The imperative mood is a grammatical mood that forms a command or request.
The imperative mood is used to demand or require that an action be performed. It is usually found only in the present tense, second person. They are sometimes called directives, as they include a feature that encodes directive force, and another feature that encodes modality of unrealized interpretation.
An example of a verb used in the imperative mood is the English grammar phrase "Go." Such imperatives imply a second-person subject ( you), but some other languages also have first- and third-person imperatives, with the meaning of "let's (do something)" or "let them (do something)" (the forms may alternatively be called cohortative and jussive).
Imperative mood can be denoted by the glossing abbreviation . It is one of the .
In English language, the imperative is formed using the bare infinitive form of the verb (see English verbs for more details). This is usually also the same as the second-person present indicative form, except in the case of the verb to be, where the imperative is be while the indicative is are. (The present subjunctive always has the same form as the imperative, although it is negated differently – the imperative is negated using do not, as in "Don't touch me!"; see do-support. Occasionally do is not used: Dare not touch me!) The imperative form is understood as being in the second person (the subject pronoun you is usually omitted, although it can be included for emphasis), with no explicit indication of singular or plural. First and third person imperatives are expressed periphrasis, using a construction with the imperative of the verb let:
The second person singular imperative often consists of just the stem of the verb, without any ending.
For example, Te Reo Māori has the imperative me, which in addition to being put in front of sentences to command (e.g. Me horoi ō ringaringa; "(you must) wash your hands"), is used to assert the imperative mood in sentences that would be translated as "let's (let us)" in English. An example of this is Me haere tāua, which translates to "let us (you and me) go", but the "us" component goes last.
Negative imperatives tell the subject to not do something. They usually begin with the verb "don't" or the negative form of a verb. e.g., example, "Don't be like that."
Many languages, even not normally null-subject languages, omit the subject pronoun in imperative sentences, as usually occurs in English (see below). Details of the syntax of imperative sentences in certain other languages, and of differences between affirmative and negative imperatives, can be found in some of the other specific language sections below.
In writing, imperative phrases and sentences may terminate in an exclamation mark (!).
The use of the imperative mood may be seen as impolite, inappropriate or even offensive in certain circumstances.Wierzbicka, Anna, "Cross-Cultural Pragmatics", Mouton de Gruyter, 1991. In polite speech, orders or requests are often phrased instead as questions or statements, rather than as imperatives:
Politeness strategies (for instance, indirect speech acts) can seem more appropriate in order not to threaten a conversational partner in their needs of self-determination and territory: according to some strands of politeness theory the partner's negative face should not appear threatened.Brown, P., and S. Levinson. "Universals in language use", in E. N. Goody (ed.), Questions and Politeness (Cambridge and London, 1978, Cambridge University Press: 56-310) As well as the replacement of imperatives with other sentence types as discussed above, there also often exist methods of phrasing an imperative in a more polite manner, such as the addition of a word like please; or a phrase like if you could; or substituting one directive for another, as in the change from will to may e.g, "you will do that" becomes "you may / can do that".
Imperatives are also used for speech acts whose function is not primarily to make an order or request, but to give an invitation, give permission, express a wish, make an apology, et cetera:
When written, imperative sentences are often, but not always, terminated with an exclamation mark.
First person plural imperatives () are used mainly for suggesting an action to be performed together by the speaker and the addressee (and possibly other people): "Let's go to Barbados this year", "Let us pray". Third person imperatives () are used to suggest or order that a third party or parties be permitted or made to do something: "Let them eat cake", "Let him be executed".
There is an additional imperative form that is used for general prohibitions, consisting of the word "no" followed by the gerund form. The best known examples are "No Smoking" and "No Parking". This form does not have a positive form; that is, "Parking" by itself has no meaning unless used as a noun when it shows that parking is permitted.
