exclamation (n.)

A term used in the classification of SENTENCE FUNCTIONS, and defined sometimes on GRAMMATICAL and sometimes on SEMANTIC or SOCIOLINGUISTIC grounds. Traditionally, an exclamation refers to any emotional UTTERANCE, usually lacking the grammatical structure of a full sentence, and marked by strong INTONATION, e.g. Gosh! Good grief! In QUIRK GRAMMAR, exclamatory sentences have a more restricted definition, referring to constructions which begin with what or how without a following INVERSION of SUBJECT and VERB, e.g. What a fool he was!, How nice! These sentences are sometimes called exclamatives. Semantically, the function is primarily the expression of the speaker’s feelings – a function which may also be expressed using other grammatical means, e.g. What on earth is she doing? (when it is obvious what is being done). The term is usually contrasted with three other major sentence functions: STATEMENT, QUESTION and COMMAND.