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Difficulty: MediumEmphatic Stress

In the sentence below, one word is printed in FULL CAPITAL LETTERS to show emphatic stress:

The meticulous architect UNANIMOUSLY approved the revised skyscraper blueprint.

Which of the following questions is correctly elicited by this statement?

  1. Did the meticulous architect reluctantly approve the revised skyscraper blueprint?Answer
  2. B
    Did the meticulous structural engineer unanimously approve the revised skyscraper blueprint?
  3. C
    Did the meticulous architect unanimously reject the revised skyscraper blueprint?
  4. D
    Did the meticulous architect unanimously approve the preliminary skyscraper blueprint?

Answer

Did the meticulous architect reluctantly approve the revised skyscraper blueprint?
Emphatic stress places contrastive focus on the capitalized word 'UNANIMOUSLY'. To elicit a statement with emphatic stress on 'UNANIMOUSLY', the preceding question must introduce a contradictory notion specifically regarding how the approval was given (e.g., 'reluctantly'), while keeping all other details ('meticulous architect', 'approved', 'revised skyscraper blueprint') identical.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the word carrying emphatic stress in the given sentence.
The word printed in full capital letters is 'UNANIMOUSLY', an adverb indicating total agreement.
Emphatic stress signals the specific piece of information being highlighted or contrasted in spoken dialogue.
2
Determine the required content of the contrastive question.
The correct question must contradict ONLY the stressed word ('UNANIMOUSLY') while keeping every other element of the statement unchanged.
Emphatic stress rules require that contrastive focus shifts only the stressed item to resolve false assumptions.
3
Evaluate the options against the contrastive focus rule.
The option asking if the architect 'reluctantly' approved the blueprint replaces 'UNANIMOUSLY' with its opposite ('reluctantly') while leaving the rest of the sentence intact.
This makes it the only question that naturally elicits the emphatic response statement.

Key Concept

Emphatic Stress and Contrastive Focus
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Topics

Emphatic Stress

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