Emphatic stress: WAEC English Language Past Questions and Answers

What the WAEC syllabus covers in Emphatic stress

Our summary: Stressing one word in a sentence to show a contrast, and what each choice of stressed word means.

• Emphatic stress (Candidates should be aware of the use of emphatic stress, most commonly to indicate a contrast, which is realized partly as a change in pitch within the intonational pattern. This falling pitch illustrated below is one of the common ways of indicating this:)
• He borrowed ˈmy newspaper. (i.e. not hers)
• He ˈborrowed my newspaper. (i.e. he did not steal it)
• He borrowed my ˈnewspaper. (i.e. not my book)
• ˈHe borrowed my newspaper. (i.e. not someone else's)

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