Who benefits from an imperative? Assessment of directives on a benefit scale

Tatiana Perevozchikova and Anna Chromá
University of Tübingen | Charles University

The distribution of benefits associated with a projected future action has been considered important in determining the type of directive expressed by an imperative. However, there has been little research on how speakers perceive the beneficiary of future action in imperatives and how these perceptions are influenced by the linguistic forms in the imperative utterance. This article reports on an experiment on Czech that tests whether the distinction between imperatives benefiting the speaker and imperatives benefiting the addressee is valid and whether it is influenced by the grammatical person of a modal verb expressing a rationale for the imperative. The results show that imperatives preceded by a first-person modal are judged as benefiting the speaker and imperatives preceded by a second-person modal as benefiting the addressee. The study thus demonstrates how the exact same imperative can be linguistically manipulated to be interpreted as benefiting either the speaker or the addressee.

Publication history

Date received: 7 October 2024

Date accepted: 23 January 2026

Published online: 17 September 2026

Table of contents

1.Introduction

Imperatives are known to express a wide range of speech acts, from commands, orders and requests, as in (1a)–(1c), to suggestions, invitations and good wishes, as in (1d)–(1f).

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  1. Put the gun down!

  2. Behave yourself!

  3. Please clean up the kitchen after use.

  4. Give yourself a break.

  5. Come to the party tomorrow.

  6. Have a nice trip.

One of the factors influencing which speech act an imperative performs in each context is a distribution of costs and benefits for the speaker and the addressee associated with a projected future action (e.g. Leech 1983Leech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarLeech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 107; Takahashi 2012Takahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarTakahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 82–83; Couper-Kuhlen 2014Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 2014 “What Does Grammar Tell Us about Action?” Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–647.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarCouper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 2014 “What Does Grammar Tell Us about Action?” Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–647.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). In general, commands and requests have been analyzed as involving costs for the addressee and benefits for the speaker, whereas offers and suggestions are seen as involving the addressee benefiting from the projected future action (Couper-Kuhlen 2014Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 2014 “What Does Grammar Tell Us about Action?” Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–647.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarCouper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 2014 “What Does Grammar Tell Us about Action?” Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–647.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar).

The relevance of cost and benefit distribution to the use of imperatives and directives in general has long been noted in the literature (Ervin-Tripp 1976Ervin-Tripp, Susan M. 1976 “Is Sybil There? The Structure of Some American English Directives.” Language in Society 5: 25–66. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarErvin-Tripp, Susan M. 1976 “Is Sybil There? The Structure of Some American English Directives.” Language in Society 5: 25–66. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 31–32; Leech 1983Leech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarLeech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 107; Brown and Levinson 1987Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarBrown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 127) but has rarely been the focus of analysis. Specifically, in available accounts of the benefit distribution, the judgment of how the speaker and the addressee are likely to evaluate the benefit of an imperative is done by an individual researcher. There have been few attempts to make the description of the benefit factor more objective and empirically grounded by showing to what extent speakers of the same language community share this individual judgment. Moreover, despite a growing awareness that the choice of linguistic features, in addition to a complex set of extra-linguistic conditions for action (Clayman and Heritage 2014Clayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarClayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Couper-Kuhlen 2014Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 2014 “What Does Grammar Tell Us about Action?” Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–647.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarCouper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 2014 “What Does Grammar Tell Us about Action?” Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–647.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), can influence the construction of a beneficiary, there has been little empirical research on which specific linguistic features are used for this purpose. In the few studies that are available (Portner 2007Portner, Paul 2007 “Imperatives and Modals.” Natural Language Semantics 15: 351–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarPortner, Paul 2007 “Imperatives and Modals.” Natural Language Semantics 15: 351–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; de Hoop et al. 2016de Hoop, Helen, Jetske Klatter, Gijs Mulder, and Tijn Schmitz 2016 “Imperatives and Politeness in Dutch.” In Linguistics in the Netherlands, ed. by Jenny Audring, and Sander Lestrade, 41–53. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholarde Hoop, Helen, Jetske Klatter, Gijs Mulder, and Tijn Schmitz 2016 “Imperatives and Politeness in Dutch.” In Linguistics in the Netherlands, ed. by Jenny Audring, and Sander Lestrade, 41–53. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Rossi 2017Rossi, Giovanni 2017 “Secondary and Deviant Uses of the Imperative for Requesting in Italian.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 103–137. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarRossi, Giovanni 2017 “Secondary and Deviant Uses of the Imperative for Requesting in Italian.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 103–137. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), the contribution of linguistic features to the construction of the beneficiary of the imperative action has not been isolated from a bundle of other linguistic and situational characteristics of a directive speech act.

