Definition: Exclamatory Sentence

Definition of Exclamatory Sentence

A type of sentence that expresses strong feelings by making an exclamation. (Compare with sentences that make a statement, express a command, or ask a question.)

With the appropriate intonation, other sentence types (especially declarative sentences) can be used to form exclamations.

An exclamatory sentence ends with an exclamation point.

See also:

Etymology:
From the Latin, "to call"

Examples and Observations:

·         "It's alive! It's alive!"
(Colin Clive as Dr. Frankenstein in Frankenstein, 1931)

·         "Have fun storming the castle!"
(Billy Crystal as Miracle Max in The Princess Bride, 1987)

·         "I can't believe it! Reading and writing actually paid off!"
(Homer Simpson, The Simpsons)

·         "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!"
(Oliver Hardy in Sons of the Desert, 1933)

·         "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams!"
(Henry David Thoreau)

·         "Boy, do I hate being right all the time!"
(Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Malcolm in Jurassic Park, 1993)
 

·         "My God! Can this be the line for Space Mountain? This line is so long that there are Cro-Magnon families at the fro

·         "What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!"
(William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II)

·         "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!"
(Peter Sellers as President Merkin Muffley in Dr. Strangelove, 1964)

·         Shrek: Now, let's go before they light the torches!
Princess Fiona: Hey, they're my parents!
Shrek: Hello, they locked you in a tower!
(Shrek 2, 2004)

·         "Give that old dark night of the soul a hug! Howl the eternal yes!"
(Stuart Stevens, Northern Exposure)

·         "It has worked! You've given everything away! I know where the poison is!"
(Wallace Shawn as Vizzini in The Princess Bride, 1987)

·         "What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!"
(Victor Hugo) 

• "Sunnyside is a place of ruin and despair, ruled by an evil bear who smells of strawberries!"
  (Mr. Pricklepants, Toy Story 3, 2010)

• "If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank."
  (Woody Allen)

• "It was the way that frog's eyes crumpled. His mouth was a gash of terror; the shining skin of his breast and shoulder shivered once and sagged, reduced to an empty purse; but oh those two snuffed eyes!"
  (Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, 1974)

• "Imagination, imagination, imagination! It converts to actual. It sustains, it alters, it redeems!"
  (Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King. Viking, 1959)

• "How the years pass and life changes, how all things float down the stream of Time and vanish; how friendships fade, and illusions crumble, and hopes dissolve, and solid piece after piece of soap melts away in our hands as we wash them!"
  (Logan Pears all Smith, "Evanescence." More Trivia, 1921)

• "The book is long on hyperbole and short on insight. The author deposits exclamation points at the end of too many otherwise unsurprising sentences, as if she were composing advertising copy for Champagne. 'Nineteen fifty-eight: to all appearances a banner year!'"
  (Deborah Solomon, "Leo Castelli’s New York Story." The New York Times, June 3, 2010)

• Interrogative Clauses as Exclamations
  "Occasionally, clauses with affirmative or negative interrogative structure can also be used as exclamations:

[speaker is recounting a long and problematic journey] 
Oh God, was I exhausted by the time I got home!"

(Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy, Cambridge Grammar of English. Cambridge University Press, 2006)

• Subjects of Exclamatory Sentences
  "To find the subject of an exclamatory sentence that is not a statement, a question, or a command, ask yourself, "About what does the sentence exclaim?" How swiftly the eagle flies! is an exclamatory sentence that does not make a simple statement, nor ask a question, nor give a command, but you will readily see that the predicate is about the eagle, so the eagle is the subject."
  (Pearson and Kirchwey, Essentials of English, 1914)
• Related Page:
  What Is Sentence?
  Type of Sentence,
  The Structure of a Sentence,
  Definition of Declarative Sentence
  Definition of imperative Sentence
  Definition of Interrogative Sentence
  Definition: Exclamatory Sentence
  Definition: Simple sentence
  Definition: Compound Sentence
  Definition: Complex Sentence
  Definition: compound-complex Sentence
  Subject-verb agreement
  Subjects and Objects in a Sentence