Interjections in Early Modern English grammars: balancing tradition, innovation and metalinguistic awareness

Abstract

This study investigates how Early Modern English grammarians approached the category of interjections, tracing its inheritance and adaptation from Latin grammatical traditions, which first introduced the concept into Western linguistic thought. The analysis draws on data from the Early Modern English Grammars Archive (EMEGA), a comprehensive digital resource encompassing nine English (and Latin) grammars published in England between 1542 and 1625. Offering fully searchable texts in their original spelling, alongside their modernised versions, and English translations of Latin grammars, EMEGA illuminates the intricate negotiations between classical traditions and the evolving needs of vernacular English, particularly in the theoretical treatment of lexical categories (Nevalainen 2006; Vezzosi 2012). Although recent scholarship has highlighted the complex pragmatic roles of interjections in human communication (Ameka 1992; Dingemanse 2023, 2024), this linguistic category has long been marginalised in linguistic inquiry. Interjections were often dismissed as peripheral to the ‘core’ concerns of language and characterised as purely emotive expressions with minimal communicative or structural significance (Goffman 1978). This reductive view, shaped by classical grammars, persisted in early modern treatments, even as grammarians began to critically engage with inherited frameworks and develop distinctive forms of metalinguistic awareness regarding category boundaries and contextual meaning (Algeo 1985). The present study leverages the EMEGA archive to examine how Early Modern English grammarians framed interjections, focusing on the distribution and conceptualisation of the metalinguistic label interjection , as well as on terminological precision and stylistic considerations. By situating these treatments within broader socio-cultural and historical contexts, the research explores how interjections were shaped by both classical models and the pedagogical needs of English grammar. In conclusion, the analysis highlights the dynamic interplay between linguistic theory, educational materials and cultural contexts, showing how interjections can function as a diagnostic category for descriptive adequacy and for the historiography of language teaching. This work underscores the enduring relevance of historical grammatical frameworks in enriching our understanding of both past and present linguistic practices.