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- Title
Why imperative sentences cannot be embedded.
- Authors
ALCÁZAR, Asier; SALTARELLI, Mario
- Abstract
Imperative clauses manifest a well-known set of exceptional morphosyntactic characteristics in a surprisingly robust cross-linguistic pattern. One such intriguing property is their resistance to subordination. This paper proposes that imperative clauses realize part of the Context of Utterance, which we take to be a syntactic construct. The ungrammaticality of embedded imperatives would then follow from a structural asymmetry between root and subordinate clauses (the latter would lack a Context of Utterance). A clinching argument is found in Basque addressee agreement, which also prevents subordination of declarative and interrogative clauses.
- Subjects
IMPERATIVE (Grammar); CLAUSES (Grammar); SUBORDINATE constructions; INTERROGATIVE (Grammar); BASQUES
- Publication
Cahiers Chronos, 2012, Vol 25, p1
- ISSN
1384-5357
- Publication type
Article