In this paper, we focus on the benefit factor and attempt to determine the role of linguistic structure in the construction of the beneficiary of a future action expressed by an imperative. Based on experimental data from Czech, we aim to answer two questions. First, to what extent would speakers of the same language share the interpretation of an imperative as benefiting the speaker or the addressee? Second, could beneficiary be manipulated separately from other situational aspects, specifically by manipulation of the grammatical person of the verb describing the reason for the imperative in the preceding clause?

We begin by reviewing available accounts of the benefit factor in imperatives in general, then discuss studies of the contribution of linguistic structures to the interpretation of benefit and then formulate the hypotheses for the study (Section 2). Section 3 outlines the methodology. The results are described in Section 4 and discussed in Section 5.

2.Theoretical preliminaries

The imperative is a verb form morphologically marked for the imperative mood. In Czech, the 2P singular imperative is derived from the non-past stem with either a null or -i/-ej ending, and the 2P plural imperatives with -te/-ete/-ejte endings (Janda and Townsend 2000Janda, Laura A., and Charles E. Townsend 2000 Czech. Munich: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarJanda, Laura A., and Charles E. Townsend 2000 Czech. Munich: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 37). Apart from number, imperatives in Czech are morphologically marked for familiarity (familiar T/formal V) and aspect (perfective/imperfective) (Naughton 2005Naughton, James 2005 Czech: An Essential Grammar. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarNaughton, James 2005 Czech: An Essential Grammar. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 157–158).

The prototypical function of an imperative is to carry out a directive (Aikhenvald 2010Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2010 Imperatives and Commands. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarAikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2010 Imperatives and Commands. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Jary and Kissine 2014Jary, Mark, and Mikhail Kissine 2014 Imperatives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarJary, Mark, and Mikhail Kissine 2014 Imperatives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). A directive provides the addressee with a reason to act (Jary and Kissin 2014Jary, Mark, and Mikhail Kissine 2014 Imperatives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarJary, Mark, and Mikhail Kissine 2014 Imperatives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 58), it “expresses a proposition representing a potential situation: the realisation or actualisation of that situation constitutes compliance with the directive” (Huddleston and Pullum 2002Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum 2002 The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarHuddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum 2002 The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 929). For a long time, the directive function of imperatives has been understood as “verbal coercion”, i.e. getting the addressee to do something that may not be in his/her interest but benefits the speaker (Auer 2017Auer, Peter 2017 “Epilogue. Imperatives — The Language of Immediate Action.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 411–423. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarAuer, Peter 2017 “Epilogue. Imperatives — The Language of Immediate Action.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 411–423. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 412). Recent studies, however, emphasize that imperatives can express a variety of directive meanings that differ (among other things) in terms of who is presented as benefiting from compliance with the directive.

Auer (2017Auer, Peter 2017 “Epilogue. Imperatives — The Language of Immediate Action.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 411–423. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarAuer, Peter 2017 “Epilogue. Imperatives — The Language of Immediate Action.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 411–423. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 414) argues that the prototypical meaning of imperative is to prompt (or prevent) “an immediate action in a tight and well-defined temporal framework, which at the same time is not to the benefit of the speaker (alone), but either to that of the recipient or both participants”. In less prototypical cases, one of these two core features may be abandoned. On the one hand, the addressee’s action may be more in the speaker’s interest than in the addressee’s, while the action is still immediately relevant. On the other hand, the immediacy of the action may not be relevant, while the benefit of the action to the addressee is foregrounded. The former uses fall under requests, while the latter uses fall under ‘benefactives’, including recommendations, suggestions, proposals and invitations (Auer 2017Auer, Peter 2017 “Epilogue. Imperatives — The Language of Immediate Action.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 411–423. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarAuer, Peter 2017 “Epilogue. Imperatives — The Language of Immediate Action.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 411–423. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 414).

The distribution of benefits associated with a future action has been cited as an important factor in distinguishing different types of directives carried out by an imperative (Huntley 1984Huntley, Martin 1984 “The Semantics of English Imperatives.” Linguistics and Philosophy 7: 103–133. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarHuntley, Martin 1984 “The Semantics of English Imperatives.” Linguistics and Philosophy 7: 103–133. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Huddleston and Pullum 2002Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum 2002 The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarHuddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum 2002 The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 929–931; Aikhenvald 2010Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2010 Imperatives and Commands. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarAikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2010 Imperatives and Commands. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 198–199). However, only a few theoretical accounts (reviewed in the next section) have discussed this factor in detail, and even fewer (de Hoop et al. 2016de Hoop, Helen, Jetske Klatter, Gijs Mulder, and Tijn Schmitz 2016 “Imperatives and Politeness in Dutch.” In Linguistics in the Netherlands, ed. by Jenny Audring, and Sander Lestrade, 41–53. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholarde Hoop, Helen, Jetske Klatter, Gijs Mulder, and Tijn Schmitz 2016 “Imperatives and Politeness in Dutch.” In Linguistics in the Netherlands, ed. by Jenny Audring, and Sander Lestrade, 41–53. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) have investigated it empirically.

