Definition of Emphatic Accent

When we ask a question or make an exclamation, the tone of our words changes significantly. We place emphasis on some words to indicate our interlocutor that we are asking or exclaiming about a matter.

In the communication Orally, this phenomenon is easily identifiable, because with the tone of voice we can express whether we are questioning or exclaiming.

However, in the language In writing, it is necessary to communicate in some way what kind of messages we emit. Thus, the emphatic accent consists in specifying with a accent mark or accent that we are asking a question or exclaiming.

The orthographic norm in the emphatic accent

In the sentence "I don't understand why you haven't explained it" the word because it expresses the idea of ​​causality. On the other hand, in the sentence "I don't understand why you haven't explained it" the word "why" is separated and accented because it is a question. In the second sentence there is an emphasis on the message, which is indicated by the

accentuation of the word. The emphatic accent is used only in words such as what, when, how, where, why, who or for what, either to ask or to make an exclamation.

With these accented words you can ask both direct and indirect questions. For example, "how do you want to do it? "would be a direct way of asking and" tell me how you want to do it "would be an indirect way of asking the same type of question.

On synthesisIn all those cases in which a word is emphasized, it is necessary to specify it with the presence of an accent. This rule of accentuation makes possible the differentiation of meanings and facilitates the reading comprehensive of a text. Punctuation marks (? and ¡) and the context of the message provide us with the necessary information to correctly use the emphatic accent.

Not to be confused with the diacritical accent

Certain words have the same spelling and they can take an accent or not depending on their meaning. The word te is a pronoun and at the same time it is a noun, specifically a type of infusion. Both are written exactly the same and to differentiate them we use a tilde (for example "tea is a very popular drink among the British" or "I told you not to do it".

The diacritical accent allows differentiating words such as more and more, I know and I know, give and de, yes and yes, me and me, etc. If we take the word you as a reference, it can have a diacritical accent if it is a personal pronoun (tell me you), but it does not have it if it is a possessive adjective (your suitcase broke).

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Emphatic Accent Themes