Interjections in the modern German Language: semantical aspect

Abstract

This article is devoted to the investigation of semantic peculiarities of interjections in Modern German language. The transfer of emotions and feelings in it’s pure form is appropriated for the interjections, that are understandable for all native speakers of language. The linguistic status of interjections remains dubious. They form a separate word class belonging neither to meaningful nor to auxiliary parts of speech. According to their derivational pattern, interjections are divided into primary and secondary. Primary interjections are differentiated depending on their phonetic structure. Secondary ones derive from nouns, verbs, adverbs. From the syntactic point, they are not viewed as parts of the sentence, although they usually function as separate sentences. Considering the semantical aspect, interjections can be subdivided into emotive and volitional. So emotive interjections are classified as those, that convey: 1) positive emotional reactions; 2) negative emotional states; 3) ambivalent; 4) undefined. The majority of these interjections are polysemantic. It’s semantics is discovered with the help of a definite speech situation or a context, therefore one interjection can contain some semes, often even opposite. Volitional are such interjections, that are using for expression the needs, the wishes of the speaker. 
They can be directed as to the people and also to the animals.