2.1Distribution of benefits in imperatives

From the perspective of interactional linguistics, Couper-Kuhlen (2014)Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 2014 “What Does Grammar Tell Us about Action?” Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–647.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarCouper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 2014 “What Does Grammar Tell Us about Action?” Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–647.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar argues that participants distinguish different types of directive-commissive acts in terms of two parameters: who is supposed to be the agent and who is supposed to be the beneficiary of the future action. Speech acts that frame the future action as something to be performed by the addressee in the interest of the speaker are requests. Speech acts that advocate a future action to be performed by the addressee for the benefit of the addressee are suggestions. Finally, acts with costs for the speaker and benefits for the addressee are offers. Couper-Kuhlen (2014)Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 2014 “What Does Grammar Tell Us about Action?” Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–647.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarCouper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 2014 “What Does Grammar Tell Us about Action?” Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–647.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar shows that although each act can be expressed with several structural forms, there is a preferred grammatical structure for performing a particular act, e.g. requests are most often performed with imperatives and offers with questions.

Taking up Couper-Kuhlen’s framework, Clayman and Heritage (2014)Clayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarClayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar elaborate on the benefit factor by proposing a distinction between the benefactive stance and the benefactive status. The benefactive stance refers to the speaker’s action to convey a distribution of benefits associated with a future action, which is encoded in a grammatical form of the utterance as suggested by Couper-Kuhlen (2014)Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 2014 “What Does Grammar Tell Us about Action?” Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–647.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarCouper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 2014 “What Does Grammar Tell Us about Action?” Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–647.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar. Benefit status refers to the underlying conditions of the action, including aspects such as whether the action will actually benefit the recipient, whether the performer of the action is able and willing to perform it, whether the cost to the performer is high or low, and whether the action should be performed immediately (Clayman and Heritage 2014Clayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarClayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 6). They argue that these elements of benefactive status are often indexed in the linguistic construction of a speech act in accordance with the benefactive stance. The speaker makes the benefactive stance and status relevant with varying degrees of self-consciousness and explicitness. The speaker can formulate the act to make the benefactive stance more or less explicit by emphasizing the benefits and downplaying the costs, but only within the limits of the benefactive status, especially when the benefactive status of the participants is determined, asymmetrical and mutually known (Clayman and Heritage 2014Clayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarClayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 33–34). Clayman and Heritage (2014)Clayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarClayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar leave the details of how the management of the benefactive status is linguistically realized to future research.

The benefit factor plays an important role in Cognitive Grammar accounts of imperatives and directives, which are based on the assumption that, in order to determine the strength of the illocutionary force of imperatives, speakers estimate pragmatic factors such as desire, power, cost-benefit, capability, and obligation/optionality (Thornburg and Panther 1997Thornburg, Linda, and Klaus-Uwe Panther 1997 “Speech Act Metonymies.” In Discourse and Perspective in Cognitive Linguistics, ed. by Wolf-Andreas Lierbert, Gisela Redeker, and Linda Waugh, 205–219. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarThornburg, Linda, and Klaus-Uwe Panther 1997 “Speech Act Metonymies.” In Discourse and Perspective in Cognitive Linguistics, ed. by Wolf-Andreas Lierbert, Gisela Redeker, and Linda Waugh, 205–219. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Hernandez and Mendoza 2002Hernandez, Perez Lorena, and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza 2002 “Grounding, Semantic Motivation, and Conceptual Interaction in Indirect Directive Speech acts.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 259–284. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarHernandez, Perez Lorena, and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza 2002 “Grounding, Semantic Motivation, and Conceptual Interaction in Indirect Directive Speech acts.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 259–284. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Takahashi 2012Takahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarTakahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Takahashi (2012)Takahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarTakahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar provides a detailed treatment of the benefit factor in his scalar approach to imperatives, which is based on the notion of imperative force described in terms of six components: desire, capability, power, cost, benefit, and obligation. The benefit parameter refers to the extent to which the speaker considers the proposed action to be beneficial or non-beneficial (Takahashi 2012Takahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarTakahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 80). Treating the speaker’s benefit and the addressee’s benefit separately, Takahashi (2012Takahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarTakahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 80) suggests analyzing the speaker’s benefit in terms of five different values from [+2] to [−2]. The [+2] value is typical for imperatives such as Please lend me some money, whose realization is highly beneficial for the speaker and at the same time very costly for the addressee. The value [+1] occurs in imperatives such as Just give me your address in the situation of a customer service agent addressing a customer who is asking for repair work. Zero and minus values are reserved for non-literal uses of imperatives, i.e. the value [0] applies to concessive or genuinely hypothetical imperatives, and minus values to warnings, threats or dares, as in Say that again and I’ll knock your head off! The benefit to the addressee is analyzed as taking three values, [0], [−1] or [−2]. The value [0] applies to an imperative such as Enjoy the show or (If you want to go to the airport) go straight ahead, where the proposed action primarily benefits the addressee (Takahashi 2012Takahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarTakahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 82–83). Although Takahashi (2012)Takahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarTakahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar does not explain what the negative values of the addressee’s benefit stand for, they probably correspond to the values [+2] and [+1] of the speaker’s benefit. Takahashi (2012)Takahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarTakahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar acknowledges that all scales, including the benefit scale, were constructed based on intuition and need empirical validation.

