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Exclamative clauses: At the syntax-semantics interface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Raffaella Zanuttini  and
Paul Portner
Raffaella Zanuttini*
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
Paul Portner*
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
*
Department of Linguistics, Box 571051, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. 20057 [zanuttir@georgetown.edu]
[portnerp@georgetown.edu]]
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Abstract

A central issue in the theory of clause types is whether force is represented in the syntax. Based on data from English, Italian, and Paduan, we examine this question focusing on a less well-studied clause type, exclamatives. We argue that there is no particular element in syntax responsible for introducing force. Rather, there are two fundamental syntactic components which identify a clause as exclamative, a factive and a wh-operator. These are crucial because they are responsible for two fundamental semantic properties characteristic of exclamatives, namely that they are factive and denote a set of alternative propositions. The force of exclamatives, which we characterize as widening, is derived indirectly, based on the semantic properties.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 79 , Issue 1 , March 2003 , pp. 39 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 by Linguistic Society of America

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