Emphasizing adverbials or ‘emphasizers’ have a reinforcing effect on the truth value of the sentence or a part of the sentence to which they apply. Examples of common emphasizers are: ‘míngmíng’ (clearly), ‘díquè’ (indeed), ‘zhēnzhèng de’, (really) ‘shíjìshang’ (in fact, actually), ‘qíshí’(in fact), ‘xiǎnrán’ (apparently, clearly), ‘kěndìng de’ (definitely, certainly), ‘dāngrán’ (of course), ‘tǎnshuài de’ (frankly), ‘shuō shíhuà’ (honestly), ‘chéngrán’ (truly), ‘jiǎnzhí de’ (simply), ‘jiùshì’ (just), ‘yīdìng’ (definitely), ‘chúncuì (purely), etc. Some of the emphasizers may be positioned initially as detached elements, expressing the speaker’s comment that what is being said is true, or conveying the speaker’s assertion that his words are the unvarnished truth. The addition of a comment or assertion that the speaker’s words are true merely emphasizes the truth of the communication.
[1] Loar, J. K. (2011). Chinese syntactic grammar: functional and conceptual principles. New York: Peter Lang.
