Cover not available
Part of
Insubordination
Edited by Nicholas Evans and Honoré Watanabe
[Typological Studies in Language 115] 2016
► pp. 367–392

Chapter 14. How fascinating! Insubordinate exclamations

ORCID logo | University of California, Santa Barbara

It has been noticed that in language after language, exclamatives resemble some other sentence type, usually interrogatives: How cute she is! How cute is she? Explanations for the similarities have generally been couched in terms of shared abstract syntactic or semantic structure. Here another kind of explanation is offered: intersecting histories of development through time. Previous work on the issue is surveyed, and the emerging consensus summarized: exclamative constructions (i) tend to be expressive rather than informative, (ii) convey a subjective judgment of the speaker, (iii) describe a scalable property, and (iv) assert an unexpectedly high degree of that property. Not all exclamatives resemble questions in form, however. In Mohawk, an Iroquoian language of Northeastern North America, exclamatives show these four characteristics, but they resemble complements of declarative sentences. Exclamatives that resemble interrogatives and those that resemble declarative complements can be seen to originate in different source constructions, but they converge in the final steps of their development: a matrix clause expressing surprise or an unexpectedly high degree of some property expressed in the complement disappears (insubordination), but its meaning remains a part of the construction.

Published online: 18 November 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.115.14mit
References
Abels, Klaus & Vangsnes, Øystein Alexander
(eds) 2010 Studia Linguistica 64(1). (Special issue on Exclamatives ).Google Scholar
(eds) 2010 Introduction: Exclamatives in North Germanic and beyond. Studia Linguistica 64(1): 1–15. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Arutjunova, Nina D
1988 Tipy jazykovyx značenij: Ocenka. Sobytie. Fakt (Types of linguistic meaning: Evaluation. Event. Fact). Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Aslanov, Cyril
2009  Comme / comment du latin au français: Perspectives diachronique, comparatiste et typologique. Travaux de linguistique 58(1): 19–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Austin, John
1962 How to do Things with Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
d’Avis, Franz-Josef
2001 Uber w-Exklamativsätze im Deutschen (On w-exclamatives in German). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
2002 On the interpretation of wh-clauses in exclamative environments. Theoretical Linguistics 28: 5–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Benincà, Paola
1995 Tipi di frasi principali. Il tipo esclamativo. In Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione, Lorenzo Renzi, Giampaolo Salvi & Anna Cardinaletti (eds), 127–152. Bologna: Il Mulino. Google Scholar
1996 La struttura della frase esclamativa alla luce del dialetto padovano. In Italiano e dialetti nel tempo. Saggi di grammatica per Giulio C. Lepschy, Paola Benincà, Guiglemo Cinque, Tullio De Mauro & Nigel Vincent (eds), 23–43. Rome: Bulzoni. Google Scholar
Bennis, Hans
1998 Exclamatives! In Linguistics in the Netherlands 1998, René van Bezooijen & René Kager (eds), 27–40. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bennis, Hans, Corver, Norbert & den Dikken, Marcel
1998 Predication in nominal phrases. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 1: 85–117. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Johansson, Stig, Leech, Geoffrey, Conrad, Susan & Finegan, Edward
1999 Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Bosque, Ignacio
1984 Sobre la sintaxis de las oraciones exclamativas (On the syntax of exclamative sentences). Hispanic Linguistics 1: 283–304.Google Scholar
Castroviejo Miró, Elena
2006 Wh-exclamatives in Catalan. PhD dissertation, Universitat de Barcelona.Google Scholar
2008 Deconstructing exclamations. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 7: 41–90.Google Scholar
den Dikken, Marcel
2006 Relators and Linkers. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Elliott, Dale
1971 The Grammar of Emotive and Exclamatory Sentences in English. PhD dissertation, The Ohio State University, Columbus. (Reproduced in Working Papers in Linguistics 8, Computer and Information Science Research Center, The Ohio State University).Google Scholar
1974 Toward a grammar of exclamations. Foundations of Language 11(2): 231–246.Google Scholar
Evans, Nicholas
2007 Insubordination and its uses. In Finiteness: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations. Irina Nikolaeva (ed.), 366–431. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Gérard-Naef, Jocelyn
