The silent-subordination analysis is not rescued by verb position, complementizer preferences, or aber auch: these facts either have independent explanations or directly pattern against subordination to emotive predicates.

The silent-subordination analysis is not rescued by verb position, complementizer preferences, or aber auch: these facts either have independent explanations or directly pattern against subordination to emotive predicates.

• Adverbial attachment and anaphoric relations cannot access an emotive predicate in exclamatives, unlike in emotive assertions, which argues against a silent emotive matrix predicate.
• The verb-final structures cited by T & G are syntactically ambiguous because they can also be ordinary subordinate clauses.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  Empirical and theoretical arguments against equating exclamatives and emotive assertions — Internal form: verb position, complementizer choice, and discourse particles

  the syntactic structures in (13) are actually ambiguous

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2001#unit-4-p2
• For the verb-final examples, the unambiguous exclamative interpretation results from their independent root-clause use rather than their syntax.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  Empirical and theoretical arguments against equating exclamatives and emotive assertions — Internal form: verb position, complementizer choice, and discourse particles

  The unambiguous exclamative reading follows from their use as independent root clauses, not from their syntactic make-up!

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2001#unit-4-p3
• There is broad consensus that the complement-selection regularities of surprise-predicates are grounded in semantics or pragmatics, including procedural factors, rather than syntax.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  Empirical and theoretical arguments against equating exclamatives and emotive assertions — Internal form: verb position, complementizer choice, and discourse particles

  there is a broad consensus that combinatorial regularities are rooted in semantics or pragmatics, including procedural considerations, but not in syntax

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2001#unit-4-p6
• Verb-fronted exclamatives exist and cannot be embedded under an emotive predicate.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  Empirical and theoretical arguments against equating exclamatives and emotive assertions — Internal form: verb position, complementizer choice, and discourse particles

  These examples prohibit embedding under an emotive predicate

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2001#unit-4-p4
• Exclamatory effects are of the same kind across verb positions.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  Empirical and theoretical arguments against equating exclamatives and emotive assertions — Internal form: verb position, complementizer choice, and discourse particles

  these effects are of the same kind across verbal positions

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2001#unit-4-p5
• On Reis's double-service view, exclamations use syntactic structures that independently serve other grammatical functions.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  Empirical and theoretical arguments against equating exclamatives and emotive assertions — Internal form: verb position, complementizer choice, and discourse particles

  exclamations of whatever form generally build on syntactic structures that have their own grammatical function independently of the exclamative use

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2001#unit-4-p1

These are challenges this argument’s reasoning pattern must still withstand. Answering them on Isonomia strengthens the argument.

• Is the literature really agreed that defects of kind K bias inferences in direction B, or is the bias direction itself contested?Open
• Does study S actually have defect D, or is the description of S inaccurate?Open
• Is the expected magnitude of the bias from D large enough to overturn S's reported effect, or is the effect robust to plausible bias corrections?Open
• Has S (or a follow-up study) performed a robustness check or sensitivity analysis that addresses defect D directly?Open
• Is this critique applied consistently — i.e., would it apply to studies on the other side of the debate that share the same defect kind K?Open
• Is H supported by independent studies that do not share defect D, such that S's defect does not undermine H itself?Open

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