one that is superficially similar to the possessive
gerund complement but that always has an NP or object
pronoun in place of the possessive form.
× He doesn't want [the employees sitting around with
nothing to do].
× I watched [the ice melting in the sun].
× The teacher had [the students drawing trees].
Other verbs taking this sort of complement include discover,
feel, hate, have, bear; like, love, observe, prefer; recall,
remember, see, and watch. For example:
× The authorities discovered the dog hiding behind the
bushes.
× We could feel the weather turning cold.
× The tour leaders had us visiting museums day and night.
× We observed the doves making their nest.
× I remember John telling me the same story last year.
 CAUSATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS
a) Have. The verb have suggests a routine hiring or
selecting in which a relation of authority is implied, as
between customer-businessperson or creditor-
debtor:
× We had Ray mow the lawn. (He does it every
week.)
× I had the barber trim my hair. (It is his profession.)
× Fred had John give him back five dollars. (part of a
debt that John owed Fred)
 CAUSATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS
b. Get. The verb get is often used to convey the
sense that some difficulty was involved; perhaps
the subject of the main clause used persuasion or
coercion on the subject of the embedded clause:
× I got Ray to give me five dollars. (He had
refused earlier.)
 CAUSATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS
c. Make. The verb make suggests that the subject
of the main clause has coercive power (though
not necessarily authority in any conventional
sense) over the subject of the infinitive:
× He made a stranger on the street give him five
dollars. (Threat was involved.)