1980 L’exclamation en français: La syntaxe des phrases et des expressions exclamatives. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
González Rodriguez, Raquel
2008 Exclamative wh-phrases as positive polarity items. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 7: 91–116.Google Scholar
Grimshaw, Jane
1977 English Wh-questions and the Theory of Grammar. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
1979 Complement selection and the lexicon. Linguistic Inquiry 10(2): 279–326.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez-Rexach, Javier
1996 The semantics of exclamatives. In Syntax at Sunset, UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics 1996, Edward Garrett & Felicia Lee (eds), 146–162. Los Angeles, CA: Department of Linguistics, UCLA.Google Scholar
2001 Spanish exclamatives and the interpretation of the left periphery. In Selected Papers from Going Romance 99 [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 221], Johan Rooryck, Yves de Hulst & Jan Schroten (eds), 167–194. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gutierrez-Rexach, Javier
2008 Spanish root exclamatives at the syntax/semantics interface. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 7: 117–133.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd & Kuteva, Tania
2006 The Changing Languages of Europe. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul & Traugott, Elizabeth Closs
2003 Grammaticalization, 2nd edn. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney
1993 Remarks on the construction You won’t believe who Ed has married. Lingua 91: 175–184.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul & Kiparsky, Carol
1970 Fact. In Progress in Linguistics, Manfred Bierwisch & Karl Erich Heidolph (eds), 143–173. The Hague: Mouton. Google Scholar
Kobozeva, Irina M
1988 Otricanie v predloženijax s glagolami vosprijatija, mnenija i znanija (Negation in sentences with verbs of perception, opinion, and knowledge). In Logičeskij analiz jazyka: Znanie i mnenie (The logical analysis of language: Knowledge and opinion), 82–98. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Kobozeva, Irina M. & Popova, Dar’ja
2013 Faktory vybora iz’’jasnitel’nyx sojuzov ‘kak’, ‘čto’, ‘čtoby’ (opyt tipologičeski orientirovannogo formal’nogo analiza) (Factors in choices among the complementizers kak, čto, čtoby [an attempt at a typologically-oriented formal analysis]) [Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Serija 9]. Filologija 1: 21–34.Google Scholar
König, Ekkehard & Siemund, Peter
2007 Speech act distinctions in grammar. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Vol. 1: Clause Structure, 2nd edn, Timothy Shopen (ed.), 276–324. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lahiri, Utpal
1991 Embedded Interrogatives and Predicates that Embed Them. PhD dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald
Ms. An analysis of English questions.
Mayol, Laia
2008 Catalan “Déu n’hi do” and conventional implicatures in exclamatives. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 7: 135–156.Google Scholar
Marandin, Jean-Marie
2008 The exclamative clause type in French. In Proceedings of the HPSG08 Conference, NTCT, Keihanna, Japan, Stefan Müller (ed.). Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Michaelis, Laura
2001 Exclamative constructions. In Language Typology and Language Universals, Vol. 2, Martin Haspelmath, Ekkehard König, Wulf Oesterreicher & Wolfgang Raible (eds), 1038–1050. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Michaelis, Laura & Lambrecht, Knud
1996a The exclamative sentence type in English. In Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language, Adele E. Goldberg (ed.), 375–389. Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
1996b Towards a construction-based theory of language function: The case of nominal extraposition. Language 72(2): 215–247. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Näf, Anton
1996 Die w-Exklamativsätze im Deutschen – zugleich ein Plädoyer für eine Rehabilitierung der Empirie in der Sprachwissenschaft (W-exclamative sentences in German, together with a plea for a rehabilitation of empiricism in linguistics). Zeitschrift fur Germanistische Linguistik 24(1): 135–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Noonan, Michael
2007 Complementation. Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Vol. 2: Complex Constructions, 2nd edn, Timothy Shopen (ed.), 52–150. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Padučeva, Elena
1986 O referencii jazykovyx vyraženij s nepredmetnym značeniem (On reference in linguistic expressions with abstract meaning). Naučno-texničeskaja informacija (Scientific and Technical Information). Ser. 2. N 1.23–31.Google Scholar
