Title: a History of Emotive Interjections in English: What, Why and How
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE Title: A history of emotive interjections in English: what, why and how Author: Izabela Mrochen Citation style: Mrochen Izabela. (2009). A history of emotive interjections in English: what, why and how. Praca doktorska. Katowice : Uniwersytet Śląski UNIVERSITY OF SILESIA INSTITUTE OF ENGLISH A HISTORY OF EMOTIVE INTERJECTIONS IN ENGLISH: WHAT, WHY AND HOW IZABELA MROCHEN SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR RAFAŁ MOLENCKI This thesis is presented as part of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Doctor of Philology of Univeristy of Silesia KATOWICE 2009 UNIWERSYTET ŚLĄSKI WYDZIAŁ FILOLOGICZNY INSTYTUT JĘZYKA ANGIELSKIEGO ROZWÓJ WYKRZYKNIEŃ WYRAŻAJĄCYCH EMOCJE W JĘZYKU ANGIELSKIM: WHAT, WHY I HOW IZABELA MROCHEN Praca doktorska napisana pod kierunkiem PROF. UŚ DR. HAB. RAFAŁA MOLENCKIEGO KATOWICE 2009 Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................... 4 ABBREVIATIONS.................................................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 6 1.0. AIMS AND PRELIMINARIES............................................................................................................................ 6 1.2. THE DATA .................................................................................................................................................... 8 1.2.1. Textual material................................................................................................................................... 8 1.2.2. Procedure – searching and concordancing programs ........................................................................ 9 1.2.3. Periodisation ..................................................................................................................................... 10 1.3. LAYOUT OF THE STUDY .............................................................................................................................. 11 CHAPTER TWO THEORETICAL BACKGROUND............................................................ 13 2.0. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................... 13 2.1. APPROACHES AND INTERPRETATIONS ........................................................................................................ 13 2.2. WORD CLASSES .......................................................................................................................................... 15 2.3. LINGUISTIC APPROACHES TO INTERJECTIONS ............................................................................................. 19 2.3.1. Interjections as lexemes and utterances ............................................................................................ 21 2.3.2. Interjections as deictics ..................................................................................................................... 23 2.4. EXCLAMATIONS – WH-EXCLAMATIVE STRUCTURES AND FUNCTION........................................................... 24 2.4.1. Special questions - Wh-word; Wh-element; Wh-phrase .................................................................... 26 2.5. MOOD AND ATTITUDE – EMPHATIC LANGUAGE .......................................................................................... 30 2.5.1. Emotion ............................................................................................................................................. 31 2.5.2. Expressive, emotive language, exclamatory function........................................................................ 33 2.6. EMPHASIS – MEDIUM OF COMMUNICATION................................................................................................. 37 2.6.1. Intonation .......................................................................................................................................... 40 2.6.2. The notion of context – deletion and recoverability of information................................................... 41 2.6.3. Punctuation – the exclamation mark ................................................................................................. 43 2.6.4. Emotive modifiers and complements ................................................................................................. 45 2.6.5. Horizontal dimension – position in the structure .............................................................................. 47 CHAPTER THREE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND......................................................... 57 3. 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................... 57 3.1.1. General remarks................................................................................................................................ 57 3.1.2. Organisation of the data.................................................................................................................... 58 3.2. ANALYSIS OF WHAT ............................................................................................................................... 59 3.2.1. WHAT – etymology; graphemic and phonemic relation.................................................................... 61 3.2.2. WHAT - functioning as an exclamation............................................................................................. 62 3.2.3. CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................................ 71 3.3. ANALYSIS OF WHY ................................................................................................................................. 73 3.3.1. WHY – etymology; graphemic and phonemic relation ...................................................................... 74 3.3.2. WHY - functioning as an exclamation ............................................................................................... 75 3.3.3. CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................................ 80 3.4. ANALYSIS OF HOW ............................................................................................................................... 81 3.4.1. HOW – etymology; graphemic and phonemic relation ..................................................................... 81 3.4.2. HOW - functioning as an exclamation............................................................................................... 82 3.4.3. CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................................ 88 3.5. CLOSING REMARKS .................................................................................................................................... 89 CHAPTER FOUR ANALYSIS OF WHAT............................................................................ 91 4.0. AIMS AND METHODS................................................................................................................................... 91 4.1. INTRODUCTION - ANALYSIS OF WHAT...................................................................................................... 93 4.1.1. EMODE / LMODE 1650 – 1800 .............................................................................................................. 94 4.1.1.1. What – independent and ellipted .................................................................................................... 97 1 4.1.1.2. Pragmatic markers - reinforcement.............................................................................................. 103 4.1.1.3. WHAT as ‘predeterminer in a NP’ and ‘intensifier of an adjective, adverb, or clause’............... 107 4.1.1.4. Closing remarks............................................................................................................................ 110 4.2. LMODE 1800 – 1950................................................................................................................................ 110 4.2.1. What – independent and ellipted; special questions........................................................................ 112 4.2.2. Pragmatic markers - reinforcement................................................................................................. 116 4.2.3. WHAT as ‘predeterminer in a NP’ and ‘intensifier of an adjective, adverb, or clause’ ................. 119 4.2.4. WHAT used in dependent clauses.................................................................................................... 122 4.2.5. Closing remarks............................................................................................................................... 122 4.3. EXCLAMATIVE WHAT 1650 – 1950 – SUMMARY..................................................................................... 123 4.3.1. Quantitative analysis 1650 – 1950 ................................................................................................ 124 CHAPTER FIVE ANALYSIS OF HOW .............................................................................. 139 5.0. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................