I've always been suspicious of the tag question argument for modals. "We should be there by five, shouldn't we" works when the modal means obligation, but "we should be there by five, won't we" works when we're predicting or expressing a hope. We don't say "it might rain tonight, mightn't it", but we do say "it might rain tonight, couldn't it". "We ought to be home soon, oughtn't we" is hopelessly stilted, but "we ought to be home soon, shouldn't we" works and is common. "Wash the dishes, will you" and "wash the dishes, would you" are slightly different commands. Are we arguing that the imperative modal can be will or would and you have to figure out how polite the speaker is being? I'd argue rather that the imperative doesn't have an underlying modal but, being irrealis, defaults to a "will" or "would" if it's tagged. "Wash the dishes" isn't ambiguous as to politeness. Adding the tag softens the command somewhat and gives us a different speech act, more of a request than a command.
Herb
Karl and Johanna,
Your post was very illuminating and spoke well to my orientation. You showed at once that the missing subject of an imperative means "you" and that there is a missing auxiliary meaning "will." That any verb governed by the modal auxiliary must have the form of an infinitive is a strong rule. I won't argue with you on that one. Apparently the only formal element missing in your characterization of the tag question is "tense":
[PRO (you)] [TNS (present)] [MODAL (will)] take out the garbage, won't you.
Thank you for setting me straight.
Bruce
>>> [log in to unmask] 3/8/2005 10:59:56 AM >>>
Like Johanna and others, I don't see the imperative as a finite form.
Quite apart from the semantics, I think that the implications of the
implied "you," a topic which has already been raised, point us towards
seeing why the form is the infinitive.
One of the strongest pieces of evidence for saying that "you" really is
the implied subject of an imperative is the behavior of tag questions:
Take out the garbage, won't you.
The subject of the tag question has to agree with the subject of the
main clause, and the fact that we can't replace "you" with any other
pronoun strongly suggests an implied subject.
But a second requirement for tag questions is that the verb in the tag
be a copy of the first auxiliary verb in the main clause (e.g., "George
is coming, isn't he?"). When there's no auxiliary, we fall back on the
dummy verb DO (e.g., "George came, didn't he?").
The tag question of an imperative, however, does not use DO. It uses the
negative of "will." In other words, imperatives don't just have an
implied "you"--they also have an implied modal auxiliary, "will.":
[PRO] [MODAL] take out the garbage.
And, of course, the verb form used after any modal auxiliary is the
infinitive.
Karl Hagen
Department of English
Mount St. Mary's College
Johanna Rubba wrote:
> 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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