Exclamative constructions

Exclamative constructions form a variegated class, both within and across languages. This article presents a typological survey of the coding of exclamations. This survey will proceed in the following fashion. First, we will explore the conceptual basis of the category exclamation, and in particular the category of degree exclamations (section 2). Second, we will examine the formal, semantic and pragmatic constraints which jointly define the exclamative sentence type a type whose characterization is based, as in Grimshaw (1979), on the degree class (section 3). Third, we will look at cross-linguistic manifestations of this type, with particular attention to those recurrent formal properties which reflect components of the exclamative sentence type and which suggest general tendencies in the grammaticalization of exclamative constructions (section 4). In a concluding section (section 5), we will consider the question of whether, on the basis of the data considered, one can establish the existence of a formfunction fit in the area of exclamations. Šteling, Donat A. 1982. “O grammatičeskom statuse povelitel’nogo naklonenija” [On the grammatical status of the imperative mood]. Izv. AN SSSR. Serija literatury i jazyka, 41.3.