On the illocutionary force of exclamatives and non-canonical questions in German and Italian

On the basis of evidence from German and Italian, in this article it is argued that non-canonical wh-questions and wh-exclamatives involve the expression of surprise about an unexpected state of affairs. However, they exhibit a difference in illocutionary force: while non-canonical questions constitute directive speech acts which request the hearer to provide an explanation for the unexpected state of affairs, wh-exclamatives are more akin to assertions, since they are used to indicate the speaker’s surprise about the difference between the expected state of affairs and the actual one. These interpretive differences are syntactically codified by the presence and absence of Verb Second in German and by a difference in the final landing site of the wh-element in standard questions, non-canonical questions and wh-exclamatives in Italian.