The alleged inability of exclamatives to answer questions is context-dependent: suitable broad-focus or emotional contexts permit answers, while classic failures reflect presuppositional and information-structural mismatch.

The alleged inability of exclamatives to answer questions is context-dependent: suitable broad-focus or emotional contexts permit answers, while classic failures reflect presuppositional and information-structural mismatch.

• The alleged non-deniability of exclamative descriptive content fails, because such content can be targeted by broad denial strategies and is experimentally supported as at issue.
• English judgments reported in the literature that disallow a bare no after wh-exclamatives are subtle; consulted English speakers accept no-responses.
  Evidence for this premise (3)

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  English speakers we consulted find no trouble responding no to this sentence

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p3

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  English speakers we consulted find no trouble responding no to this sentence

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p3

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  English speakers we consulted find no trouble responding no to this sentence

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p3
• Experimental evidence supports the deniability and at-issue status of exclamative descriptive content: Villalba's experiments argue this for Spanish and Catalan, and Trotzke's German study (n = 112) found no difference between wh-exclamatives and declarative exclamations under denial strategies, with all exclamation judgments at ceiling (5.2–5.7).
  Evidence for this premise (3)

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  all judgments of exclamation items were at ceiling (ranging from 5.2 to 5.7)

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p6

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  all judgments of exclamation items were at ceiling (ranging from 5.2 to 5.7)

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p6

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  all judgments of exclamation items were at ceiling (ranging from 5.2 to 5.7)

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p6
• Rett's account itself treats declarative/sentence exclamations as assertions of their denoted proposition, while the literature contrasts them with wh-exclamatives.
  Evidence for this premise (3)

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  “ [t]he utterance of a sentence exclamation counts as an assertion of the denoted p . ”

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p2

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  “ [t]he utterance of a sentence exclamation counts as an assertion of the denoted p . ”

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p2

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  “ [t]he utterance of a sentence exclamation counts as an assertion of the denoted p . ”

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p2
• In Greek, external/responsive negation and colloquial rejection particles can routinely deny the descriptive content of both declarative exclamations and wh-exclamatives.
  Evidence for this premise (3)

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  the descriptive content of both types of sentences can be routinely denied

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p4

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  the descriptive content of both types of sentences can be routinely denied

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p4

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  the descriptive content of both types of sentences can be routinely denied

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p4
• The denial of a declarative assertion's descriptive content is indistinguishable from denial of an exclamative's descriptive content.
  Evidence for this premise (3)

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  The denial of the descriptive content of the previous assertion is indistinguishable from the denial of the descriptive content of an exclamative.

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p5

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  The denial of the descriptive content of the previous assertion is indistinguishable from the denial of the descriptive content of an exclamative.

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p5

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  The denial of the descriptive content of the previous assertion is indistinguishable from the denial of the descriptive content of an exclamative.

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p5
• The illocutionary-force hypothesis treats exclamations as involving a dedicated operator and commonly distinguishes descriptive from expressive content.
  Evidence for this premise (3)

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  Exclamatives are often considered structures that are associated with a dedicated illocutionary operator, which instantiates the exclamation speech act.

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p1

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  Exclamatives are often considered structures that are associated with a dedicated illocutionary operator, which instantiates the exclamation speech act.

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p1

  Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion — Rebutting the non-assertiveness diagnostics

  Exclamatives are often considered structures that are associated with a dedicated illocutionary operator, which instantiates the exclamation speech act.

  https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2024-2022#unit-2-p1

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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