Cover not available

Article published In: Studies in Language
Vol. 39:3 (2015) ► pp.698–728

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Exclamative clauses in English and their relevance for theories of clause types

 | University of Hamburg / University of Calgary
Published online: 29 October 2015
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.39.3.06sie
In the present study, I investigate the grammar and usage of English exclamative clauses of the type What a wonderful journey this is! and How wonderful this journey is! Building on existing research, I argue that the exclamative clause type can be motivated both syntactically and semantically/pragmatically. In the main part of my study, I offer a usage-based analysis of English exclamative clauses drawing on data from the British National Corpus and the International Corpus of English, British Component. I consider 703 tokens of what-exclamatives and 645 tokens of how-exclamatives. My analysis reveals that English exclamatives typically occur in reduced form lacking an overt verbal predicate, i.e. What a wonderful journey! or How wonderful! I provide an explanation for the predominance of reduced forms based on the semantico-pragmatic properties of exclamations. Moreover, I argue that the usage properties of exclamatives render it a marginal clause type, as it is highly infrequent and predominantly appears in non-clausal forms. Usage data point to a cline of clause types as the more appropriate approximation of reality instead of the familiar distinction between major and minor clause types.
References (41)
Akmajian, Adrian. 1984. Sentence types and the form-function fit. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 21. 1–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Allan, Keith. 2006. Clause type, primary illocution, and mood-like operators in English. Language Sciences 281. 1–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Alston, William. 2000. Illocutionary acts and sentence meaning. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight. 1957. Interrogative structures of American English (Publications of the American Dialect Society 28). Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1972. Degree words. The Hague: Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1989. Intonation and its uses: Melody in grammar and discourse. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Collins, Peter. 2005. Exclamative Clauses in English. Word 56(1). 1–17. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van & Jason Merchant. 2013. Ellipsis phenomena. In Marcel den Dikken (ed.), The Cambridge handbook of generative syntax, 701–745. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Croft, William. 1994. Speech act classification, language typology and cognition. In Savas Tsohatzidis (ed.), Foundations of speech acts theory: Philosophical and linguistics perspectives, 460–477. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
d’Avis, Franz-Josef. 2002. On the interpretation of wh-clauses in exclamative environments. Theoretical Linguistics 281. 5–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Elliott, Dale E. 1974. Toward a grammar of exclamations. Foundations of Language 111. 231–246.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Evans, Nicholas. 2007. Insubordination and its uses. In Irina Nikolaeva (ed.), Finiteness: Theoretical and empirical foundations, 366–431. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gazdar Gerald. 1981. Speech act assignment. In Aravind Joshi, Bonnie Webber & Ivan Sag (eds.), Elements of discourse understanding, 64–83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele. 2006. Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gordon, David & George Lakoff. 1975. Conversational postulates. In Peter Cole & Jerry Morgan (eds.), Speech acts (Syntax and Semantics 3), 83–106. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grimshaw, Jane. 1979. Complement selection and the lexicon. Linguistic Inquiry 10(2). 279–326.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harnish, Robert. 1994. Mood, meaning, and speech acts. In Savas Tsohatzidis (ed.), Foundations of speech acts theory: Philosophical and linguistics perspectives, 407–459. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney. 1993a. On exclamatory-inversion sentences in English. Lingua 901. 259–269. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1993b. Remarks on the construction You won’t believe who Ed has married . Lingua 911. 175–184. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney D. & Geoffrey K. Pullum. 2002. The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
König, Ekkehard & Peter Siemund. 2007. Speech act distinctions in grammar. In: Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, 276–324. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. Satztyp und Typologie. In Jörg Meibauer, Markus Steinbach & Hans Altmann (eds.), Satztypen des Deutschen, 846–873. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. Action formation and ascription. In Jack Sidnell & Tanya Stivers (eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meibauer, Jörg. 2013. Satztyp und Pragmatik. In Jörg Meibauer, Markus Steinbach & Hans Altmann (eds.), Satztypen des Deutschen, 712–737. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meibauer, Jörg, Markus Steinbach & Hans Altmann. 2013. Kontroversen in der Forschung zu Satztypen und Satzmodus. In Jörg Meibauer, Markus Steinbach & Hans Altmann (eds.), Satztypen des Deutschen, 1–19. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McCawley, Noriko. 1973. Boy! Is syntax easy! Chicago Linguistic Society 91. 369–377.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Merchant, Jason. 2001. The syntax of silence: Sluicing, islands, and the theory of ellipsis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Michaelis, Laura A. 2001. Exclamative constructions. In Martin Haspelmath, Ekkehard König, Wulf Oesterreicher & Wolfgang Raible (eds.), Language typology and language universals, 1038–1050. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Michaelis, Laura A. & Knud Lambrecht. 1996. The exclamative sentence type in English. In Adele Goldberg (ed.), Conceptual structure, discourse and language, 375–390. Stanford: CSLI.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ono, Hajime. 2006. An investigation of exclamatives in English and Japanese: Syntax and sentence processing. College Park: University of Maryland dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Panther, Klaus-Uwe & Klaus-Michael Köpcke. 2008. A prototype approach to sentences and sentence types. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 61. 83–112. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech & Jan Sartvik. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Recanati, François. 1987. Meaning and force. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reis, Marga. 1999. On sentence types in German: An enquiry into the relationship between grammar and pragmatics. Interdisciplinary Journal for Germanic Linguistics and Semiotic Analysis 4(2). 195–236.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosengren, Inger (ed.). 1992/1993. Satz und Illokution (2 vol.1). Tübingen: Niemeyer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1992. Zur Grammatik und Pragmatik der Exklamation. In Inger Rosengren (ed.), Satz und Illokution, vol. I1, 263–306. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sadock, Jerrold M. & Arnold M. Zwicky. 1985. Speech act distinctions in syntax. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, 155–196. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van der Auwera, Johan & Alfonso Zamorano Aguilar. Forthc. The history of modality and mood. In Jan Nuyts & Johan van der Auwera (eds.), The Oxford handbook of modality and mood. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Verstraete, Jean-Christophe. 2007. Rethinking the coordinate-subordinate dichotomy: Interpersonal grammar and the analysis of adverbial clauses in English. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zanuttini, Raffaella & Paul Portner. 2003. Exclamative clauses: At the syntax-semantics interface. Language 79(1). 39–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (16)

