XVI. EXCLAMATORY SENTENCES
55. We have found that sentences are made to state, or to ask, or to command, and hence are classified as declarative, interrogative, and imperative.
There is a fourth class of sentence which resembles an interjection, being used to express sudden or strong feeling; as, “How calm and lovely the river was!” “What a pity it is!” These are called exclamatory sentences. They are always followed by an exclamation point.
56. Such sentences as those just quoted, which begin with how or what, are exclamatory in form as well as in sense, and are therefore sometimes called pure exclamatory sentences. They are always in the transposed order. Some sentences, however, are exclamatory only in sense. They are in the natural order, and when printed, could not be distinguished from declarative or imperative sentences if it were not for the exclamation point, which indicates that they were spoken with strong feeling; as, “Now you may see that noblest of all ocean sights for beauty, a full-rigged ship under sail!” “Helen Maria! leave the room this moment!”
Summary.—An exclamatory sentence is one that expresses sudden or strong feeling.
Exercise.—Tell why each of these sentences is exclamatory. Rearrange in the natural order those which are transposed. Divide each of them into subject and predicate. Select the simple subject and the simple predicate.
1. How soundly he sleeps! From what a depth he draws that easy breath!
2. What tales he had told that day!
3. How doubly delicious things tasted in the clear, spicy air of the woods!
4. How keen a scent those children had for apples in the cellar!
5. Oh, how sweet the water was! How it soothed the tender spots under her weary wings! How it cooled her ears and her tired eyelids!
6. With what a glory comes and goes the year!
7. What a racket those rusty cannon had made in the heyday of their unchastened youth! What stories they might tell now if their puffy, metallic lips could only speak!
8. Burn the hut over their heads!
9. Ugh! may the red mange destroy the dogs of this village!
10. Talk of the curiosity of women!
11. So blessedly evanescent is the memory of seasickness!
12. Hark! how the music leaps out from his throat!