I don't believe the imperative is finite. It certainly isn't present
time, because it can be framed in the future by an adverbial expression:
"Pick me up at work tomorrow". I'd like to have more time to investigate
this, but I don't (end-of-term grading time for me!!)
I wonder about its history. In German, the imperative does not carry the
usual 2nd-person present marker: "Mach schnell!", not "Machst schnell!"
(lit. "do quickly!", means "hurry up"). Also, the verb "be" occurs in a
form that resembles the subjunctive more than the present tense: "Sei
still!" (be quiet), not "Bist still!" ("bist" being 2nd pers. pres.
"be"). A quick look at my Old English grammar book shows imperative
forms that lack the 2nd-pers. present suffix as well.
Meaning-wise, imperative is similar to subjunctive and other "unreal"
categories: it expresses the desire or wish of the speaker, something
which has not happened yet in reality. Notice that another way of
issuing commands is by using another "not (yet) real" form, that is, the
future: "You _will_ clean your room!" or "You _shall_ clean your room!"
All of these forms express the desire of the speaker to make something
real by dint of his/her will or power. To me, the "will" sentence is not
only a declaration of a certain future event, but to me also retains
nuances of the original meaning of this verb, to intend to do something.
The speaker declares her/his intent that the event will happen.
Also, I do not "feel" any aspectual nuances in "go X-ing". It seems to
me that its function is simply to name a type of activity, and its
restriction to a narrow range of activity types seems to support this.
If I were to paraphrase its meaning, it would be "undertake this
particular activity". It takes other aspect marking unproblematically:
Habitual: Fred goes food shopping every Saturday.
Past habit: Fred used to go food shopping every Saturday.
Back then, Fred would go food shopping every Saturday.
Present perfect: Fred has gone food shopping ever Saturday for years.
Where's Fred? -- He's gone food shopping.
The only aspect I have trouble with is progressive: ?He was going food
shopping when I called. ?They are going hunting right now." (not in the
sense of "they are about to depart", but in the sense of "they are, at
this moment, undertaking the activity of hunting".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184 • Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone. 756-2596
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] • Home page:
http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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