Empirical and theoretical arguments against equating exclamatives and emotive assertions

In their target article entitled “Exclamation, intensity, and emotive assertion,” Trotzke and Giannakidou argue that exclamatives such as German Wie schnell Ada war! ‘How fast Ada was!’ are equivalent to emotive assertions such as Ich bin sehr überrascht, wie schnell Ada war ‘I am very surprised at how fast Ada was.’ This commentary challenges this equation on both empirical and theoretical grounds. Focusing on German, I discuss the external combinatorics of exclamatives, their internal make-up, and also the interpretation of the underlying emotive attitude. The discussion draws attention to substantial formal and functional differences between exclamatives and emotive assertions. Furthermore, it is argued that their commonalities should not be attributed to supposedly identical structures, but to independent common properties.