In
grammarIn linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
, an
interjection or
exclamation is a word used to express an
emotionEmotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...
or sentiment on the part of the speaker (although most interjections have clear
definitionA definition is a passage that explains the meaning of a term , or a type of thing. The term to be defined is the definiendum. A term may have many different senses or meanings...
s). Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections. Interjections are typically placed at the beginning of a sentence.
An interjection is sometimes expressed as a single
wordIn language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...
or non-sentence
phraseIn everyday speech, a phrase may refer to any group of words. In linguistics, a phrase is a group of words which form a constituent and so function as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence. A phrase is lower on the grammatical hierarchy than a clause....
, followed by a punctuation mark. The isolated usage of an interjection does not represent a complete sentence in conventional English writing. Thus, in formal writing, the interjection will be incorporated into a larger sentence clause. It also can be a reply to a question or statement.
Examples in English
Conventions like Hi, Bye and Goodbye are interjections, as are exclamations like Cheers! and Hooray!. In fact, like a noun or a pronoun, they are very often characterized by
exclamation markThe exclamation mark, exclamation point, or bang, or "dembanger" is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or high volume , and often marks the end of a sentence. Example: “Watch out!” The character is encoded in Unicode at...
s depending on the stress of the attitude or the force of the emotion they are expressing. Well (a short form of "that is well") can also be used as an interjection: "Well! That's great!" or "Well, don't worry." Much
profanityProfanity is a show of disrespect, or a desecration or debasement of someone or something. Profanity can take the form of words, expressions, gestures, or other social behaviors that are socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, obscene, desecrating, or other forms.The...
takes the form of interjections. Some linguists consider the pro-sentences yes, no, amen and okay as interjections, since they have no syntactical connection with other words and rather work as sentences themselves. Expressions "Excuse me!", "Sorry!", and similar ones often serve as interjections. Interjections can be phrases or even sentences, as well as words, such as "Oh!" or "Wow!".
Phonology
Several English interjections contain sounds that do not, or very rarely, exist in regular English
phonologicalPhonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
inventory. For example:
- Ahem [əʔəm], [ʔəʔəm], [əɦəm], or [ʔəhəm], ("attention!") may contain a glottal stop
The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
ʔ or a ɦ in any dialect of English; the glottal stop is common in American EnglishAmerican English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
, some British dialects, and in other languages, such as GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
.
- Shh [ʃːː] ("quiet!") is an entirely consonantal syllable.
- Ps [psː] ("here!"), also spelled psst, is another entirely consonantal syllable-word, and its consonant cluster does not occur initially in regular English words.
- Tut-tut [ǀ ǀ] ("shame..."), also spelled tsk-tsk, is made up entirely of click
Clicks are speech sounds found as consonants in many languages of southern Africa, and in three languages of East Africa. Examples of these sounds familiar to English speakers are the tsk! tsk! or tut-tut used to express disapproval or pity, the tchick! used to spur on a horse, and the...
s, which are an active part of regular speech in several African languageLanguage may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s. This particular click is dentalDental clicks are a family of click consonants found, as constituents of words, only in Africa and in the Damin ritual jargon of Australia. The tut-tut! or tsk! tsk! sound used to express disapproval or pity is a dental click, although it isn't a speech sound in that context.The symbol in the...
. (This also has the spelling pronunciation [tʌt tʌt].)
- Ugh [ʌx] ("disgusting!") ends with a velar fricative
Velar fricative can refer to*voiced velar fricative: in the International Phonetic Alphabet*voiceless velar fricative: in the International Phonetic Alphabet...
consonant, which otherwise does not exist in English, though is common in languages like SpanishSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, and GaelicScottish Gaelic is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish, and thus descends ultimately from Primitive Irish....
.
- Whew or phew [ɸɪu] ("what a relief!"), also spelled shew, may start with a bilabial fricative
-See also:* List of phonetics topics...
, a sound pronounced with a strong puff of air through the lipLips are a visible body part at the mouth of humans and many animals. Lips are soft, movable, and serve as the opening for food intake and in the articulation of sound and speech...
s. This sound is a common phoneme in such languages as SukiSuki is a language isolate spoken by about 3500 people several miles inland along the Fly River in southwestern Papua New Guinea. Suki is primarily spoken in six villages of the Western Province: Gwaku, Iwewi, Ewe, Gwibaku, Duru, and Isala...
(a language of New GuineaNew Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
) and EweEwe is a Niger–Congo language spoken in Ghana, Togo and Benin by approximately six million people. Ewe is part of a cluster of related languages commonly called Gbe, spoken in southeastern Ghana, Togo, and parts of Benin. Other Gbe languages include Fon, Gen, Phla Phera, and Aja...
and LogbaLogba is a Kwa language spoken in the south-eastern Ghana by approximately 7 500 people. The Logba people call themselves and their language Ikpana, which means ‘defenders of truth’...
(both spoken in GhanaGhana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
).
- Gah ("Gah, there's nothing to do!") ends with [h], which does not occur with regular English words.
- Yeah [jæ] ("yes") ends, in some dialects, with the short vowel [æ], which is not found at the end of any regular English words.
See also
- Ejaculation (grammar)
In grammar, an ejaculation is an utterance that expresses a feeling outside of the normal language structure. Often, but not always, it is an exclamation, most often consisting of a single word, either an interjection or a profanity or both.Examples:...
- Discourse marker
In linguistics, a discourse marker is a word or phrase that is relatively syntax-independent and does not change the meaning of the sentence, and has a somewhat empty meaning...
- Filler (linguistics)
In linguistics, a filler is a sound or word that is spoken in conversation by one participant to signal to others that he/she has paused to think but is not yet finished speaking. These are not to be confused with placeholder names, such as thingamajig, which refer to objects or people whose names...
- Aizuchi
Aizuchi is the Japanese term for frequent interjections during a conversation that indicate the listener is paying attention and understanding the speaker. In linguistic terms, these are a form of phatic expression...
- Words without vowels
- List of interjections by language at Wiktionary
Wiktionary is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in 158 languages...
.
- Re, bre, moré (with many variants)
- Ekh (expression)
Ekh is a spoken interjection in Russian and certain other Slavic languages. Ekh-ma is closely related.It is typically spoken by itself or at the beginning of a sentence, and can be used to express wonder, feeling sorry for something, reproach, pride at a just-accomplished feat, and other strong...