Exclamatives' unembeddability is expected if they are expressive speech acts and remains unexplained by TG's account without independently established unembeddable null CPs.

Exclamatives' unembeddability is expected if they are expressive speech acts and remains unexplained by TG's account without independently established unembeddable null CPs.

• The contrast in denial behavior cannot be explained merely by the claim that emotional states cannot be denied, since one can accuse someone of pretending after expressive acts but not of lying or saying something false.
  Evidence for this premise (3)

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  you can accuse one of pretending in response to expressive speech acts

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p3

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  you can accuse one of pretending in response to expressive speech acts

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p3

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  you can accuse one of pretending in response to expressive speech acts

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p3
• TG treat affect-related content in exclamatives and declarative exclamations as asserted, but direct denials of speakers' emotional states are infelicitous after those utterances, whereas such denials are felicitous after overt assertions with amazed or surprised.
  Evidence for this premise (3)

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  the speaker ’s “ emotional state ” can very well be denied in response to assertions

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p2

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  the speaker ’s “ emotional state ” can very well be denied in response to assertions

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p2

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  the speaker ’s “ emotional state ” can very well be denied in response to assertions

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p2
• On the standard view, an exclamative's affect-related component is non-truth-conditional and its truth-conditional content is presupposed; therefore neither has the discourse behavior of ordinary at-issue asserted content.
  Evidence for this premise (3)

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  the expressive part itself is non-truth-conditional

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p1

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  the expressive part itself is non-truth-conditional

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p1

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  the expressive part itself is non-truth-conditional

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p1
• Question-answer coherence is not by itself evidence that an utterance addresses a question: rhetorical questions and expressive reactions can be coherent responses while not asserting a proposition that addresses the question.
  Evidence for this premise (3)

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  there are various ways to react to questions that would likely be judged coherent/felicitous by many speakers that do not actually address the question

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p5

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  there are various ways to react to questions that would likely be judged coherent/felicitous by many speakers that do not actually address the question

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p5

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  there are various ways to react to questions that would likely be judged coherent/felicitous by many speakers that do not actually address the question

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p5
• Both TG's account and the standard account treat exclamatives' descriptive/truth-conditional content as presupposed, so they make the same predictions about its direct deniability; simple No/Nah plus correction is a general-purpose denial form that can target at least some presuppositions.
  Evidence for this premise (3)

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  both approaches actually make the same predictions

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p4

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  both approaches actually make the same predictions

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p4

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  both approaches actually make the same predictions

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p4
• In a direct question about the speaker's feelings, an overt emotive assertion is substantially better than an exclamative or declarative exclamation, contrary to TG's prediction that they are equivalent.
  Evidence for this premise (3)

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  I still do get a pretty strong contrast between (16B) and (16B ′ )

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p6

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  I still do get a pretty strong contrast between (16B) and (16B ′ )

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p6

  In search of an exclamatory illocutionary force — Discourse behavior: denials, question-addressing, and embedding

  I still do get a pretty strong contrast between (16B) and (16B ′ )

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2025-2007#unit-3-p6
• The infelicity of direct emotional-state denial and the relative failure of exclamatives to answer direct questions about feelings distinguish them from overt emotive assertions.

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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