In this paper I show that exclamatives in Catalan should be analyzed as a special type of degree construction. It is special because its contribution to discourse is not that of a declarative clause, but rather that of a degree construction – similar to a comparative clause or a result clause construction – because it includes a degree modifier that establishes an equative relation between two degrees. Additionally, I discuss the previous literature on exclamatives and argue that their

more »

... , according to which exclamatives should be approached from the semantics of questions, are not satisfactory enough to account for the data from Catalan.