2004 Dinamičeskie modeli v semantike leksiki (Dynamic models in lexical semantics). Moscow: Jazyki slavjanskoj kul’tury.Google Scholar
Popova, Daria
2011a Contrasts among three Russian complementizers ‘kak’, ‘chto’ and ‘chtoby’. Final paper for Barbara Partee’s speckurs Formal Semantics and Semantic Universals , Moscow State University, June 2011.
2011b ‘Kak’/‘chto’ alternation in Russian. Final paper for Beth Levin’s course Lexical Semantics , Stanford, December 2011.
Postma, Gert
1995 Exclamative wh and verb-second. Linguistics in the Netherlands 1996, Crit Cremers & Marcel den Dikken (eds), 207–220. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Potts, Christopher & Schwarz, Florian
2008 Exclamatives and heightened emotion: Extracting pragmatic generalizations from large corpora. Ms, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan
1985 A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Radford, Andrew
1982 The syntax of WH-exclamatives in Italian. In Studies in the Romance Verb, Nigel Vincent & Martin Harris (eds), 185–204. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Rett, Jessica
2011 Exclamatives, degrees and speech acts. Linguistics and Philosophy 34: 411–442. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi
1997 The fine structure of the left periphery. In Elements of Grammar: Handbook in Generative Syntax, Liliana Haegeman (ed.), 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rosengren, Inger
1992 Zur Grammatik und Pragmatik der Exklamation (On the grammar and pragmatics of exclamations). In Satz und Illokation, Inger Rosengren (ed.), 263–304. Tübingen: Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1997 Expressive sentence types – A contradiction in terms. The case of exclamation. In Modality in Germanic Languages. Historical and Comparative Perspectives, Toril Swan & Olaf Jansen Westvik (eds), 151–184 Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ross, John Robert
1970 On declarative sentences. In Readings in English Transformational Grammar, Roderick Jacobs & Peter Rosenbaum (eds), 223–277. Waltham, MA: Ginn and Co.Google Scholar
Sadock, Jerrold
1970 Whimperatives. In Studies Presented to Robert B. Lees by his Students, Jerrold Sadock & Anthony Vanek (eds), 223–238. Edmonton Alberta: Linguistic Research.Google Scholar
Sadock, Jerrold & Zwicky, Arnold
1985 Speech act distinctions in syntax. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Vol. 1: Clause Structure, Timothy Shopen (ed.), 155–196. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Villalba, Xavier
2001 The right edge of exclamative sentences in Catalan. Catalan Working Papers in Linguistics 10: 119–135.Google Scholar
2002 Dos tipus d’oracions exclamatives en català. In Revista de llengua i literatura, Els Marges (ed.), 83–93.Google Scholar
2003 An exceptional exclamative sentence type in Romance. Lingua 113(8): 713–745. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004 Exclamatives and negation. Technical Research Report GGT-2004-02. Bellaterra: Grup de Gramàtica Teòrica, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.Google Scholar
(ed.) 2008 Exclamatives at the interface. Special issue, Catalan Journal of Linguistics 7.Google Scholar
Villalba, Xavier & Bartra-Kaufmann, Anna
2010 Predicate focus fronting in the Spanish determiner phrase. Lingua 120(4): 819–849. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zanuttini, Raffaella & Portner, Paul
2000a The characterization of exclamative clauses in Paduan. Language 76: 123–132. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2000b The force of negation in wh exclamatives and interrogatives. In Negation and Polarity: Syntactic and Semantic Perspectives, Laurence Horn & Yasuhiko Kato (eds), 201–239. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
2003 Exclamative clauses: At the syntax-semantics interface. Language 79(1): 39–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 5 other publications

Gras, Pedro & María Sol Sansiñena
2017. Exclamatives in the functional typology of insubordination: Evidence from complement insubordinate constructions in Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics 115 ► pp. 21 ff. DOI logo
Heine, Bernd, Gunther Kaltenböck & Tania Kuteva
2020. On the status of wh-exclamatives in English. Functions of Language 27:2 ► pp. 207 ff. DOI logo
Kaltenböck, Gunther
2021. Funny you should say that. Constructions and Frames 13:1 ► pp. 126 ff. DOI logo
Kuteva, Tania, Bernd Heine, Bo Hong, Haiping Long, Heiko Narrog & Seongha Rhee
2019. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization, DOI logo
Visapää, Laura
2022. Infinitives of affect and intersubjectivity: on the indexical interpretation of the Finnish independent infinitives. Cognitive Linguistics 33:3 ► pp. 521 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.