Two types of wh-exclamatives

Nouwen, Rick; Chernilovskaya, Anna

doi:10.1075/lv.15.2.03nou

Article published In: Linguistic Variation
Vol. 15:2 (2015) ► pp.201–224

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Two types of wh-exclamatives

Rick Nouwen

Anna Chernilovskaya

Published online: 28 January 2016

https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.15.2.03nou

We study a particular aspect of the semantics of matrix wh-exclamatives. In particular, we focus on the relation between fairly straightforward morpho-syntactic properties of such structures and the kind of scalar meanings they express. We identify two types of wh-exclamatives: two distinct types of structures with two distinct types of scalar meaning. Languages differ with respect to which wh expressions serve in which of the two types.

Keywords: semantics, Exclamatives, questions, scalarity

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