The grammar text I am using with my class (Warriner's 2nd Course) defines exclamatory sentences as showing strong feeling or excitement and ending with an exclamation point.  As examples, it gives 
  What a sight the sunset is! (This seems to me to be an exclamatory sentence.)
  They're off!  (This seems to me to be an exclamation of a declarative sentence.)
  Sarah won the videotape player! (Ditto.)
   
  This definition and example set seems to be both confusing and useless.  I have found similar definitions elsewhere. This definition seems pervasive in K-12 education.  Isn't an exclamatory sentence defined by its structure?  Aren't sentences such as 
  <How nice you look today!>, <What an ugly puppy that is!>, and <How seldom you come to visit!> exclamatory sentences?  Isn't their sentence structure what defines them as exclamatory sentences and not their purpose, the level of excitement or feeling expressed, or the use of an exclamation point?  Am I wrong on this?  Can't we make declarative sentences into exclamations (or questions, for that matter) without changing their nature as declarative sentences?  Does anyone have any knowledge about how this turns up on the kinds of standardized tests students take to test their grammar knowledge? Are there any suggestions on how to deal with this and similar situations?  (I told my students that I disagreed with the definition given thenI showed them the structural differences between sentence types and how to restructure them to change the type.)
   
  Scott Woods

       
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