Abstract
CITATION: Andrason, A. & Matutu, H. 2019. The syntax of interjections in isiXhosa: A corpus-driven study. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 58:1-16. doi:10.5842/58-0-833
Highlights
Interjections constitute a universal word class (Ameka and Wilkins 2006: 7) and a typical feature of human language
The present paper aims to advance the study of interjections in isiXhosa by examining the syntactic behavior of the interjectional category from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective, as attested in one of the written-language genres where interjections are abundant – comic strips
Given the syntactic features associated with the prototype of interjections, and their violations, the method adopted in the empirical research on which this paper draws is the following: for each interjectional token, we study the properties that could reveal the extent of compliance or defiance of the syntactic prototype
Summary
Interjections constitute a universal word class (Ameka and Wilkins 2006: 7) and a typical feature of human language. Noticeable exceptions are the genres of written language that closely imitate spoken language – for instance, drama plays, emails, WhatsApp messages (Frehner 2008; Forster, Borgwaldt, and Neef 2012: 122; Stange and Nübling 2014: 1983; Andrason and Dlali forthcoming) and comic strips (Fernández Cuesta 1990: 551; Nübling 2004: 16; de la Cruz Cabanillas and Tejedor Martínez 2009: 56-57; Forster, Borgwaldt, and Neef 2012: 122; Stange and Nübling 2014: 1983; Bednarczyk 2015: 10; Jensen, Hougaard and Levisen 2019: 2) In all those genres, interjections feature abundantly, and their usage is crucial for the transmission of a message and for successful communication. Drama plays, emails, WhatsApp messages, and comic strips can all be regarded as suitable for the study of interjections and their behaviors They offer rich and searchable corpora in which the grammatical profile of the category of interjections can be examined holistically, in both qualitative and quantitative terms.
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