A practical english grammar - Vyssaja skola 1978

Exclamations
Sound symbols

Almost any sentence or part of a sentence can be made exclamatory by extra loudness or by special intonation. This is indicated in writing by the use of the exclamation point.

The house is on fire!

The program is about to begin! Hurry!

(English does not use the exclamation point routinely after greetings and commands, as German and certain other languages do, however.)

There is a special exclamatory construction in English beginning with how or what. An element that would ordinarily occur in the predicate (complement, object, modifier) follows how or what, and then come the subject and verb in their normal order.

Statement: She sings beautifully.

Exclamation: How beautifully she sings!

She is a beautiful child.

What a beautiful child she is!

Those are beautiful roses.

What beautiful roses those are!

You have a nice house.

What a nice house you have!

The subject and verb are often omitted altogether in this type of utterance, leaving only the how or what phrase.

How terrible!    How kind of you!

What a beautiful day! What exciting news!