On the subject of imperatives: A minimalist account of the imperative clause

This paper presents a structural account of imperative clauses where the theoretical cornerstones are the Minimalist Program of Chomsky (1995) and the analysis of the C-domain in Rizzi (1995). According to Rizzi, the C-domain has at least two parts, the outward facing ForceP, a sentence type projection where information of the type of the clause is represented, and an inward facing part, FinP, related to tense and mood. We argue in this paper that the main difference between imperative clauses and other sentence types is the lack of FinP and hence finiteness in imperative clauses; having no FinP, imperative clauses also lack MoodP and TP. The imperative clause is thus less articulated compared with the declarative and interrogative clauses.From the lack of FinP follow the three most salient properties of imperative clauses: the morphologically meagre form of the verb, the impossibility of embedding imperative clauses, and the lack of a prototypical subject. The last mentioned fact has the consequence that an imperative clause can never be used to refer to the addressee in the same way as a declarative and interrogative clause can: imperative clauses can only be used to talk to the addressee, not about him or her. We support our theoretical approach by empirical evidence drawn mainly from German, English, and Mainland Scandinavian.