[Grammar] Is this sentence a correct exclamatory sentence? - How beautiful is life!

[Sahil Dhankhar]

This is not my homework.

How beautiful is life!

I suppose that in exclamatory sentences we use the direct arrangement of subject and verb, i.e. the helping verb comes after the subject.
Therefore the above sentence as an exclamatory sentence should be written as - "How beautiful the life is!"

Therefore, I think that the given sentence is in-fact a real question instead of exclamatory sentence.
The question is can we use the indirect arrangement in an exclamatory sentence?
For example-
what big hands do you have!

 

[emsr2d2]

"How beautiful life is!" is exclamatory. (No article is required.)
"How beautiful is life?" is, for me, a question.

 

[Sahil Dhankhar]

Is this the conclusion?- "How beautiful is life!" is grammatically wrong as it is neither a question nor an exclamatory sentence.

 

[Sahil Dhankhar]

Okay, so, can I assume that to form an exclamatory sentence, the word order should not be much bothered about?

 

[Matthew Wai]

If I heard someone say "How beautiful is life", I would take it as a question.

 

[jutfrank]

If I heard someone say "How beautiful is life", I would take it as a question.

That is extremely unlikely. Most of the information that signals whether an utterance is a question or exclamation comes from context, body language and intonation, not from word order.

 

[Matthew Wai]

But the OP said nothing about context, body language and intonation.

 

[jutfrank]

This thread is in danger of becoming seriously confused. You have to say what you mean by 'exclamatory sentence'. From your other posts, I assume you are talking about word order (grammar) only, whereas the people answering will probably understand that you are talking about meaning.

How beautiful is life? [interrogative/question]
How beautiful is life! [interrogative/exclamation]
How beautiful life is! [exclamatory/exclamation]

In future, be clear that you're talking about word order, not meaning.

 

[Matthew Wai]

You have to say what you mean by 'exclamatory sentence'.

Sorry, I wrote nothing about "exclamatory sentence" in this thread. Have I misread/missed something?

 

[jutfrank]

Sorry, I wrote nothing about "exclamatory sentence" in this thread. Have I misread/missed something?

I wasn't addressing you. I was addressing the OP Sahil Dhankhar and the whole thread more generally.

 

[Matthew Wai]

Do you notice that you had quoted me in your post #7 when you were addressing the OP?

 

[jutfrank]

Do you notice that you had quoted me in your post #7 when you were addressing the OP?

In post #7 I was addressing you. That's why I quoted the comment of yours that I was responding to.

 

[Sahil Dhankhar]

I think all the three examples stated by you are grammatically correct, specially the second sentence.

 

[GoesStation]

I think all the three examples stated by you are grammatically correct, specially the second sentence.

Avoid the passive voice in your writing. Here's a natural way to express the above idea: I think all three of your examples are grammatically correct, especially the second sentence.