The following sentences demonstrate several different forms of the imperative mood.
amāre (to love) | amā | amāte |
monēre (to advise/warn) | monē | monēte |
audīre (to hear) | audī | audīte |
The negative imperative is formed with the infinitive of the verb, preceded by the imperative of nōlle (to not want):
For third-person imperatives, the subjunctive mood is used instead.
In Latin there is a peculiar tense in the imperative, which is the future tense that is used when you want the mandate to be fulfilled in the future. This tense is used mainly in laws, wills, precepts, etc. However, it is conjugated only with the third and second person singular and plural which carries as a gramme or ending -tō for the second and third person singular, -tōte for the second person plural and -ntō for the third person plural. On the other hand, in other languages of the world there is a distinctive imperative, which also has a future value, but with a previous meaning and this is the so-called past imperative that appears in the French and Greek languages as a point of reference. See Latin conjugation.
+ Example verb conjugations in the imperative of future tense ! colspan="2" | ! ! ! ! |
Sentence examples of the future imperative:
English imperatives are negated using don't (as in "Don't work!") This is a case of do-support as found in indicative clauses; however in the imperative it applies even in the case of the verb be (which does not use do-support in the indicative):
The subject you may be included for emphasis in negated imperatives as well, following don't: "Don't you dare do that again!"
In order to emphasize their addressee, German imperatives can be followed by the nominative case personal pronouns du ("thou; you ") or ihr ("you "), respectively. For example: "Geh weg!" – "Geh du doch weg!" ("Go away!" – "Why, you go away!").
German has T/V distinction, which means that the pronouns du and ihr are used chiefly towards persons with whom one is privately acquainted, which holds true for the corresponding imperatives. (For details see German grammar.) Otherwise, the social-distance pronoun Sie (you) is used for both singular and plural. Since there exists no actual imperative corresponding to Sie, the form is paraphrased with the third-person plural of the present subjunctive followed by the pronoun:
Occasionally, the infinitive ( Infinitiv or Infinitiv als Imperativ) may be used as a mild or polite imperative, in order to avoid directly addressing the person or to simplify the sentence's construction. Although sometimes used in spoken language, this form is most commonly used in general instructions and recipes. Examples include:
Like English, German features many constructions that express commands, wishes, etc. They are thus semantics related to imperatives without being imperatives grammatically:
French uses different word order for affirmative and negative imperative sentences:
The negative imperative (prohibitive) has the same word order as the indicative. See for detail. Like in English, imperative sentences often end with an exclamation mark, e.g. to emphasize an order.
In French there is a very distinctive imperative which is the imperative mood of preterite tense also called (past imperative or imperative of perfect future), expresses a given order with previous future value which must be executed or fulfilled in a future not immediate, as if it were an action to come, but earlier in relation to another that will also happen in the future. However, this type of imperative is peculiar to French which has only one purpose: to order that something be done before the date or time, therefore, this will always be accompanied by a circumstantial complement of time. However, this imperative is formed with the auxiliary verb of the avoir compound tenses and with the auxiliary verb être that is also used to form the tenses composed of the pronominal verbs and some of the intransitive verbs, this means that the structure of the verb imperative in its entirety is composed.
+Examples of Imperative of Preterite Tense |
In English language there is no equivalent grammatical structure to form this tense of the imperative mood; it is translated in imperative mood of present with previous value.
comer | come | come | comé* | coma | comed* | coman |
beber | bebe | bebe | bebé* | beba | bebed* | beban |
tener | tiene | ten* | tené* | tenga | tened* | tengan |
decir | dice | di* | decí* | diga | decid* | digan |
* = unique verb that only exists for this imperative form |
If an imperative takes a pronoun as an object, it is appended to the verb; for example, Dime (Tell me). Pronouns can be stacked like they can in indicative clauses:
Imperatives can be formed for usted (singular formal second person), ustedes (plural second person), and nosotros (plural first person) from the respective present subjunctive form. Negative imperatives for these pronouns (as well as tú, vos, and vosotros) are also formed this way, but are negated by no (e.g. No cantes, "Don't sing").
