ON INTERJECTIONS AND PARTIAL EXCLAMATORY -CU CLAUSES: A COGNITIVIST APPROACH

Abstract

This article aims to study the verbal interjection “¡andá!”/ “¡andá(te) a...!” and the interjections “puf”, “puaj”, to compare them with the forms “¡qué decís!”, “¡qué asco!” , to determine the limits / no limits between interjections and exclamatory constructions. Theoretical-methodological tools of prototype theory are used (Berlin and Kay 1969; Rosch 1983; Kleiber 1995), since their focal and marginal members establish passages with diffuse boundaries between interjective units and exclamatory constructions. The notion of subjectivation (Traugott and König 1991; Company Company 2004) is used to detect the degrees of interjectability and the concept of iconicity (Ungerer and Schmid 1996; Cucatto 2009), because it correlates syntactic-grammatical structures with the modal content. Samples from CREA, CORPES XXI and 60 test response protocols for students of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata are analyzed. While both exclamatory constructions and interjections have a strong modal content, the former still retain a conceptual meaning. It can be postulated that there is a gradation between two poles (subjective and conceptual). It is proposed that the interjections and the exclamative make up different degrees, not of the exclamatory sentences, but of routines of use, linked to the modality.