4 - Interjections and language

Summary

I should explain to you, Socrates, that our friend Cratylus has been arguing about names. He says that they are natural and not conventional – not a portion of the human voice which men agree to use – but that there is a truth or correctness, which is the same for Hellenes as for barbarians.

Hermogenes in Plato's Cratylus

INTERJECTIONS

Interjections are often regarded as marginal to language. While we feel them to be partly natural, we also feel them to be partly coded (or conventionalised). Interjections seem to lie somewhere between showing and saying or meaning. This marginal linguistic status is reflected in various historical analyses. Latin grammarians described them as non-words, independent of syntax, signifying only feelings or states of mind. Nineteenth-century linguists regarded them as non-linguistic, or at best paralinguistic phenomena: ‘between interjection and word there is a chasm wide enough to allow us to say that interjection is the negation of language’ (Benfey 1869, p. 295); ‘language begins where interjections end’ (Muller 1862, p. 366). Sapir also described interjections as ‘never more, at best, than a decorative edging to the ample, complex fabric [of language]’ (1970, p. 7).

According to various definitions in the literature, ‘interjections’ represent a fairly heterogeneous class of items. Examples in English include wow, yuk, aha, ouch, oops, ah, oh, er, huh, eh, tut-tut (tsk-tsk), brrr, shh, ahem, psst, and even, according to some, bother, damn, (bloody) hell, shit (etc.), goodbye, yes, no, thanks, well.