An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling or reaction. It is a diverse category, encompassing many different parts of speech, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curses (''damn!''), greetings (''hey'', ''bye''), response particles (''okay'', ''oh!'', ''m-hm'', ''
huh?''), hesitation markers (''uh'', ''er'', ''um''), and other words (''stop'', ''cool''). Due to its diverse nature, the category of interjections partly overlaps with a few other categories like
profanities
Profanity, also known as cursing, cussing, swearing, bad language, foul language, obscenities, expletives or vulgarism, is a socially offensive use of language. Accordingly, profanity is language use that is sometimes deemed impolite, ru ...
,
discourse marker
A discourse marker is a word or a phrase that plays a role in managing the flow and structure of discourse. Since their main function is at the level of discourse (sequences of utterances) rather than at the level of utterances or sentences, disc ...
s, and
fillers
In processed animal foods, a filler is an ingredient added to provide dietary fiber, bulk or some other non-nutritive purpose.
Products like corncobs, feathers, soy, cottonseed hulls, peanut hulls, citrus pulp, screening, weeds, straw, and cere ...
. The use and linguistic discussion of interjections can be traced historically through the Greek and Latin Modistae over many centuries.
Historical classification
Greek and Latin intellectuals as well as the
Modistae
The Modistae (Latin for Modists), also known as the speculative grammarians, were the members of a school of grammarian philosophy known as Modism or speculative grammar, active in northern France, Germany, England, and Denmark in the 13th and 14t ...
have contributed to the different perspectives of interjections in language throughout history.
The Greeks held that interjections fell into the grammatical category of
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...
s. They thought interjections modified the
verb
A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...
much in the same way as adverbs do, thus interjections were closely connected to verbs.
Unlike their Greek counterparts, many Latin scholars took the position that interjections did not rely on verbs and were used to communicate emotions and abstract ideas. They considered interjections to be their own independent
part of speech
In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are assi ...
. Further, the Latin grammarians classified any small non-word
utterance
In spoken language analysis, an utterance is a continuous piece of speech, often beginning and ending with a clear pause. In the case of oral languages, it is generally, but not always, bounded by silence. Utterances do not exist in written langu ...
s as interjections.
Several hundred years later, the 13th- and 14th-century
Modistae
The Modistae (Latin for Modists), also known as the speculative grammarians, were the members of a school of grammarian philosophy known as Modism or speculative grammar, active in northern France, Germany, England, and Denmark in the 13th and 14t ...
took inconsistent approaches to interjections. Some, such as Thomas of Erfurt, agreed with the former Greeks that the interjection was closely tied to the verb while others like Siger of Courtrai held that the interjection was its own part of speech syntactically, much like the Latin scholars.
Meaning and use
In contrast to typical words and sentences, the function of most interjections is related to an expression of feeling, rather than representing some idea or concept.
[Goddard, C. (2014). Interjections and emotion (with special reference to “surprise” and “disgust”). ''Emotion Review'', ''6''(1), 53-63] Generally, interjections can be classified into three types of meaning: volitive, emotive, or cognitive.
* Volitive interjections function as imperative or directive expressions; requesting or demanding something from the addressee (e.g., ''"Shh!"'' = "Be quiet!")
or "Boo!" as in '"Boo!"she cried, jumping to frighten him''.
* Emotive interjections are used to express emotions, such as disgust and fear (e.g., ''"Yuck!"'' = disgust).
or 'Boo!' as in ''Boo!shame on you''('Boo!'=contempt)
* Cognitive interjections express feelings which are more related to cognition, or information known to the speaker of the utterance (e.g., ''"Wow!"'' = surprise).
While there exists some apparent overlap between emotive and cognitive interjections, as both express a feeling, cognitive interjections can be seen as more related to knowledge of something (i.e., information previously known to the speaker, or recently learned).
Distinctions and modern classification
Primary and secondary interjections
Interjections may be subdivided and classified in several ways. A common distinction is based on relations to other word categories: ''primary interjections'' are interjections first and foremost (examples: ''
Oops.'', ''Ouch!'', ''Huh?''), while ''secondary interjections'' are words from other categories that come to be used as interjections in virtue of their meaning (examples: ''Damn!'', ''Hell!'')
