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Article In:
Linguistic Constructions
Edited by Beata Trawiński, Marc Kupietz and Kristel Proost
[Languages in Contrast 24:2] 2024
► pp. 248–271

Projected meaning in English and French

The embedded exclamative construction

ORCID logo | University of MonsBelgium
This study offers a reanalysis of embedded exclamative constructions as true exclamative, and even as mirative, items. Through a quantitative study of the constructions and the verbs that licence them in English and French, it is demonstrated that not only do these embedded constructions resemble their non-embedded counterparts, their conventional meaning is not over-ruled by a matrix clause but rather projected by it.
Keywords: exclamative, illocutionary force, mirativity, projection, English/French
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The exclamative construction: Combining form and meaning
  • 3.Aims, means, and method
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Aims and method
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Construction types in embedded exclamatives
    • 4.2High degree in embedded exclamative constructions
    • 4.3Functional performativity in embedded exclamatives
    • 4.4How exclamative constructions embed: Matrix sentence and process types
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Author queries
  • References
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