‘Inverted’ imperatives

Imperatives in English occur with Subject do(n’t) order as well as with the reverse order do(n’t) Subject . Well-established assumptions about inverted order in interrogatives have led previous studies to assume that in apparently inverted imperative constructions, do(n’t) has similarly been placed in C above the subject in SpecIP. I argue that the (non-)inverted orders rather occur because there is variation in the position of subjects in imperatives. This analysis is shown to account for a cluster of other properties that characterise the imperative. The syntax of imperatives is relevant to a number of current issues in syntactic theory, such as the status of the EPP, the motivation for Move and the apparent problem of optional displacement.

Published online: 13 July 2007
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.103.11rup