A generative account of English exclamatives

<p>Exclamatives are an intriguing case study of the syntax-semantics interface. Despite several attempts to define them and explain their properties, there has not yet been convergence on a general theory of the exclamative sentence type. This thesis aims to unify existing approaches to exclamatives and explain a wider range of data by modifying and extending Zanuttini and Portner (2003). The critical modification allows exclamatives to be formed via operators other than wh-, which, when combined with factivity, ultimately yields exclamativity. The implications of this proposed analysis are investigated for both familiar and previously unexplored data. The modified analysis has several advantages over previous accounts: its central postulates are independently motivated, it has substantially wider empirical coverage, and it provides a unified explanation of otherwise disparate exclamative types. Fundamentally, there is no “exclamative” force feature internal to the narrow syntax. Rather, exclamatives emerge naturally from independently attested components.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English Language and Literature

Year dc:date.available

2025

Author dc:creator

• Niemann, Christa

Contributors dc:contributor

• T. Daniel Seely, Ph.D.
• Eric Acton, Ph.D.

• exclamatives
• semantics
• syntax
• Linguistics

Repository record dc:identifier

https://commons.emich.edu/theses/1294

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:commons.emich.edu:theses-2638