An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling, situation or reaction. It is a diverse category, with many different types, such as exclamations (ouch!, wow!), curses (damn!), greetings (hey, bye), response particles (okay, oh!, m-hm, huh?), hesitation markers (uh, er, um), and other words (stop, cool). Due to its diverse nature, the category of interjections partly overlaps with a few other categories like profanities, discourse markers, and fillers. The use and linguistic discussion of interjections can be traced historically through the Greek and Latin Modistae over many centuries.

Historical classification

Greek and Latin intellectuals as well as the Modistae have contributed to the different perspectives of interjections in language throughout history. Generally, interjections can be classified into three types of meaning: volitive, emotive, or cognitive.

Interjections and other word classes

Interjections are sometimes classified as particles, a catch-all category that includes adverbs and onomatopoeia. The main thing these word types share is that they can occur on their own and do not easily undergo inflection, but they are otherwise divergent in several ways. A key difference between interjections and onomatopoeia is that interjections are typically responses to events, while onomatopoeia can be seen as imitations of events.

Interjections can also be confused with adverbs when they appear following a form of the verb “go” (as in "he went 'ouch!'"), which may seem to describe a manner of going (compare: 'he went rapidly'). However, this is only a superficial similarity, as the verb go in the first example does not describe the action of going somewhere. One way to differentiate between an interjection and adverb in this position is to find the speaker of the item in question. If it is understood that the subject of the utterance also utters the item (as in "ouch!" in the first example), then it cannot be an adverb. Although their meaning is fixed (e.g., "Wow!" = surprised), there is also a referencing element which is tied to the situation. For example, the use of the interjection "Wow!" necessarily references some relation between the speaker and something that has just caused surprise to the speaker at the moment of the utterance. Curses likewise are famously language-specific and colourful. On the other hand, interjections that manage social interaction may be more similar across languages. For instance, the word '<nowiki/>Huh?<nowiki/>', used when one has not caught what someone just said, is remarkably similar in 31 spoken languages around the world, prompting claims that it may be a universal word. Similar observations have been made for the interjections Oh!<nowiki/>' (meaning, roughly, "now I see") and '<nowiki/>Mm/m-hm<nowiki/>' (with the meaning "keep talking, I'm with you").

Across languages, interjections often use special sounds and syllable types that are not commonly used in other parts of the vocabulary. For instance, interjections like '<nowiki/>brr'<nowiki/> and '<nowiki/>shh!<nowiki/>' are made entirely of consonants, where in virtually all languages, words have to feature at least one vowel-like element. Some, like '<nowiki/>tut-tut<nowiki/>' and ahem<nowiki/>', are written like normal words, but their actual production involves clicks or throat-clearing. The phonetic atypicality of some interjections is one reason they have traditionally been considered as lying outside the realm of language.

Examples from English

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Several English interjections contain sounds, or are sounds as opposed to words, that do not (or very rarely) exist in regular English phonological inventory. For example:

  • Ahem , ("Attention!") may contain a glottal stop or a in any dialect of English; the glottal stop is common in American English, some British dialects, and in other languages, such as German.
  • Gah , ("Gah, there's nothing to do!") ends with , which does not occur with regular English words.
  • Psst ("Listen closely!") is an entirely consonantal syllable, and its consonant cluster does not occur initially in regular English words.
  • Shh ("Quiet!") is another entirely consonantal syllable word.
  • Tut-tut ("Shame on you"), also spelled tsk-tsk, is made up entirely of clicks, which are an active part of regular speech in several African languages. This particular click is dental. (This also has the spelling pronunciation .)
  • Ugh ("Disgusting!") ends with a velar fricative consonant, which is otherwise restricted to just a few regional dialects of English, though is common in languages like Spanish, German, Gaelic, and Russian.
  • Whew or phew , [] ("What a relief!"), also spelled shew, may start with a bilabial fricative, a sound pronounced with a strong puff of air through the lips. This sound is a common phoneme in such languages as Suki (a language of New Guinea) and Ewe and Logba (both spoken in Ghana and Togo).
  • Uh-oh ("Oh, no!") contains a glottal stop.
  • Yeah ("Yes") ends with the vowel , or in some dialects the short vowel or tensed , none of which are found at the end of any regular English words.

See also

  • Aizuchi, Japanese interjections used to show understanding in conversations
  • Apostrophe (figure of speech)
  • Discourse marker
  • Filler (linguistics)
  • List of interjections by language at Wiktionary
  • English interjections at Wiktionary
  • Category: Interjections
  • Vocable

References