Primary interjections are generally considered to be single words (''Oh!'', ''Wow''!). Secondary interjections can consist of multi-word phrases, or interjectional phrases, (examples: ''sup!'' from ''What's up?'', ''Excuse me!'', ''Oh dear!'', ''Thank God!''), but can also include single-word alarm words (''Help!''), swear and taboo words (''Heavens!''), and other words used to show emotion (''Drats!'').
Although secondary interjections tend to interact more with the words around them, a characteristic of all interjections—whether primary or secondary—is that they can stand alone. For example, it is possible to utter an interjection like ''ouch!'' or ''bloody hell!'' on its own, whereas a different part of speech that may seem similar in function and length, such as the
conjunction
Conjunction may refer to:
* Conjunction (grammar), a part of speech
* Logical conjunction, a mathematical operator
** Conjunction introduction, a rule of inference of propositional logic
* Conjunction (astronomy), in which two astronomical bodies ...
''and'', cannot be uttered alone (you can't just say ''and!'' independently in English).
Further distinctions can be made based on function. Exclamations and curses are primarily about giving expression to private feelings or emotions, while response particles and hesitation markers are primarily directed at managing the flow of social interaction.
Interjections and other word classes
Interjections are sometimes classified as
particles
In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass.
They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...
, a catch-all category that includes adverbs and
onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...
. The main thing these word types share is that they can occur on their own and do not easily undergo
inflection
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defin ...
, but they are otherwise divergent in several ways. A key difference between interjections and onomatopoeia is that interjections are typically ''responses to'' events, while onomatopoeia can be seen as ''imitations of'' events.
Interjections can also be confused with adverbs when they appear following a form of the verb “go” (as in "he went 'ouch!'"), which may seem to describe a manner of going (compare: 'he went rapidly'). However, this is only a superficial similarity, as the verb go in the first example does not describe the action of going somewhere. One way to differentiate between an interjection and adverb in this position is to find the speaker of the item in question. If it is understood that the subject of the utterance also utters the item (as in "ouch!" in the first example), then it cannot be an adverb.
Routines are considered as a form of speech acts that rely on an understood social communicative pattern between the addressee and addressed. This differs from an interjection that is more of a strategic utterance within a speech act that brings attention to the utterance but may or may not also have an intended addressed (directed at an individual or group).
In addition, routines generally are multi-word expressions whereas interjections tend to be single utterances.
Under a different use of the term 'particle', particles and interjections can be distinctions in that particles cannot be independent utterances and are fully a part of the syntax of the utterance. Interjections, on the other hand, can stand alone and also are always preceded by a pause, separating them from the grammar and syntax of other surrounding utterances.
Interjections as deictics
Interjections are bound by context, meaning that their interpretation is largely dependent on the time and place at which they are uttered. In linguistics, interjections can also be considered a form of
deixis.
[Wilkins, D. P. (1992). Interjections as deictics. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 18(2-3), 119-158.] Although their meaning is fixed (e.g., ''"Wow!"'' = surprised), there is also a referencing element which is tied to the situation. For example, the use of the interjection ''"Wow!"'' necessarily references some relation between the speaker and something that has just caused surprise to the speaker at the moment of the utterance.
Without context, the listener would not know the referent of the expression (viz., the source of the surprise). Similarly, the interjection ''"Ouch!"'' generally expresses pain, but also requires contextual information for the listener to determine the referent of the expression (viz., the cause of the pain).
While we can often see deictic or indexical elements in expressive interjections, examples of reference are perhaps more clearly illustrated in the use of imperative examples. Volitive interjections such as ''"Ahem"'', ''"Psst!"'', and ''"Shh!"'' could be considered imperative, as the speaker is requesting or demanding something from the listener. Similar to the deictic pronoun "you", the referent of these expressions changes, dependent on the context of the utterance.
Interjections across languages
Interjections can take very different forms and meanings across cultures. For instance, the English interjections ''gee'' and ''wow'' have no direct equivalent in Polish, and the closest equivalent for Polish '
''fu'
'' (an interjection of disgust) is the different sounding '
''Yuck!''
