Factivity in German Exclamatives

Abstract

This paper explores the information structural status of exclamative utterances. Specifically, it addresses the issue of whether the propositional content of exclamatives is factive or not. I argue that standard factivity tests are not able to provide an answer to this question because either they are unreliable or they cannot be applied to exclamatives. I propose a new test that involves VERUM focus: exclamatives show the same kind of VERUM focus distribution as factive complements. Furthermore, focus on the illocution of exclamatives does not emphasize the truth of the proposition, contrary to illocution focus in assertions.