5. Phraseology

Intensifying and Emphasising

Intensifying adjectives

One way to express emphasis is to use an intensifying adjective before a noun. For example, we can say ‘She is a complete idiot.’ However, the choice of an intensifying adjective is often limited by collocational restrictions.

Activity 1

List other intensifying adjectives you know.

Activity 2

Choose one pair of intensifying adjectives from the list below and look up their most frequent and interesting collocations by following the procedure described below. List at least three collocations for each member of your pair together with example sentences.

a. absolute, sheer
b. complete, utter
c. total, comprehensive
d. full, outright

Go to http://phrasesinenglish.org/index.html
From the pull-down menu choose ‘Grams’ and ‘n-grams advanced’.
In the ‘Minimum frequency’ box change the frequency from 20 to 3.
Scroll down the page and make sure that there is the digit 2 in the ‘grams’ box (you are going to look for 2-grams.)
In the Word 1 box type your adjective.
Press the ‘Query’ button
The collocations are listed in the right hand-side box
Study the collocations in context by clicking on each collocation.

Activity 3

Complete the tasks below.

Emphasis 1

Emphasis 2

Intensifying adverbs

Another way to express emphasis is to use an intensifying adverb before an adjective. For example, you can say ‘It’s very hot.’ As in the case of intensifying adjectives, the choice of intensifying adverbs is frequently limited by collocational restrictions.

Activity 4

List synonyms of the word very. Try to recall as many intensifiers as you can and only then use one of the thesauruses listed below.

Merriam-Webster

Dictionary.com

Activity 5

In ‘Phrases in English’ find 10 interesting examples of intensifier/adjective collocations. Follow the instructions below.

Go to http://pie.usna.edu/.
From the pull-down menu choose ‘Grams’ and ‘n-grams advanced’.
In the ‘Minimum frequency’ box change the frequency from 20 to 10.
In the ‘Maximum frequency’ box write 20
In the ‘Data chunk size’ box change 1000 to 10000
Scroll down the page and in the ‘grams’ box change 1 to 2 (you are going to look for 2-grams.)
In the Word 1 box type *ly (you are going to look for words ending in –ly) and select ‘adverbs: general’ in the POS box.
For Word 2 select ‘adjectives: all’ in the POS box.
Press the ‘Query’ button
The collocations are listed in the right hand-side box
Study the collocations in context by clicking on each collocation.
You can switch between the frequency and alphabetical order of listing by selecting the appropriate option in the left panel (under the ‘Data chunk size’ box).

Activity 6

Complete the tasks below.

Emphasis 3

Emphasis 4

Emphasis 5

Words with strong meanings

Yet another way to express emphasis is to choose an adjective with strong meaning. For example, instead of saying ‘It’s a big problem.’ we can say ‘It’s a huge problem.’

Activity 7

List the synonyms of the word surprised. Try to recall as many adjectives as you can and only then use one of the thesauruses listed below.

Merriam-Webster

Dictionary.com

Activity 8

From the list of adjectives below choose three and study their syntonyms by following the procedure described below.

clean, cold, hungry, interesting, silly, perfect, small, ugly, unreasonable

- Go to http://www.wordandphrase.info/.
- Choose Frequency lists.
- In the top left-hand box type an adjective and press the Search button.
- If necessary choose the right part of speech in the table on the right.
- The list of synonyms can be found in the bottom left side of the screen.
- Study the list. If you want to see any of the synonyms in context, click on it and its concordances will apear in the bottom right side of the screen. You will also find the information about the frequency of the synonym in the table directly above the concordance lines.

Activity 9

Complete the task below

Emphasis 6

Activity 10

Choose one pair of the synonyms from the previous activity and compare their collocational behaviour. Note down what similarities and differences you noticed in the collocation bahaviours of the chosen synonyms. Use the tools listed below. Make sure you explore these tools in order to familiarize yourself with their functions and options.

Just the Word

For Better English