On Wh-Exclamatives and Noteworthiness

Abstract

We explore a new approach to the semantics of wh-exclamatives, like (1).

(1) What a beautiful song John wrote!

We will aim for two things: (i) extend the empirical focus beyond English what-and how-exclamatives, to include exclamatives common in other languages that are based on other wh-words; (ii) counter the common assumption that exclamative semantics needs to involve some kind of scalar mechanism.

Before we motivate and present our analysis, a word of caution is in order. To simplify matters for this short paper, we will be discussing the semantics of exclamatives like (1) in terms of truth-conditions. Such a move blatantly ignores the fact that an utterance of (1) counts as a speech act that comes with its own intricate and interesting properties, properties which will be quite different from those of an assertion. For the purpose of this short paper, however, we will remain agnostic as to what role the truth-conditions play in the pragma-semantics of exclamatives. [See Rett, 2012; Zanuttini and Portner, 2003, for extensive discussion.]

Both authors gratefully acknowledge the NWO-VIDI grant ‘Degrees under Discussion’ that made this work possible. For stimulating discussion and helpful comments we would furthermore like to thank audiences in Amsterdam, Chicago, Montreal and Stanford, where earlier versions were presented. In particular, we would like to thank: Alan Bale, Cleo Condoravdi, Itamar Francez, Anastasia Gianakidou, Tim Grinsell, Chris Kennedy, Sven Lauer, Bernhard Schwarz, Elizabeth Smith, Malte Willer. Any errors or shortcomings are the sole responsibility of the authors.