Exclamative Clauses: a Corpus-based Account

Exclamatives are formally distinguishable from the other clause types: they have an initial exclamative phrase with exclamative what or how (e.g. What fun the conference was!; How enjoyable the conference was!), the exclamative clause is reducible to just this phrase (e.g. What fun!; How enjoyable!); and subject postponement is possible (e.g. What fun was the conference!; How enjoyable was the conference!). Exclamative clauses normally have the force of an exclamatory statement, a statement overlaid by an emotive element. Thus the exclamative What fun the conference was! differs from the declarative The conference was fun in its implicature that the extent of the fun is to be located at an extreme point on a scale. Semantically, there is a close semantic parallel with The conference was such fun. But there is also a difference: the declarative sentence with such asserts, rather than presupposes, that “The conference was fun”. Consequently it could more readily serve as a response to a question such as How was the conference? (whereas What fun the conference was! would sound strange because of the presupposed status of the proposition that supplies the answer).