The category of imperative

The category of imperative in [42] appeared in many cases to surface in the form of the prohibi-tive constructions that are not used to stop a state of affairs, but rather to see to it that it does not start, e.g. Stop, Hang on, Wait, Walk away, Leave that, etc. (see the attached Excel-document II. 1-3).

Within the IF-framework, these prohibitive constructions could formally stand for Necessity or Obligation. This is because, in contrast to Russian, the distinction between alethic and deontic modal-ity is not grammaticalised in English, thereby making these imperatives ambiguous with respect to the pre-conditions. Nor are these imperative utterances explicit with respect to the post-conditions as they can imply Order, Warning, or Caution (see Durst-Andersen, 1995:614). However, neither of the two readings of the non-negated imperative construction seems to match the conditions of the Window situation. While in the case of Obligation the speaker dictates her conditions in order to remove the obstacle (in casu the hearer does not desire the state), with Necessity she simply removes the obstacle (in casu the hearer does not desire to assist the speaker) by describing the necessary state. Nevertheless, both have in common that the speaker desires a change in the world, which she achieves by describing or removing the obstacle.

The Window scenario, however, is designed within conditions that do not involve a change in the world. The speaker desires the window to stay closed and in order to keep the world as it is, she establishes a verbal obstacle by asking the hearer not to realise the prohibited state. In the case of the given imperatives, however, the fact that the hearer intends to open the window simply because he is not aware of it being out of order and of the danger ensuing from opening it might be the

speak-er’s warrant for warning the hearer about the undesired state, i.e. ‘the window is open’. Hence, even though we are dealing here with non-negated imperatives, their post-conditions appear to instantiate a Warning, rather than an Order, i.e. a warning against the change in the world, which may lead to undesired and unnecessary repercussions.

Unfortunately, the IF does not provide the answer to this question in that it basically construes the function of an utterance in terms of its form (see [3.3] & [3.4]). I therefore had to search for the solution to the puzzle elsewhere. In Xrakovskij (2001:37-40; 69), we find a classification of prohib-itive constructions, according to which there are non-negated imperative constructions and markers that are used for warnings, also called ‘admonitives’ and ‘preventives’, i.e. a situation where the speaker wants to prevent the hearer from realising a state of affairs. Interestingly, Xrakovskij (2001) classifies these non-negated imperative forms as a subclass of prohibitives, e.g. constructions with verbs like stop, prevent, and abstain. I am inclined to adopt this account, notably because the Window situation is designed according to the set of conditions that match a situation description where the speaker wants to prevent a future state of affairs from taking place. After having considered the options, in the present study it was eventually decided to render communicative events involving (1) non-negated imperative constructions like Stop, Hang on, or Wait alone, or (2) those exhibiting the latter together with negated imperative utterances in terms of Prohibition. Consider illustrative examples below (see the attached Excel-document II.3):

In [43], the speaker prevents the hearer from opening the window by issuing Prohibition by means of the non-negated imperative utterance Whoa whoa hold on. Its reading in terms of Prohibition relates to the argument discussed above, namely that non-negated imperatives can sometimes function as prohibitions if the speaker wants to terminate the action already in progress (ibid., 69) or to pre-vent the future state of affairs from happening by warning the hearer about undesired repercussions.

Moreover, despite the fact that Prohibition is described as a negated prescriptive frame in the IF (see [3.2]), the utterance That window’s broken, which is analysed here as the speaker’s post-conditions and obviously conveys the meaning of warning, seems to support the reading of the entire communicative event in [43] in terms of Prohibition.

Consider the paraphrase of That window’s broken:

‘I hereby warn you that if you realise your intention and open the window, you will cause some damage.’

Yet, in most cases, the non-negated imperative utterances were supplemented with the negated ones (see the attached Excel-document II. 1-3):

[44]

*P115: Hold on !

*P115: The window’s broken . *P115: Don’t touch it !

*P115: We’ll just have to cope with the heat .

In [44], the speaker follows his initial warning with The window is broken, which either serves as a motivation for issuing Prohibition proper Don’t touch it! or functions as a justification of employing the prohibitive speech act Hold on! – depending on the where one places the borderline between the turns. In either case, The window is broken functions as a deontic source that determines the reading of the communicative event in [44] as Prohibition. This is because English does not grammatically distinguish between the alethic and deontic modality, and such negated imperatives as Don’t touch it are ambiguous with respect to their modal reading, i.e. they can instantiate both Prohibition and Cancellation of obligation (see Durst-Andersen, 1995:648f). In my view, it is, among other things, the nature of the deontic source in [44] that determines the reading of the whole communicative event as Prohibition.

And yet, the ELFD revealed a few examples of non-negated imperative constructions that differ from those discussed above by virtue of having Non-necessity (called negated Possibility in Durst-An-dersen (1995)) rather than Prohibition as its pre-conditions. This is so because, in the IF, Non-necessi-ty is the only frame where the speaker asks the hearer to do something so that the possible state is not realised (see [3.4]). Consider the example below (see the attached Excel-document II.2):

[45]

*P74: Boss !

*P74: Please be careful ! *P74: The window is broken .

*P74: It actually may fall all out if you open it .

In [45], the speaker prevents the hearer from opening the window by issuing Non-necessity Please be careful! in lieu of the anticipated Prohibition.

‘I hereby tell you that it is possible for you to be in danger.’

Moreover, even though the post-conditions in [45], The window is broken, represent an identical linguistic realisation as the one in [43], it seems to function here as a more polite Caution rather than Warning, presumably due to the Head Act with the help of which the speaker satisfies the hearer’s pre-conditions. That is, assuming Please be careful! in [45] has Possibility as its pre-conditions, viz.

Possibility—Request—Caution (see [3.2]), then it will have a less coercive effect on the hearer mainly becuase according to [3.4] it describes rather than prescribes the undesired state, which the hearer is unaware of. Consider the paraphrase of The window is broken as Caution below:

‘I hereby tell you that if you don’t follow my request, it is possible for you to be in an unnecessary and undesired state.’

In other words, in [45] the speaker does not establish an obstacle for the hearer on his way to realise the state of affairs, but simply describes the possibility for the hearer to end up in an unnecessary and undesired state if he does not follow the speaker’s request.

Interestingly, Arnsberg and Bentsen (2009: I.33–I.35) provides several situations involving Non-necessity which exhibit non-negated imperative structures like Watch out, Take care, Be careful, etc., and caution markers such as Careful, Caution, Danger, Alert, etc., which are not followed by the negated imperative of the form ‘Don’t…!’.

Hence, even though the IF construes Non-necessity as a negated frame, the study at hand anal-yses non-negated imperatives like [45] in terms of Non-necessity, notably because they have Non-ne-cessity (also Possibility) as their pre-conditions and Caution as their post-conditions.

Thus table [46] below presents the overall results for the ELFD for the number of communica-tive events containing (1) non-negated imperacommunica-tives alone functioning as Non-necessity, (2) non-negat-ed imperatives functioning as Prohibition, and finally (3) both non-negatnon-negat-ed and negatnon-negat-ed imperatives, overall rendered in terms of Prohibition.

[46]

Non-necessity Prohibition (Non-negated imp )

Prohibition

((Non-negated) + negated imp )

Communicative events in all

British 0 4 18 22

Russians 0 2 17 19

Danes 3 4 11 18

As can be clearly seen from [46], in most cases the participants of the ESPTs preferred prohib-itive constructions proper, i.e. those with the negated imperative. Regarding communicative events involving Non-necessity, the DESs appeared to be the only group that exhibited three of its instances out of in all 18 communicative events containing the imperative form.