Wh-exclamatives are expressive degree intensification rather than an operator over propositions, which accounts for their requirement of extreme degrees.

Wh-exclamatives are expressive degree intensification rather than an operator over propositions, which accounts for their requirement of extreme degrees.

• Accordingly, true exclamatives primarily express affect, while declarative exclamations primarily assert propositional content with a side expressive contribution and overt attitude declaratives assert attitudes.
• Expressive speech acts express feelings rather than communicate factual affect-related information; unlike affective assertions, they are not naturally true or false.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Conceptual basis for an exclamatory illocutionary force

  in (2a), we are expressing our feelings, while in the second case, we are communicating some factual information about them.

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-2-p1
• Potts's expressive-parameter approach formally distinguishes expressive meaning from truth-conditional meaning because expressive indices are not propositions or truth-based objects.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Conceptual basis for an exclamatory illocutionary force

  this semantics makes expressive meanings fundamentally distinct from truth-conditional meaning.

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-2-p3
• The author presupposes an analytical, and cognitively real, separation between truth-conditional and expressive meaning rather than reducing expressives to not-at-issue truth-conditional meanings.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Conceptual basis for an exclamatory illocutionary force

  I will thus presuppose this distinction throughout the rest of the paper.

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-2-p4
• Exclamatives, as a special sentence type, are distinguished from the broader class of exclamations; exclamatives have expression of affect as their primary speech act.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Conceptual basis for an exclamatory illocutionary force

  in “ true exclamatives ” , the primary speech act is that of expression of affect.

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-2-p5
• Declarative exclamations primarily assert a proposition, while prosodic affect-signaling makes a side expressive contribution that alters the expressive parameter.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Conceptual basis for an exclamatory illocutionary force

  the primary function of exclamations like in (4b) is that of assertion

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-2-p6
• Affective assertions can be contested and modeled through truth conditions and discourse exchange, whereas purely expressive utterances cannot be accused of falsehood.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Conceptual basis for an exclamatory illocutionary force

  the assertions in (2b) can be meaningfully contested

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-2-p2

Typed, anchored challenges filed against this argument on the graph, with the responses defending or conceding them. A Proposed attack is filed and awaiting human sign-off — it has not yet defeated anything.

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

• Is there a plausible alternative hypothesis that has not been considered or that would explain the facts at least as well?Open
• Could the facts be jointly explained by a conjunction of weaker causes rather than a single dominant H?Open
• Could the body of facts F itself be an artifact of selection, measurement, or reporting bias rather than a real phenomenon needing causal explanation?Open
• Does H actually explain the full body of facts F, or only a salient subset?Open
• Are the criteria used to judge H 'best' (scope, simplicity, mechanism, prior probability) appropriate for this domain, and are they applied consistently across the alternatives?Open

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