Interjections and Exclamatory Words
Interjections are
words we use when we express our feelings strongly and which may be
said to exist in language as conventional symbols of human emotions.
Interjections
can be divided into primary and derivative. Primary
interjection are- generally devoid of any logical meaning. Oh!
Ah! Bah! Pooh! Gosh! Hush! Alas! are
primary interjections, though some of them once had logical meaning.
'Heavens!', 'good gracious!', 'God!', 'Come on!', 'Look here!' and
many others of this kind are not interjections as such; a better name
for them would be exclamatory words generally used as interjections,
i.e. their function is that of the interjection.
It
must be noted that some adjectives and adverbs can also take on the
function of interjections - for example, such words as terrible!,
awful!, great!, wonderful!, fine! and
the like.
Interjections
like other words in the English vocabulary bear features which mark
them as bookish, neutral or
colloquial. Thus oh,
ah, Bah, and the like are
neutral; alas, egad, Lo, Hark are
bookish; gosh, why, well are
colloquial.
