Embedded imperatives
Author
Editor
- Wim van der Wurff
Summary, in English
Embedded imperatives are found in Old Scandinavian, but not in any of its modern descendants, i.e. Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian or Swedish. This paper aims to uncover the structural prerequisites for embedded imperatives to be possible in a language. Assuming a feature driven version of the minimalist program, it is shown that embedded imperatives are possible under the specific structural requirement that the non-finite verb is in a position lower than the object, i.e. in a kind of partial OV-structure that I will call pseudo-OV, differing from ordinary OV in having the tensed verb before the object, both in main and embedded clauses. A number of predictions follow which are indeed fulfilled, such as the obligatory presence of the second person subject, the position of the imperative verb in front of the object, and the fact that the kinds of objects found in embedded imperatives are the ones that also turn up in clauses with pseudo-OV in Old Scandinavian.
Department/s
Publishing year
2007
Language
English
Pages
181-203
Publication/Series
Imperative Clauses in Generative Grammar
Volume
103
Document type
Book chapter
Publisher
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Topic
- Languages and Literature
Status
Published
Project
- TEJS
Research group
- GRIMM
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0166-0829
- ISBN: 9789027233677