摘要：The basic feature of emotive interjections is that they are spontaneous. This feature implies that they are not intentional and, hence, not communicative. Nevertheless, in addition to spontaneous and non-communicative emotive interjections one can observe emotive interjections that are non-spontaneous and communicative and emotive interjections that are spontaneous and communicative. This heterogeneity poses a fundamental problem for the classification and description of interjections, and it is this problem that is the focus of this article. Th e article presents an ecological pragmatic analysis of emotive interjections with special regard to the evaluation of four accounts of the heterogeneity. The article’s contribution consists of observation-based evidence in the form of an analysis of three occurrences of interjections that differ with regard to their spontaneity and communicativity. Th e article suggests that the basic sign relation of emotive interjections is indexical, but it also shows that an iconic and a symbolic relation can be added to this basic relation.
