Exclamation, epistemic assertion and interlocutor’s subjectivity

This commentary expands and tries to improve on the use of embedded exclamations to clarify what it means for exclamations to be assertive and draw further conclusions on the nature of the subjectivity and emotivity that everyone admits that exclamations convey. Although much attention was paid to emotive embedding, considering its coexistence with epistemic embedding and the actual prevalence thereof clarifies the way the multiple layers of exclamatory utterances interact. In particular, the presence of a non-emotive, bona fide epistemic assertion brings back into play the interlocutor’s subjectivity, which must be inscribed in the meaning of exclamation, along with the speaker’s.