comer | comes | comeis | come | comei | não comas | não comais | (não) coma | (não) comam | (não) comamos |
beber | bebes | bebeis | bebe | bebei | não bebas | não bebais | (não) beba | (não) bebam | (não) bebamos |
ter | tens | tendes | tem | tende | não tenhas | não tenhais | (não) tenha | (não) tenham | (não) tenhamos |
dizer | dizes | dizeis | diz(e) | dizei | não digas | não digais | (não) diga | (não) digam | (não) digamos |
If a verb takes a pronoun, it should be appended to the verb:
In literary Welsh there are imperatives for all persons and numbers, except for the first-person singular. These must often be translated using phrases in English: gwelwn 'let us see'; gwelent 'let them see'; wele 'let him/her/it see'; gweler 'let it be seen, it is to be seen'. In the literary language the second person singular suffix –a is often not used: gwela (spoken), but gwêl (literary); tala (spoken), but tâl (literary).
The five Irregular verbs Welsh verbs (bod, mynd, dod, cael and gwneud) also have irregular imperative forms which also differ between the spoken and literary languages.
+ Irregular verbs ! rowspan="2" colspan="2" | ! colspan="2" 2nd person ! colspan="2" | 3rd person ! 1st person ! rowspan="2" | impersonal |
Often to soften down the tone of the imperatives, the subjunctive and indicative negation are used to form negative imperatives. Imperatives can also be formed using subjunctives to give indirect commands to the third person and to formal second person. A peculiar feature of Hindi-Urdu is that it has imperatives in two tenses; present and the future tense. The present tense imperative gives command in the present and future imperative gives command for the future. Hindi-Urdu explicitly marks grammatical aspects and any verb can be put into the simple, habitual, perfective, and progressive aspects. Each aspect in turn can be conjugated into five different grammatical moods, imperative mood being one of them.
+ करना کرنا (to do) conjugated into the imperative mood for all the four aspectual forms ! rowspan="3" colspan="3" | ! colspan="3" 2nd person pronouns ! rowspan="3" | Translation |
+ present active imperative |
In ancient Greek, the general order (with the idea of duration or repetition) is expressed using the present imperative and the punctual order (without the idea of duration or repetition) using the aorist imperative.
Forms also exist for second and third person. Only first person singular does not have an imperative.
+ mennä (to go) ! colspan="2" | ! singular ! plural |
The negative imperative in those languages is more complicated. In modern Hebrew, for instance, it contains a synonym of the word "no", that is used only in negative imperative (אַל), and is followed by the future tense.
+ The verb 'to write' in singular, masculine ! ! Future Indicative ! Imperative / Prohibitive |
+ The verb 'to write' in singular, feminine ! ! Future Indicative ! Imperative / Prohibitive |
+ The verb 'to dictate' in singular, masculine ! ! Future Indicative ! Imperative / Prohibitive |
+ For the verb ('write')
! Form
! Indicative
! Imperative / Prohibitive |
See also the suffixes ( –nasai) and ( –kudasai).
+ For the verb ('go'):
! Level
! Indicative Affirmative ! Imperative ! Indicative Negative ! Prohibitive |
+ For the verb 做 ('do')
!
! Indicative
! Imperative / Prohibitive |
+ Imperative forms of the verb içmek (to drink, to smoke a cigarette or similar) |
Turkish also has a separate optative mood. Conjugations of the optative mood for the first-person pronouns are sometimes incorrectly said to be first-person imperatives. Conjugations of the optative mood for second and third-person pronouns exist, but are rarely used in practice.
+ Conjugations of the optative mood for pronouns !rowspan=2 | 1st-person ! singular | içeyim |
Negative imperative forms are made in the same way, but using a negated verb as the base. For example, the second person singular imperative of içmemek (not to drink) is içme (don't drink). Other Turkic languages construct imperative forms similarly to Turkish.
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