'. Curses likewise are famously language-specific and colourful. On the other hand, interjections that manage social interaction may be more similar across languages. For instance, the word '
''Huh?''
', used when one has not caught what someone just said, is remarkably similar in 31 spoken languages around the world, prompting claims that it may be a universal word. Similar observations have been made for the interjections Oh!''
' (meaning, roughly, "now I see") and '
''Mm/m-hm''
' (with the meaning "keep talking, I'm with you").
Across languages, interjections often use special sounds and syllable types that are not commonly used in other parts of the vocabulary. For instance, interjections like '
''brr'
'' and '
''shh!''
' are made entirely of consonants, where in virtually all languages, words have to feature at least one vowel-like element. Some, like '
''tut-tut''
' and ahem''
', are written like normal words, but their actual production involves
clicks or throat-clearing.
The phonetic atypicality of some interjections is one reason they have traditionally been considered as lying outside the realm of language.
Examples from English
Several English interjections contain sounds, or are sounds as opposed to words, that do not (or very rarely) exist in regular English
phonological
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
inventory. For example:
* ''Ahem'' , ("Attention!") may contain a
glottal stop
The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
or a in any dialect of English; the glottal stop is common in
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
, some British dialects, and in other languages, such as
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
.
* ''Gah'' , ("Gah, there's nothing to do!") ends with , which does not occur with regular English words.
* ''Psst'' ("Listen closely!") is an entirely consonantal syllable, and its consonant cluster does not occur initially in regular English words.
* ''Shh'' ("Quiet!") is another entirely consonantal syllable word.
* ''Tut-tut'' ("Shame on you"), also spelled ''tsk-tsk'', is made up entirely of
clicks, which are an active part of regular speech in several
African language
The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families:
* Niger–Congo or perhaps Atlantic–Congo languages (includes Bantu and non-Bantu, and possibly Mande and others) are spoken in West, Central, Southeast and Souther ...
s. This particular click is
dental. (This also has the spelling pronunciation .)
* ''Ugh'' ("Disgusting!") ends with a
velar fricative
A velar fricative is a fricative consonant produced at the velar place of articulation. It is possible to distinguish the following kinds of velar fricatives:
*Voiced velar fricative, a consonant sound written as in the International Phonetic Alph ...
consonant, which is otherwise restricted to just a few regional dialects of English, though is common in languages like
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
,
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
,
Gaelic
Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ca ...
, and
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
.
* ''Whew'' or ''phew'' , [] ("What a relief!"), also spelled ''shew'', may start with a voiceless bilabial fricative, bilabial fricative, a sound pronounced with a strong puff of air through the lips. This sound is a common phoneme in such languages as
Suki (a language of
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu
Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea).
It is a simplified version of ...
) and
Ewe and
Logba (both spoken in
Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
and
Togo
Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its c ...
).
* ''Uh-oh'' ("Oh, no!") contains a glottal stop.
* ''Yeah'' ("Yes") ends with the vowel , or in some dialects the short vowel or tensed , none of which are found at the end of any regular English words.
See also
*
Aizuchi
In the Japanese language, aizuchi ( ja, 相槌, links=no or , ) are interjections during a conversation that indicate the listener is paying attention or understands the speaker. In linguistic terms, these are a form of phatic expression. Aizuch ...
*
Discourse marker
A discourse marker is a word or a phrase that plays a role in managing the flow and structure of discourse. Since their main function is at the level of discourse (sequences of utterances) rather than at the level of utterances or sentences, disc ...
*
Filler (linguistics)
In linguistics, a filler, filled pause, hesitation marker or planner is a sound or word that participants in a conversation use to signal that they are pausing to think but are not finished speaking.Juan, Stephen (2010).Why do we say 'um', 'er', ...
*
List of interjections by language at
Wiktionary
Wiktionary ( , , rhyming with "dictionary") is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary of terms (including words, phrases, proverbs, linguistic reconstructions, etc.) in all natural languages and in a number ...
**
English interjections at
Wiktionary
Wiktionary ( , , rhyming with "dictionary") is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary of terms (including words, phrases, proverbs, linguistic reconstructions, etc.) in all natural languages and in a number ...
*
Interjections
*
Words without vowels
References
{{Authority control
Parts of speech