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

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Finally, reported evidentiality is the only such specification attested in imperatives, connected to imperatives-by-proxy, while other clause types may discriminate between numerous options. One point of particular interest is that of negation, which in some languages is expressed differently in the imperative than in other clause types (this is not always the case; I’ll explain why shortly) and the negative imperative, or prohibitive, can be radically different from positive imperatives, while polarity in the declarative tends to work on a more “does/does not” basis without tampering with the verbal form to any greater extent. This point can be illustrated in French, using the verb donner, “to give”: Table 3.1: the differences between declarative and imperative polarity in French Positive Declarative Tu me le donneras. Tu me le donneras you 1SG/ACC it give/2SG/FUT “You will give it to me” Imperative Donne-le-moi ! Donne-le-moi give/2SG/IMP-it-1SG/DIS “Give it to me!” Negative Tu (ne) me le donneras pas. Tu (ne) me le donneras pas you NEG 1SG/ACC it give/2SG/FUT NEG “You will not give it to me” Ne me le donne pas ! Ne me le donne pas NEG 1SG/ACC it give/2SG/IMP NEG “Don’t give it to me!” As we can see in the imperative, the word order is different depending on the sentence polarity; in the positive, we see a VO (specifically, verb-accusative-dative) order whereas in the negative this word order is instead OV (dative-accusative-verb to be exact). Also, the prohibitive warrants a change from the disjunctive moi to the accusative-dative me, mirroring the situation in the declarative. Another example to highlight the variance in negation between imperatives and nonimperatives can be made in Finnish, here with the verb mennä, “to go”: 12
Table 3.2: the differences between declarative and imperative polarity in Finnish Declarative Imperative Positive (Sinä) menet nyt kotiin. (Sinä) menet nyt kotiin you go/2SG now home/ILL ”You’re going home now” Mene nyt kotiin! Mene nyt kotiin 2SG/IMP now home/ILL ”Go home now!” Negative (Sinä) et mene nyt kotiin. (Sinä) et mene nyt kotiin you NEG/2SG go/STEM now home/ILL ”You’re not going home now” Älä mene nyt kotiin! Älä mene nyt kotiin NEG/IMP/2SG go/STEM now home/ILL ”Don’t go home now!” Here the second person singular negation is et for the declarative (and also for the interrogative, though for the latter with the additional –kO yes/no question marker) and älä for the imperative. Where the word order was affected in French by the negation, it is here a matter of morphology. Table 3.3: the negation verb in Finnish 1SG 2SG 3SG 3 1PL 2PL 3PL Declarative 1 en et ei emme ette eivät Imperative - 2 älä älköön älkäämme älkää älkööt Optative ällön ällös älköön älköömme älköötte älkööt 1 The interrogative form is created by adding the question suffix -kö: enkö tiedä “Don’t I know” 2 Heinonen argues that there is a first person singular form as well, being älkääni or älkäämi for the negation form, although neither Hakulinen et al. (2004) nor Karlsson (2008) mentions this form when addressing the imperative. Its usage is highly archaic and unfamiliar to most native Finnish speakers 3 The third person singular negation is also used to negate the passive Is it then possible to define what constitutes a sentence type If we are to accept that, in light of the evidence we’ve been given, imperatives are types of clauses/sentences rather than moods, we will need to know what exactly a sentence type is. Saeed (2009) refers to and modifies the theory put forth by Sadock and Zwicky (1985) to provide the following guidelines: 13
Page 1 and 2: UPPSALA UNIVERSITY Bachelor’s The
Page 3 and 4: Abbreviations 1INF First infinite I
Page 5 and 6: 1. Background and purpose The imper
Page 7 and 8: mind passing me the salt”, or a s
Page 9 and 10: There is a depth in using language
Page 11 and 12: optative paradigm (called the jussi
Page 13 and 14: Now, what I found were tendencies i
Page 15: Irish: Labhraím leis anois. Labhra
Page 19 and 20: So how do non-canonical imperatives
Page 21 and 22: imperative. French is further dissi
Page 23 and 24: 4.2 The hortative functionality of
Page 25 and 26: Irish: Ithim bia! Ithim bia eat/1SG
Page 27 and 28: Table 5.2 Sentence types in Irish D
Page 29 and 30: This function arguably is more impe
Page 31 and 32: Table 5.4: Forms of the imperative
Page 33 and 34: Finnish: (Hän) kysyköön kysymyks
Page 35 and 36: and requests for permission are not
Page 37 and 38: Russian (courtesy of Hansen in Roth
Page 39 and 40: Resignation and admission of the sp
Page 41 and 42: References Abraham, Werner and Leis

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