1. C). Learn the proverbs. Lay stresses and tone marks:

1. Misfortunes never come alone.

2. A great ship asks great waters.

3. Eat at pleasure, drink with measure.

4. Don’t cross the bridge till you get to it.

5. Too much knowledge makes the head bald.

6. Neither fish nor flesh.

7. Fortune favours the brave.

1. D). Use one of the proverbs to comment on the following situation:

He surprised at the variety and character of these emissaries of disaster. Surely, when troubles chose to multiply they had great skill in presenting themselves in rapid order. (Th. Dreiser)

2. Identify the difference in the expressiveness of the replies.

Mind that when the speaker wants to draw special attention to a word in a sentence he makes it more prominent than other words. Such extra stress singles out the nuclear word (or words) to emphasize the attitudinal meaning. This type of sentence stress is called emphatic.

1. – Do you know the rood?

a) – Yes, it’s perfectly familiar.

b) – Will he do what he’s told?

– Oh, he’ll be perfectly all right.

2. – You may call at the bookshop on your way home.

a) – Where’s that?

b) – You don’t mean to say you’ve forgotten about the interview tomorrow morning.

– What interview? Oh, that.

3. – I’ll do it myself.

a) – It isn’t easy.

b) – I suppose you ought to find some time and read it.

– But it isn’t  easy.

3. – Where did I put the book?

a) – In front of you.

b) – I can’t find my book anywhere.

– It’s in front of you  on the table.

3. – Do you remember those people at Winchester?

a) – What? Oh, those people at the hotel?

b) – How much do I owe you?

– Three pounds.

– What? All this for a couple of hours work?

3. – What about his exam?

1. – He says he’s already passed it.

2. – We must telephone at once. I’ll be too late.

– You needn’t make so much fuss.

It must be remembered that to emphasize the whole of the utterance we can:

1. Widen the range of the utterance or narrow it.

By widening the range the speaker can express different violent emotions such as anger, horror, fear, irritation, impatience, joy, joyful surprise and others. If the range is widened the stressed and unstressed syllables are said on a higher pitch level, the nuclear tone has a wide range, the stress is increased, e.g.:

I can’t under stand it.

His acting was marvellous.

I don’t know that

Beautiful

By narrowing the range the speaker can express sadness, hopelessness, admiration, regret, reproach, sympathy, hatred, fear and other emotions. If the range is narrowed the nuclear tone has a narrower range than in an unemphatic sentence. The words are pronounced almost in a whisper.

b). Modify the head of the intonation pattern i.e. instead of the stepping head, the speaker can use the low head or the sliding head.

Compare:

Unemphatic (with the stepping head):

It isn’t exactly what I want.

Emphatic (with the low head)

It isn’t exactly what I want

Emphatic (with the sliding head)

It isn’t ex actly what I want.

c). Increase stress on all stressed words.

To give prominence to one or more separate words of the utterance we can:

1. Use “special rise”; e.g. The boy is an  awful lier.

2. Omit stresses on all the words which are normally stressed in unemphatic speech, leaving stress only on the nucleus. e.g. What are you going to do about it?

3. Stress one of the words that are normally unstressed in unemphatic speech (personal pronouns, prepositions, auxiliary, verbs etc.); e.g. You should go there.

4. Use one of the main widely-ranged tones (high fall, rise-fall, fall-rise) on the word to be made prominent.