Interjections
M Dingemanse
October 2021 

No class of words has better claims to universality than interjections. At the same time, no category has more variable content than this one, traditionally the catch-all basket for linguistic items that bear a complicated relation to sentential syntax. Interjections are a mirror reflecting methodological and theoretical assumptions more than a coherent linguistic category that affords unitary treatment. This chapter focuses on linguistic items that typically function as free-standing utterances, and on some of the conceptual, methodological, and theoretical questions generated by such items. A key move is to study these items in the context of conversational sequences, rather than as a mere sideshow to sentences. This makes visible how some of the most frequent interjections streamline everyday language use and scaffold complex language. Approaching interjections in terms of their sequential positions and interactional functions has the potential to reveal and explain patterns of universality and diversity in interjections.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/006095 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	The Oxford Handbook of Word Classes (ed. Eva van Lier)
keywords:	interjections, interaction, discourse, typology, general linguistics, syntax, phonology, semantics, morphology
previous versions:	v2 [August 2021] v1 [July 2021]
Downloaded:	973 times

 

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