Introduction to Part II: from data to theory

In Part I, we have been concerned with defining imperatives and highlighting the semantic characteristics that they display. We have seen that imperatives can be defined in terms of their prototypical pragmatic function: that of performing directive speech acts, themselves best understood as utterances whose function is to provide the hearer with reason to act. We have noted that such a definition of the imperative mood has the attraction of being neither overly restrictive – it does not rule out the possibility that imperatives have non-directive uses – nor overly inclusive – it does rule in forms that are used to perform directives if this is not their prototypical function. We also argued that the imperative mood should be thought of as a sentential category that can be realised either morphologically, syntactically, or by a combination of both. On this conception of imperative mood, the absence of imperative verbal inflection is not sufficient reason to deny that a language has an imperative. It may be that, as appears to be the case with English, the imperative is realised by syntactic means alone. That said, however, it is important to distinguish the imperative from particles associated with directive force, such as please in English. Such forms can typically coerce a directive reading of a range of sentence types, regardless of their prototypical function. Furthermore, they are often restricted in regard to the type of directive in whose performance they can be employed. For example, please can be used in a request, but not in a command.