Not all exclamatives behave the same

2.1 Descriptive content of exclamations can be denied

TaG “challenge the ill-formedness of no as reported by Rett (2008, 2011) for English, and by Brandner (2010), d’Avis (2016), and others for other languages than English” (TaG: 11).

They justify this claim as follows: “English speakers we consulted find no trouble responding no to this sentence […] – so the judgments in [(3)] are quite subtle, to say the least” (TaG: 11) (Examples from Rett 2011: 414).

To support this point, TaG provide Greek example sentences and reference a study by Trotzke (2019), where German participants were asked to judge whether various exclamative sentences could be denied. The denial was categorized as strong denial (SD: Nein!) and weak denial (WD: Nicht wirklich!). The following exclamative sentences were tested on 112 participants for SD or WD (Examples from Trotzke 2019: 539).

According to TaG, the study results demonstrate: “Both utterance forms allow denial and prefer the subtle strategy labeled as weak denial” (TaG: 13). Based on these findings, TaG conclude that the descriptive content of exclamatives can be denied.

In what follows, we would like to present our own considerations, confining ourselves to exclamatives in German.

2.2 Our considerations

In German, we can identify three types of exclamatives that behave differently with respect to deniablitiy.

1. The first group consists of declarative exclamatives^[1] such as (7).

2. The second group consists of exclamatives that contain an explicitly gradable element such as (8).

3. The third group consists of exclamatives without an explicitly gradable element such as (9).

Declarative exclamatives in the first group, such as (7), can be denied without difficulty, either through strong (Nein! ‘No’) or weak (Nicht wirklich! ‘Not really’) denial.

With respect to (8), TaG refer to a study by Trotzke (2019) to argue that exclamative sentences of this kind can be denied as well. In the considerations below, we follow Trotzke’s assessment of the ‘minor differences’ between strong and weak denial in the participants’ denial of (8), although we think these differences are more than just minor.

Exclamatives like (8) seem to be deniable only because they include an explicitly scale-indicating element (groß, schnell) that can be rejected. If the scale-indicating element is removed from the exclamative sentences of the second group, they can no longer be denied, thus behaving like exclamatives of group three.

Those exclamative sentences in the third group, such as (9), cannot be denied, neither with strong (#Nein! ‘No’) nor weak (#Nicht wirklich ‘Not really’) denial. The same applies to wh-exclamatives with other wh-phrases, like the following.

German examples of the third group are neither discussed in Trotzke’s study (2019) nor in TaG. In the 2019 study, only the wh-exclamatives and dass-exclamatives containing a scale-indicating element were used, already shown in (5) and (6). If these elements (e.g. schwierig and schön) are removed from (5) and (6), the exclamative sentence can no longer be denied, see (12) and (13).

Thus, it must be noted that in German, there are exclamative sentences in the third group like (9) till (13) that cannot be denied. Exclamative sentences of the second group can only be denied because they contain an explicitly scale-indicating element. If the element is deleted, they become sentences of group three and can no longer be denied. Since Trotzke’s 2019 study does not address exclamatives from the third group and only examines exclamatives containing scale-indicating elements, it only covers a portion of the possible exclamative sentences in German. To show that all German exclamatives can be denied, the third group must also be tested for strong and weak denial. So far, Trotzke has only shown that certain wie-, was-, and dass-exclamatives with explicitly scale-indicating elements can be denied. We do not consider this sufficient to support the claim that “the descriptive content of all exclamations can be denied” (TaG: 10).

2.3 Exclamatives can be used as answers to information-seeking questions

TaG present two arguments against the assumption that exclamatives are unsuitable as answers:

1. “[…] the ability to answer a question is not necessarily evidence for assertive force or lack thereof” (TaG: 15).

2. “Secondly, while the previous literature has mainly focused on the type of answers, we would like to explore the type of questions instead. When we do that, we find that exclamatives can indeed be used to answer information-seeking questions as long as they do not yield a mismatch at the level of information structure” (TaG: 16).

They support the first point by a short reference to rhetorical questions as an answer and conclude: “The distinct clause type of exclamative does not necessitate a distinct semantic or pragmatic type” (TaG: 16).

To support the second point, TaG introduce a tell me-construction as a broad-focus question, like in (14) (TaG: 17).

TaG conclude: “When the information-structural context is changed to a broad-focus question, we see clear improvement of both the exclamative [(14B’)] and the declarative exclamation [(14B’’)]” (TaG: 17). Additionally, embedded sentences in the correct context are considered excellent answers (TaG: 18).

TaG conclude: “Exclamatives can indeed be used as answers to information-seeking questions provided that they occur in a relevant information-structural and discourse environment” (TaG: 18).

As we’ll argue below, this is not as straightforward as suggested.

2.4 Our considerations

In their considerations that exclamatives can be used as answers to information-seeking questions, TaG “think of ‘answer’ as encompassing direct answers to information-seeking questions but also other answering strategies via more indirect moves in a dialogue (e.g., by means of pragmatic inferencing/implicatures[…])” (TaG: 14). Exclamative sentences cannot function as direct answers, as illustrated in (16B’).

(16B’) is not acceptable as an answer to (16A), whereas (17B) would be a suitable response to the prompt in (17A) (Examples from TaG: 16, translated into German).

Acceptability judgments of responses like (17B) might vary, but the main problem seems to be that it is not obvious in which sense (17A) counts as a question. There are differences between answers to information-seeking questions and other replies in discourse. The phrase erzähl mal (tell me) opens up a broad narrative range of possible replies. No answer in a narrow sense is required, but varying kinds of narrative responses are possible, which are a different form of reply.

TaG further modify their example, thereby opening for an even broader narrative range that practically allows all kinds of responses.

(18A) no longer refers to Eliud Kipchoge’s speed in a question but is an unspecific request to tell something about how he has been performing. This request can be matched by all sorts of different narratives telling something about Eliud Kipchoge in the race. So, it is no surprise that exclamative sentences like (18B’) also seem to work well as do the replies in (19).

The narratives work as replies, but it seems questionable to call them ‘answers’.

We conclude that the reasons provided by TaG are not sufficient to assume that exclamative sentences can be used as answers to questions, since the shown constructions do not support their argument.