Course work theme: The problems of the imperative mood Submitted by: 4th year student: Abdukhalilova Ma’murakhan Abdullajon kizi Scientific by: Makhmudjonova Khilola Kokand 2022 contents introduction

2.2 The structural and interpretation of imperatives.
We have argued that the imperative operator includes the feature [irrealis], which selects either a subjunctive or an infinitive INFL. We will refer to imperatives with subjunctive or infinitive INFL as ‘subjunctive type’ imperatives and ‘infinitive type’ imperatives, respectively.
So far, we have been assuming, without explicit argument that languages have two options for deriving the imperative structure: infinitive type imperatives have an infinitive INFL, and subjunctive type imperatives have a subjunctive INFL. In this section, we provide empirical support for our proposal. In particular, we tie the syntactic status of imperative subjects in a language to whether the language has subjunctive or infinitive type imperatives, or both.
Languages vary with respect to the syntactic status of subjects in imperatives. The subjects in Italian, French and Spanish must be covert. In other languages such as English, German, European Portuguese, Modern Greek, Bulgarian, Korean, Japanese and Chinese, imperative subjects can be either covert or overt. In addition, in some languages, the syntactic behavior of imperative subjects seems idiosyncratic compared to those in other clause types in the language. For instance, neither English, German nor French allow empty subjects except in imperatives.
In what follows, we first provide an analysis for the optionality of imperative subjects in English. We then provide an analysis of cross-linguistic variation in the syntactic status of subjects in imperatives. According to our analysis, the apparently idiosyncratic syntactic behavior of imperative subjects in some languages turns out to be predictable given the syntax of the language as a whole.
Optionality of Imperative Subjects in English
In English imperatives, subjects can be overt or covert. It is plausible to posit that the empty subject in imperatives corresponds to the 2nd person pronoun, based on the well- known and straightforward evidence from binding and tag-question formation
a. Behave yourself/yourselves.

2. 
   * Behave himself/myself/ourselves/themselves.
   

a. Be quiet. Will you?

2. 
   * Be quiet. Will he/I/they/we?
   

But what kind of empty category is the covert 2nd person pronoun in imperatives? Is it a trace of some kind, pro or PRO? Or is it some other kind of empty category that is restricted to imperatives? According to Schmerlingimperatives axe a sentence type in their own right, with certain formal properties peculiar to them, and the covert subject in imperatives is the result of a special deletion rule that is not a subcase of any general phenomenon of the language. Beukema and Coopmans (1989) claim that the covert subject in imperatives is the шЛ-trace of an empty topic operator. Beukema (1992) and Potsdam (1997b) argue that it is pro. Platzack and Rosengren propose that imperatives have no true syntactic subjects, but have a null actor argument in [Spec,VP] referred to as imppro. Moreover, according to them, an overt 2nd person pronoun in imperatives is not the overt realization of imppro, but is rather an addressee argument in the specifier of the phrase that heads imppro. Platzack and Rosengren refer to the overt 2nd person pronoun as an IMPERATIVE PRONOUN and derives its overtness from pragmatic considerations.
The claim that the covert subject in imperatives is either the trace of an empty topic operator or pro entails the unattractive conclusion that English allows these empty categories only in imperatives. Likewise, the claim that imperatives have imppro, which is not a true syntactic subject, or that the covert subject in imperatives is the result of a special subject deletion rule applying only to imperatives entails the unattractive conclusion that English has a fourth empty category that occurs only in imperatives.
Two Types of Imperatives
We propose that English allows both subjunctive type and infinitive type imperatives, and further, that subjunctive type imperatives have overt subjects, whereas the infinitive type imperatives have empty PRO subjects. Our analysis of English imperatives is supported by the fact that in other languages both subjunctive and infinitive INFL are consistent with directive interpretation, as we saw in §4.3. We emphasize that this does not mean that the syntax of imperatives on the one hand, and subjunctives and infinitivals on the other is identical. Rather, as discussed, the [directive] feature in the imperative operator drives verb movement to at LF, and the [irrealis] feature in the imperative operator selects either the subjunctive or the infinitive INFL. In contrast, subjunctives and infinitivals have an operator in that only includes the [irrealis] feature, which does not drive movement of the verb. We will see that the morphosyntactic difference between imperatives and subjunctives/infinitivals is reflected in the presence versus absence of do-support in negative imperatives and negative subjunctives/infinitivals.
Subjunctive type imperatives
(Mandative) subjunctives occur as embedded clauses under directive verbs, such as require, demand, insist, suggest, etc., as exemplified in
a. I demand that John finish the homework.