Cited by 16 other publications

Troughton, Faye
2024. Projected meaning in English and French. Languages in Contrast 24:2 ► pp. 248 ff. DOI logo
Troughton, Faye
2024. Quelle traduction ! A study of the translation of French quel and English what exclamatives in political discourse. Meta 68:2 ► pp. 245 ff. DOI logo
Villalba, Xavier
2024. Romance exclamative markers at the syntax-pragmatics interface: A compositional approach to exclamativity. Journal of Pragmatics 226 ► pp. 64 ff. DOI logo
Villalba, Xavier
2025. Exclamatives, try to be a bit more assertive!. Theoretical Linguistics 51:1-2 ► pp. 131 ff. DOI logo
Al-Bataineh, Hussein
2023. The structure of wh-exclamatives in Jordanian Arabic and beyond. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 55:2 ► pp. 216 ff. DOI logo
Schröder, Daniela
2023. The genre specifics of Englishwh-exclamatives. Functions of Language 30:2 ► pp. 159 ff. DOI logo
Ghesquière, Lobke & Faye Troughton
2021. What a Change! A Diachronic Study of Exclamative What Constructions. Journal of English Linguistics 49:2 ► pp. 139 ff. DOI logo
Kaltenböck, Gunther
2021. Funny you should say that. Constructions and Frames 13:1 ► pp. 126 ff. DOI logo
Collins, Peter
2020. Clause Types. In The Handbook of English Linguistics, ► pp. 131 ff. DOI logo
Fang, Hongmei & Kees Hengeveld
2020. A mitigator in Mandarin: the sentence-final particleba(吧). Open Linguistics 6:1 ► pp. 284 ff. DOI logo
Heine, Bernd, Gunther Kaltenböck & Tania Kuteva
2020. On the status ofwh-exclamatives in English. Functions of Language 27:2 ► pp. 207 ff. DOI logo
Trotzke, Andreas
2020. How cool is that! A new ‘construction’ and its theoretical challenges. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 23:3 ► pp. 327 ff. DOI logo
Vishenkova, Anna & Natalia Zevakhina
2019. Wh-exclamatives with and without predicates in Russian. Russian Linguistics 43:2 ► pp. 107 ff. DOI logo
König, Ekkehard
2017. The comparative basis of intensification. In Exploring Intensification [Studies in Language Companion Series, 189], ► pp. 15 ff. DOI logo
Siemund, Peter
2017. English exclamative clauses and interrogative degree modification. In Exploring Intensification [Studies in Language Companion Series, 189], ► pp. 207 ff. DOI logo
Zevakhina, Natalia
2016. The hypothesis of insubordination and three types of wh-exclamatives. Studies in Language 40:4 ► pp. 765 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 3 december 2025. 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.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue