Interjections (Oxford Handbook of Word Classes)

Abstract

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 setting of conversational sequences, rather than from the “flatland” of sequential syntax. 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 explasin patterns of universality and diversity in interjections.

A Cross‐Modal and Cross‐lingual Study of Iconicity in Language: Insights From Deep Learning

“…This suggests that the phonosyntactic clustering encoded in the phonological structure of the lexicon is subjected to a more subtle distinction than the coarse contrast between function and content words. The accuracy averaged by PoS that we obtained in the classification task is coherent with the cross‐linguistic kinship of ideophones to other syntactic classes (Dingemanse, 2021 ). Ideophones are often connected to – or realized as – adverbs (for instance in Gbaya, as reported by Roulon‐Doko, 2001 ), verbs (as in Shona, see Fortune, 1971 ), and adjectives (as in Ewe, see Ameka, 2001 ).…”

“…Closely related to the iconic account for the form‐meaning association biases is the indexical explanation. Words can be related to their associated sensory experience by means of direct resemblance but also on account of their co‐occurrence (Dingemanse, 2021 ). For instance, when looking at a perceptually pleasing landscape, one may utter the vocalization “wow.” This phonetic sequence does not bear any resemblance with the visual features of the landscape but is a typical response to an enchanting view, which routinely follows it.…”

Interactional infrastructure across modalities: A comparison of repair initiators and continuers in British Sign Language and British English

“…Continuers and repair initiators are fundamental to communicative interactions. It appears that all languages have interactional resources devoted to these functions, and moreover that the resources they recruit show similarities in form and function (Dingemanse 2023). With the growing availability of multi-modal corpora of everyday interaction in spoken and signed languages, there is now an opportunity to address two challenges: i) exploring the role of visual cues comprehensively, including manual gestures and other visual behavior; ii) carrying out a cross-modal comparison by including data from both signed and spoken languages.…”

“…Minimal expressions are at the heart of conversation: interjections like huh? and mhm keep conversations flowing by establishing and reinforcing intersubjectivity among interactants (Dingemanse 2023). These expressions have gained recent prominence in the study of spoken languages.…”