2. 
   I insisted that John stay.
   
3. 
   I suggested that she leave soon.
   

The obligatoriness and morphological form of the subject indicate that subjunctive INFL assigns nominative case. Moreover, neither auxiliary nor lexical verbs undergo V-I movement in subjunctives. That is why auxiliary verbs must follow not and lexical verbs do not require do-support in connection with negation.
Since the syntax of imperatives with an overt subject is similar to that of subjunctives, the subject in imperatives is licensed in the way it is licensed in subjunctives: namely, INFL assigns nominative case.
According to Bobaljik (1995), do-support is triggered by a PF adjacency requirement between inflectional morphology in INFL and the lexical verb in English. If we adopt this analysis, we can say that do-support is required in negative imperatives because negation blocks the PF adjacency requirement between the morphology in C° and the lexical verb. Since both auxiliary and lexical verbs in imperatives stay in-situ, negation blocks the adjacency requirement between the morphology in C° and the verb for both types of verbs. Thus, do-support is required for auxiliary as well as lexical verbs in negative imperatives.
We leave open the question of how our analysis of imperatives can be extended to account for the syntax of let-constructions, such as in.
a. Let’s go home.

2. 
   Let us go see a movie.
   
3. 
   Don’t let’s go see a movie.
   

For an account of the syntax of these constructions, see Davies (1986), Clark and Potsdam
Infinitive type imperatives
Infinitivals occur as the complements of control verbs, such as promise, persuade, order, etc.
a. John promised to return the books.
b. John persuaded Mary to return the books.
These infinitivals have an empty PRO subject. Following Chomsky (1993), we take this to mean that infinitive INFL assigns null case to PRO, thereby licensing it. In infinitivals, as in subjunctives, neither auxiliary nor lexical verbs undergo V-I movement, as shown by the fact that auxiliary verbs follow negation and lexical verbs with negation do not require do-support.
a. John promised Mary to not be late, b. * John promised Mary to be not late.
a. The commander ordered the sergeant to not move.
b. * The commander ordered the sergeant to do not move.
The syntax of imperatives with an empty subject is similar to the syntax of infinitivals, which is consistent with their both having an infinitive INFL. In these imperatives, neither auxiliary nor lexical verbs undergo V-I movement. But as in the subjunctive type imperatives, in infinitive type imperatives, the imperative operator in C° includes [directive] feature which forces verb movement to C° at LF. Do-support is therefore required for both auxiliary and lexical verbs with negation.
a. Don’t be late.

2. 
   Do not move.
   
3. 
   Don’t cause any trouble.
   

Since imperatives with an empty subject have infinitive INFL, the syntactic status of the subject in these imperatives is PRO. Imperatives have future-oriented temporal interpretation: that is, the situation described by an imperative in general is not realized at the utterance time, but can be realized in the future. Given this future-oriented temporal interpretation, our proposal that the empty subject in imperatives is PRO is consistent with StowelFs (1982) observation that infinitivals with PRO, as opposed to ones in raising or ECM environments, have unrealized future-oriented interpretation.
Our analysis of the assignment of 2nd person reference to PRO subjects in imperatives implies that although the distribution of PRO is determined by the syntax (PRO is restricted to the subject position of infinitival clauses), its interpretational content is determined by the semantics of the sentence in which it occurs. Thus, the domain of control theory is more abstract than previously thought, for all types of PRO.
To summarize, English imperatives axe distinguished into two types: those with subjunctive INFL and those with infinitive INFL. Subjunctive type imperatives have an overt subject because subjunctive INFL licenses nominative case, and infinitive type imperatives have a PRO subject because infinitive INFL assigns null case. According to our analysis, the apparent anomaly that imperatives are the only matrix clause type in English to allow both overt and covert subjects follows straightforwardly from independently motivated facts of the language.