English interjections

English interjections are words – such as yeah, ouch, Jesus, oh, mercy, yuck etc. – that belong to the lexical category interjection in English. For the most part, they do not enter into specific syntactic relations with other words. Pragmatically, they perform a variety of speech acts, such as greeting or indicating affirmation. Semantically, they often have emotive or interpersonal meanings, and their use is sometimes called exclamatory Morphologically, they are usually simple and do not inflect.

History in English

Interjections are largely overlooked in linguistics in general. In their Student's Introduction to English Grammar, for example, Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum omit interjections from their list of lexical categories because, in their view, "there really isn't anything interesting for a grammar to say" about interjections.

The word interjection appears from the mid 1400s in Middle English discussions of Latin grammar. An anonymous Middle English manuscript, for instance, offers the following definition of the term: "An interieccion ys a party of speche vndeclyned þat betokeneth passion of soule wt an vnperfete voys. (An interjection is a part of speech undeclined that betokens passion of the soul with an imperfect voice.)"

In 1586, William Bullokar wrote the earliest grammar of English, which included a small section on interjections. His definition of English interjections focused on the semantic and pragmatic dimensions of the words:

An interjection is a part of speech that betokeneth a sudden passion of the mind: the signification or meaning of which speech much be understanded by the gesture, countenance, or passion of the speaker, and some time with regard of the person spoken to, or of the thing spoken of. (orthography has been modernized)

In 1795, Lindley Murray offered a definition of interjections that made note of their syntactic properties in addition to their pragmatic properties, defining them as "words thrown in between the parts of a sentence to express the passions or emotions of the speaker: as, 'Oh! I have alienated my friend; alas I fear for life:' 'O virtue! how amiable thou art!'"

In his early twentieth century grammars of English, Otto Jespersen rejected the idea that interjections are a lexical category, treating the term instead as a manner in which words of other lexical categories may be used (such as the noun Fiddlesticks! and the verb Come!). In another work, he claims interjections seem to have changed very little over thousands of years.

Later in the twentieth century, A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language included interjections in its list of word classes but conceded that they are a "marginal and anomalous class." It also noted that interjections differ from similar word classes in that "they are grammatically peripheral, in the sense that they do not enter into constructions with other word classes, and are only loosely connected to sentences with which they may be orthographically or phonologically associated."

Terminology

The term interjection is used here for a category of words, parallel to noun or preposition. These words may be appended to clauses as supplements or used on their own as exclamations. For the purposes of this article, supplement refers to a kind of syntactic function and exclamation to a kind of speech act.

Supplement

Supplement is a term for the syntactic function that interjections most commonly perform, parallel to subject or modifier. Supplements are "parenthetical strings that are not integrated in clause structure, including what are called non-restrictive relative clauses in other frameworks, as well as certain adjuncts and disjuncts." Supplements are set off in speech as distinct prosodic units and in writing with commas, dashes, parentheses, etc. The supplement function may be realized by other units, such as the underlined relative clause in She helped me a lot, which was very kind.

Exclamation

Exclamation is a term for the speech act that is typical of certain interjections, such as ouch or shit. According to The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, exclamations are "characteristically used in emotional reactions, as opposed to questions, statements, requests, etc." Exclamations are to be distinguished from exclamatives, a syntactic term for a kind of clause (How strange everything is!) that may be used to perform exclamations.

Typical examples

Though the number of traditionally recognized interjections is relatively small compared to other word classes, nonce interjections can be freely created through onomatopoeia. Thus, a complete list of English interjections is impossible. However, the most used interjections can be listed. The most frequent words tagged as interjections in the Corpus of Contemporary American English are as follows:

Frequency of interjections in COCA

Rank	Token	Token count
1	no	729059
2	yeah	703460
3	oh	685329
4	yes	537163
5	hey	329725
6	uh	156028
7	hi	107023
8	hello	83426
9	huh	73180
10	um	64975
11	wow	60241
12	ah	56326
13	who	40752
14	ha	39563
15	mm-hmm	30909
16	hmm	28475
17	bye	24307
18	ooh	23567
19	yo	18566
20	yep	17212

Interjections vs. other lexical categories

Interjections vs. verbs

Another set of interjections includes words derived from verbs. According to The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL), "the verbal origin is more relevant in expressions like Damn these mosquitoes! or Fuck you!, where they have an NP complement." But in such cases, there is no subject present or intended, as there would be with a verb. CGEL concludes, "it may be best to regard such words as exceptional interjections that combine with an [noun phrase] NP complement to form an interjection phrase."

Interjections vs. nouns

There are a number of interjections with religious connotations that are derived from nouns (e.g., Jesus, Christ, God, heavens, hell). The main difference, between these interjection and their corresponding nouns is that the interjections have been bleached of their original meaning.

Interjections vs. adverbs

Because interjections do not inflect, some dictionaries and grammars have classified certain interjections as adverbs, another lexical category that tends not to inflect. The Oxford English Dictionary, for example, classifies the word pop in pop went the cork as an adverb rather than an interjection. However, linguist Maruszka Eve Marie Meinard notes that the two categories can be distinguished on syntactic grounds: interjections are syntactically isolated while adverbs can form constituents with other words. Under this view, the pop in pop went the cork is not and adverb because it is not signifying that the cork had "gone in a popping manner"; rather, went is introducing a kind of direct speech, much as in John went "wow". Meinard argues that because direct speech is syntactically isolated from the clause that introduces it, words like pop and wow in these examples behave more like interjections than adverbs.

