Verbatim quote · from the corpus

“The syntactic form that corresponds to the ostensive is, I would say, the exclamation : “what a lovely day!” expresses that originary sense of gratitude as does “how awful!” because the latter expression equally presupposes some non-awful condition that allows us all to immediately recognize how awful the one indicated is.”

— Adam Katz, Common Sense · Oct 2009 · GABlog