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What is an interjection?

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What is an interjection? Alice and I will teach you! :)

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What is an interjection? Alice will tell you. HOME WELCOME THE BASICS SENTENCES & DIAGRAMS
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An interjection is a word that shows emotion. invaluable for these
It's not grammatically related to the rest of the students! Thank you
sentence. for making this
possible.
Interjections are usually one to two words that come at the beginning - Diane, Teacher

of a sentence.

They can show happiness ( yippee), sadness (aww), anger (grr),

surprise ( holy cow), or any other emotion.

Interjections aren't grammatically related to the

rest of the sentence.

What does that mean, anyway? Well, it means that unlike all of the
other parts of speech, the interjection does not interact with any
other words in the sentence. It doesn't modify anything, and it
doesn't get modified by anything. It doesn't play the role of subject or
verb.

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It pretty much just sits in its lonely little interjection corner and
expresses emotion. Geez, that sounds pretty sad... poor little guys.
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Diagramming sentences is a visual way to show how the words in a

sentence are related to each other. Look at the diagram below.

It's easy to see that interjections aren't grammatically related to the

rest of the sentence because they float on lines hovering above the
rest of the sentence! They're not joined to any other part of the
sentence.

That's a pretty good way of showing that they aren't related to any of
the other words, isn't it?

You can diagram more interjections here if you'd like.

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How do you punctuate

interjections?

Interjections are punctuated with an exclamation mark or a comma.

Use an exclamation mark if the emotion is very strong.

Wow! I won the lottery!

Use a comma if the emotion is not as strong.

Wow, I have a peanut butter sandwich for lunch.

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What is an interjection? Beware!

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Don't get fooled into thinking that all introductory words followed by
an exclamation point or a comma are interjections. They're not!

Hmm... What is an interjection? Do you remember?

It is a word that shows emotion. So, if the word in question does not
show emotion, it is probably not an interjection. Let's take a look.
Maria! Come and see the lion!
Names like this one are not interjections. They're nouns because they
name people. When you say someone's name when you talk to them,
it's called direct address. Names also don't fit our definition of an
interjection because they don't show emotion. The tone of voice that
you say them in may show emotion, but the name itself does not.

Stop! The lion will eat you!

Stop isn't an interjection either. It's a verb
because it shows action. (It's also a
complete sentence! This kind of sentence is
called acommand or an imperative
sentence.)
Although the sentence as a whole does
convey a sense of urgency (Who wants to
get eaten by a lion?), the word stop isn't
showing emotion.

If you want to teach or learn grammar the easy way, follow

our step-by-step program that clearly lays everything out and
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it, you'll be a grammar and sentence diagramming pro!

I hope you liked this lesson on interjections.

Thanks for being here!
Other Helpful Lessons

Grammar Bytes has a worksheet on interjections.

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