Interjections vs. various minor categories

Fillers

Fillers are words like well and um that fill gaps in discourse while speakers search for words. Fillers share certain features with interjections, most notably that they function as distinct prosodic and syntactic units, which has led to many dictionaries and grammars classifying fillers as a kind of interjection. For example, both the American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Dictionary classify um as an interjection. Daniel C. O’Connell and Sabine Kowal offer three reasons for treating interjections and fillers as different categories, however. First, interjections tend to occur without pauses before or after them whereas fillers tend to occur after a pause. Second, interjections can introduce citations while fillers do not. Third, interjections tend to receive emphasis, such as through loudness or articulation rate, whereas fillers do not.

Routine formulae

Florian Coulmas defines routine formulae as "highly conventionalized prepatterned expressions whose occurrence is tied to more or less standard communication situations." This category includes words such as bye, hello, sorry, thank you, and the like. Routine formulae are traditionally categorized as interjections, but Felix Ameka offers three reasons to consider them a separate class. First, routine formulae have addressees while interjections do not; that is, formulae are directed to someone while interjections may or may not be directed at someone. Second, routine formulae are predictable responses to social conventions while interjections are not; for example, a person might say "thank you" because that is the expected response in a social context, say receiving a gift. Third, routine formulae are always speech acts while interjections merely reflect the mental states of the speaker. Alternatively, David P. Wilkins argues that distinctions like those that Ameka discusses only suggest that routine formulae are "a distinct pragmatic and semantic subtype of interjections," not a lexical category of their own. He adds that routine formulae have certain key features of interjections; namely, they are bound to a context and can function as an utterance by themselves.

Liminial signs

Linguist Mark Dingemanse defines liminal signs as those “that derive interactional utility from being ambiguous with respect to conventionality, intentionality, and accountability.” These include "sighs, sniffs, and other bodily conduct that neither users nor analysts of language have been inclined to count as linguistic or even communicative." Dingemanse argues that users of such signs maintain plausible deniability: a sniff could mean something, but perhaps the person's nose was about to drip.

Syntax

The syntax of interjections is extremely simple.

Interjections as heads of phrases

Very little has been said about the syntax of interjections apart from that they generally do not enter into specific syntactic relations with other words. But those derived from verbs may exceptionally combine with an NP complement. CGEL, allows that this would result in an "interjection phrase" with the interjection as a head of a phrase,

Similarly, interjections derived from nouns may exceptionally take modifiers (e.g., holy cow, hot damn, bloody hell, etc.). Conventionalized pairs like oh boy, oh my, fuck yeah, aw shucks, good bye, ho hum, etc. also exist. Linguist Leonard Bloomfield calls these conventionalized pairs "secondary interjections", and at least one linguist has called them "interjection phrases".

The term "interjection phrase" does not appear in the index of CGEL. It is also is absent from the indices of The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, and A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, and The Oxford Modern English Grammar.

The external syntax of interjections

Interjections (or possibly interjection phrases, see above) may be used as stand-alone exclamations (e.g., shit uttered in reaction to breaking something) or as supplements to a clause (e.g., Mmm, I see. Alas! I can't. etc.).

Pragmatics

Linguist Felix Ameka notes that, "from a pragmatic point of view, interjections may be defined as a subset of items that encode speaker attitudes and communicative intentions and are context-bound." Interjections typically have exclamatory or imperative illocutionary force (such as in ouch! and hush!, respectively), but they can also be used to convey statements and questions (such as in uh-huh and eh?, respectively). Interjections can be used to greet people or call attention (e.g., hey, hello), show agreement (e.g., yes, amen, okay) or disagreement (e.g., no, uh-uh), indicate understanding (e.g., oh, uh-huh) or lack thereof (e.g., huh), demand silence (e.g., sh), make a polite request (e.g., please), show disinterest (e.g., meh), or even invoke magic (e.g., abracadabra).

Many of the most common English interjection (see § Typical examples) are primarily interactional, providing the conversational management functions of backchanneling and marking affirmation.

A number of interjections are taboo words related to sex, bodily fluids, or religious concepts. Such words include fuck, shit, balls, cunt, Christ, etc. These can be offensive if used in the wrong context.

Semantics

It can be said that interjections do not refer. Semantically, many express emotions such as anger (e.g., damn), disgust (e.g., eww, yuck), surprise (e.g., wow), regret (e.g., alas), or embarrassment (e.g., shucks). They can signify pain (e.g., ow), bad smells (e.g., pew), a mistake (e.g., oops), or a sudden realization (e.g., eureka).

Morphology

Morphologically, interjections are usually simple and do not inflect, but there can be some internal morphology. For example heavens is the base heaven + plural s, and bollocks is the base bollock + plural s.

Phonology

Phonologically interjections (or "interjection phrases") are often supplements or exclamations, and as such are typically separated by a pause from the other utterances with which they may co-occur, constituting a prosodic unit by themselves.

Interjections may exhibit phonological features that are not typical of English. For example, the interjection uh-oh (IPA: [əʔo]) is a rare case of a glottal stop in dialects of English that otherwise lack such stops. Other examples of interjections including phonemes not normally found in English include the denti-alveolar clicks in tut-tut (IPA: [ǀǀ]), the voiceless bilabial fricatives in whew (IPA: [ɸɪu]), and (for dialects that no longer use it) the voiceless velar fricative in ugh (IPA: [əx]). Spelling pronunciations often emerge for interjections that feature these atypical phonemes, including /tət tət/ for tut-tut and /əɡ/ for ugh.