Tenses
Emphatic Tenses are used to express emotive or contrastive emphasis. They are only found in two tenses: The Present Emphatic Tense and The Past Emphatic Tense.
The Present Emphatic is a tense used to add emphasis on something that is happening in present.
The Past Emphatic is often used to show that something which was expected in the past actually happened.
The Emphatic Tenses are only found in two tenses: The Present Emphatic Tense and The Past Emphatic Tense.
The Present Emphatic
The Present Emphatic in its Affirmative form has this structure:
Subject + Auxiliary verb “do/does” + infinitive
The Present Emphatic in its Negative form has this structure:
Subject + Auxiliary verb “do not/does not” + infinitive
*Short version of “do not/does not” is: “don’t/doesn’t”
The Past Emphatic
The Past Emphatic in its Affirmative form has this structure:
Subject + Auxiliary verb “did” + infinitive
The Past Emphatic in its Negative form has this structure:
Subject + Auxiliary verb “did not” + infinitive
*Short version of “did not” is: “didn’t”
The Present Emphatic
- I do post letters to my family.
- She does need you to have information about murder.
- We do enjoy telling jokes!
- We do not enjoy telling jokes!
The Past Emphatic
- I did post letters to my family.
- She did need you to have information about murder.
- We did enjoy telling jokes!
- We did not enjoy telling jokes!
The Present Emphatic
We use a present auxiliary verb do or does, do not or does not before an infinitive in a sentence in order to add emphasis to that verb.
The Present Emphatic is used to:
- express that we strongly feel what we are talking about;
- underline the contrast between two opposite things.
The Past Emphatic
We use the past auxiliary verb did or did not before an infinitive in a sentence in order to add emphasis to that verb.
The Past Emphatic is used to:
- show that something that was expected in the past actually happened;
- underline the contrast between two opposite past things.
We use the Present emphatic to express emotive or contrastive emphasis and we use it in affirmative statements.
- Affirmative structure for the Present emphatic is:
subject + auxiliary verb “do/does” + infinitive (e.g. I do work!) - Negative structure for the Present emphatic is:
subject + auxiliary verb “do not/does not” + infinitive (e.g. I do not work!)
We use Past emphatic to talk about something that was expected in the past happened and to highlight the contrast between two things in the past.
- Affirmative structure for the Past emphatic is:
subject + auxiliary verb “did” + infinitive (e.g. I did work!) - Negative structure for the Past emphatic is:
subject + auxiliary verb “did not” + infinitive (e.g. I did not work!)
For example:
— “I do work!” = We use Present emphatic to add emphasis on something happening in present.
— “I did work!” = We use Past emphatic to show that something that was expected actually happened in the past.
Let’s revise this content within the [Form] section. Take a look at the [Example] section that shows its use within a context.