The function of non-canonical imperatives in the languages of Europe

limited in regards to tense and aspect. By virtue of these factors, can one justify calling the
imperative a sentence type
One can, I would argue. It is incorrect to assume that all sentence types need to be
balanced and have the same conditions and possibilities, since they aren’t, and they don’t.
While declarative and interrogative sentences may take just about any mood, imperative and
optative ones may not. Aikhenvald (2010) highlights the features which differentiate
imperatives from other clause types, and I will attempt to summarize these to the best of my
ability without compromising the overview.
Imperatives have their own distinct intonation contour as I mentioned earlier, typically a
sharp and forceful tone, and this is sometimes coupled with other, imperative-specific
phonological processes.
Also, the constituents follow a specific order in imperatives and may in some languages
be more rigid in these types of sentences, for instance in Swedish, where words in declarative
and (to a lesser extent) interrogative sentences can be placed more freely without impacting
on the semantics or come across as grammatically incorrect. This can be illustrated in the
following example where subsequent sentences have their word orders jumbled, all without
becoming grammatically odd.
Swedish:
Han är ute på fältet nu.
Han är ute på fält-et nu
he is out on field-DEF now
“He is out in the field now”
Each constituent in the example above can be repositioned without affecting the semantic
meaning of the sentence. Thus, jumbled sentences, variations of the example, like “ute på
fältet är han nu” or ”nu är han ute på fältet” has the same meaning. Imperative verbs on the
other hand, require in most languages of Europe a clause-initial position, whereas declaratives
do not. A notable exception to this can be found in Irish, where all sentences follow a rigid
VSO word order.
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