Ex. 1 Show the difference in the expressiveness of speech through modifications of the speaker’s attitude and the subject matter.
1 a) – Why didn’t you answer? Didn’t you want or couldn’t you understand?
– I couldn’t under stand.
b) - Oh, dear. How did you lose them?
- I couldn’t think.
2 a) – Why don’t you say anything?
- I can’t hear you.
b) – Don’t be silly, Harry. Staying in bed is the only sensible thing to do.
- No seriously, Nora, I can’t bear it.
3 a) – You may call at the bookshop on your way home.
- Where’s that.
b) - You don’t mean to say you’ve forgotten about the interview tomorrow?
- What interview? Oh, that.
4 a) – I’ll do it myself.
- It isn’t easy.
b) – I suppose you ought to make another try and do it.
- But I tell you it isn’t easy.
Ex. 2 Replace the nuclear tone in the following utterances by an emphatic variant so as to express the suggested feelings. Provide an appropriate context for the original and the transformed utterances.
1 I’ll be back at about six. (insistence)
2 I didn’t ex pect them to be back soon. (contrast)