W h-exclamatives often express an extremely high degree. This can be illustrated by means of example (384a), in which the exclamative wh-element wat'what' expresses that the addressee has worked to a degree that exceeds a certain contextually given norm. This extremely-high-degree reading arises only if the wh-element does not function as an independent clausal constituent; cf. Bennis (1995/1998). In (384b), for instance, the wh-element hoe'how' functions as a manner adverb and this leads to an interrogative interpretation. Similarly, the wh-element wat functions as a direct object in (384c) and the construction must again be interpreted as a question. Ignore the elements Δi and ti in (384), which will be discussed shortly.

Nevertheless, Corver (1990) and Zanutinni & Portner (2003) hypothesize that wh-phrases in questions and exclamatives perform a comparable function; they are operators that bind some variable in the clause. This means that questions and exclamations are similar in that they both denote open propositions or, in other words, sets of alternative propositions. The manner adverb hoe'how' in question (384b), for instance, gives rise to an open proposition that denotes a set of alternative propositions that differ in manner: the addressee may have worked well, badly, hard, with pleasure, with reluctance, etc. The exclamative construction in (384a) can likewise be seen as an open proposition, but in this case the alternative propositions differ in degree (here: intensity) only, for which reason we have represented the variable by means of the Greek capital Δ. The representation in (384a) of course does not yet answer the question as to why this example is normally used to express an extremely high degree, that is, that the addressee has worked exceptionally hard. We will return to this question in Subsection D.
      We have claimed above that exclamative wat in (384a) does not function as a clausal constituent. In order to substantiate this, we should show that wat differs from hoe in (384b) in that it cannot be used as a manner adverb. A first reason for assuming this is that (384a) does not allow an interrogative interpretation: if the wh-phrase wat were a manner adverbial, this would of course be quite surprising. Another reason is that exclamative wat is also possible if a manner adverb is overtly expressed; this is shown in (385a), in which wat can be assumed to bind a degree variable Δ of the manner adverb hard. Note in passing that it is not likely that Δ stands for a wh-trace of exclamative wat in this example given that degree adverbs normally cannot be extracted from pre-adjectival position by wh-movement. The (b)-examples illustrate this for the degree adverb hoe by showing that this wh-element obligatorily pied-pipes the full AP.

That wh-movement is not involved in the derivation of the type of wh-exclamatives under discussion is also clear from the fact illustrated in (386a) that wat can bind a degree variable embedded in an attributive modifier of a noun phrase. The (b)-examples show that wh-movement of the degree modifier hoe again gives rise to an unacceptable result in questions, as does, in fact, wh-movement of the full attributively used AP; the only option is movement of the full noun phrase, in (386a'').

Subsection II will provide more evidence for assuming that the derivation of examples like (384a), (385a) and (386a) does not involve wh-movement, but for the moment we will simply assume that exclamative wat is base-generated in clause-initial position in suchlike examples. Furthermore, we assume that exclamative wat requires a degree variable to be present in order to be licit. This requirement can be made to follow from a generally accepted economy constraint on natural language that states that an operator is only licit if it actually binds a variable: if an operator does not bind a variable, it is superfluous and should be omitted. This ban on vacuous quantification is also empirically motivated, as it provides a simple account for the acceptability contrast between the two examples in (387), taken from Krijgsman (1983). Under the plausible assumption that the phonetically empty degree variable Δ can only occur with gradable adjectives, exclamative wat can be licensed by a gradable adjective such as groot'big' but not by a non-gradable adjective such as houten'wooden'. Note that the number sign indicates that (387b) is marginally acceptable if wat is associated with some contextually determined gradable property that is left implicit with, e.g., the meaning "impressive", an option also found in the fully acceptable sentence Wat is dat een huis!'What an impressive house that is!'.

The ban on vacuous quantification may also account for the acceptability contrast between (388a) and (388b); the fact that (388a) is fully acceptable is due to the fact that the degree modifier erg is gradable itself, as shown by [[heel erg] mooi], while the degraded status of (388b) is due to the fact that zeer is not gradable, as shown by *[[heel zeer] mooi]; cf. Krijgsman (1983). The same can perhaps be said for comparative forms such as mooier'more beautiful' in (388c), as these cannot be modified by degree adverbs like heel either (cf. *heel mooier), although this raises the potential problem that comparatives do allow modification by quantifiers like veel'much' (cf. veel mooier'much more beautiful'); we leave this problem to future research.

The acceptability contrast between (389a) and (389b) also follows from the ban on vacuous quantification: example (389a) is acceptable because exclamative wat is properly binding a degree variable associated with the gradable quantifier veel in (389a), while (389b) is unacceptable because cardinal numbers are not gradable and thus cannot introduce a degree variable. Example (389c) is unacceptable for the same reason: a definite noun phrase like het antwoord'the answer' does not contain a degree variable.

The fact that we can easily account for the acceptability judgments in (387) to (389) by means of the ban on vacuous quantification provides strong support for the hypothesis that wh-elements in wh-exclamatives function as operators that must bind a phonetically empty degree variable.