Imagine talking to a friend for a substantial amount of time. Both of you exchange enthusiastically ideas and opinions about something dear to the two of you in a candid, conversational fashion. At the middle of your dialogue, he suddenly utters an expression (similar to how he normally does earlier during the conversation) but, this time, with an explicit reference to you: the utterance mentions your name as the recipient of the message. In particular, he voices out a statement that incorporates your name, intending to call you to hear his word. As the receiver, what do you perceive from that expression? Certainly, a stressed message.
Nominal references integrated in statements during conversations such as your name in the above illustration are called direct addresses or vocatives. The sender, through a direct address, articulately invites the receiver to pay particular attention to a thought. Specifically, by means of a direct address, the sender pulls the heedfulness of the receiver towards a certain message. Often, the sender employs a direct address to underscore something illuminating. Note that direct addresses include not only proper nouns and given names, but also other nominal references such as titles (“Doctor,” “Engineer,” “Accountant”), designations (“Reporter,” “Editor,” “Risk Analyst”), familial terms (“Mother,” “Brother,” “Uncle”), terms of endearment (“buddy,” “bro,” “pal,” “my friend”), and all other terms of addressing someone (“you,” “guy in red shirt,” “by-stander with glasses”).
Grammatically, there are three rules in using direct addresses. The first one is that they appear in upper case like in “Reporter, you have to go to the West Front to cover the presidential oath taking,” “The hospital’s board of directors, Doctor, decided not to use that research as reference” and “I shall definitely recommend you to my friends, Engineer,” except for terms of endearment (“It’s all yours, pal” and “You got it, my friend”). The next rule is that direct addresses can appear at any position in the sentence, that is, at the beginning, middle, or end part, as can be seen in the examples given. Last, these emphatic markers are always separated from the rest of the sentence by commas, as depicted by the above illustrations.
The last grammatical structure of emphasis in one’s arsenal is mass-discrete denotation. Through this construction, the sender explicitly points to each member of a group as he speaks of the cluster, thereby boosting the impact of the entire statement. Mass-discrete denotation refers to the members in a singular, separate manner instead of collective reference. Determiners such as “a,” “every,” and “each,” and pronouns such as “each” and “one” signal the grammatical expression of mass-discrete denotation. Compare “All presidential candidates see global warming as a threat to mankind” and “Every presidential candidate sees global warming as a threat to mankind.” Comprehending these sentences side-by-side, you can readily sense that the second carries a more striking, even dramatic message in contrast with the first where reference to the presidential candidates is done in a swift, sweeping manner. By means of mass-discrete denotation in the second statement, the sender can underscore the serious danger posed by global warming to man, which is perceived by and concerns no less than candidates for presidency.
English grammar comprises different constructions embodying emphasis on a certain thought. These grammatical structures are symbolic verbal cues mirroring the implicit aim of the sender to underscore the idea, often towards achieving a particular goal. The emphatic constructions illuminated here—plain, straightforward sentences; active sentences; the magical “do”; run-ons; sentences with exclamation points or dashes; “there” + “be” sentences; “it” + “be” sentences; the end-focus; direct addresses; and mass-discrete denotation—are the most common ones in English and are quite handy to wield in conversations. Used properly, these structures fire up expressions, making these statements stand out and radiate all the way. A good command of these emphatic constructions endows a person with sharp linguistic tools to press his point. And to establish himself.
READ: Emphatic Constructions in English (Part 1)