Leech (1983)Leech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarLeech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar drew attention to the benefit factor in the context of politeness associated with different illocutionary acts. He suggested that in directives, i.e. illocutions that refer in their propositional content to an action to be performed by the hearer, the action can be evaluated in terms of what the speaker assumes to be its cost or benefit to the speaker or hearer. On the basis of this evaluation, an action can be placed on a cost-benefit scale, as shown in (2).

(2)

cost-benefit scale (Leech 1983Leech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarLeech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 107)

(a) Peel these potatoes. benefit to S less polite
(b) Hand me the newspaper.
(c) Sit down.
(d) Look at that.
(e) Enjoy your holiday.
ex2.svg
ex2.svg
(f) Have another sandwich. benefit to H more polite

Although the propositional content of all the sentences in (2) is “rude to H in that it attributes some effort, trouble or cost to H”, Leech (1983Leech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarLeech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 107) notes that “at some rather indeterminate point on the scale (depending on the context) the relevant value becomes benefit to H rather than cost to H”. In general, imperatives that imply a higher cost to H are associated with a less polite interpretation of the imperative by H than imperatives that imply a benefit to H.

Leech (1983)Leech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarLeech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar notes that the cost-benefit scale consists of two scales, cost-benefit to S and cost-benefit to H. However, these two measures typically vary inversely, i.e. a positive position on one necessarily implies a negative position on the other, and it is therefore unnecessary to distinguish between them (Leech 1983Leech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarLeech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 124). Leech also points out that the assessment of cost-benefit is made on the basis of socially accepted rights and duties and illustrates this by the example of a passenger p asking a driver d to stop the bus at the bus stop versus in front of p’s house. In both cases, the amount of inconvenience or effort on the part of the driver is the same, but the imposition is greater in the latter case, where the driver is being asked to do something as a personal favor (Leech 1983Leech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarLeech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 128–129).

This brief review shows that in theoretical accounts of imperatives and directives, the benefit of the future action to the speaker and the addressee has been recognized as an important factor in determining the type of directive expressed by an imperative. Specifically, a distinction has been proposed between imperatives that benefit the speaker on the one hand and those that benefit the addressee on the other. The empirical validity of this distinction, i.e. the extent to which speakers perceive imperatives that benefit the speaker as different from those that benefit the addressee, has not yet been established.

The only available study that addresses this question is the one by de Hoop et al. (2016)de Hoop, Helen, Jetske Klatter, Gijs Mulder, and Tijn Schmitz 2016 “Imperatives and Politeness in Dutch.” In Linguistics in the Netherlands, ed. by Jenny Audring, and Sander Lestrade, 41–53. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholarde Hoop, Helen, Jetske Klatter, Gijs Mulder, and Tijn Schmitz 2016 “Imperatives and Politeness in Dutch.” In Linguistics in the Netherlands, ed. by Jenny Audring, and Sander Lestrade, 41–53. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar. This experimental study investigates how two types of imperatives, those constructed for the benefit of the speaker (Ruim de keuken op ‘Clean up the kitchen’) and those constructed for the benefit of the addressee (Maak er een leuke dag van ‘Have a nice day’), are perceived by native Dutch speakers. In a pretest, twenty-six participants read imperative sentences and got an open-ended task to characterize the speaker who uttered the imperative. The characteristics of the speaker were then classified by the researchers as positive (e.g. aardig ‘nice’, diplomatiek ‘diplomatic’), negative (e.g. bazig ‘bossy’, kortaf ‘short’) or neutral. The results showed that imperatives coded by the researchers as benefiting the speaker were likely to elicit negative traits, suggesting that they are interpreted as direct orders from the speaker, who has power over the addressee. Imperatives coded as benefiting the addressee, on the other hand, were interpreted as invitations or offers (de Hoop 2016de Hoop, Helen, Jetske Klatter, Gijs Mulder, and Tijn Schmitz 2016 “Imperatives and Politeness in Dutch.” In Linguistics in the Netherlands, ed. by Jenny Audring, and Sander Lestrade, 41–53. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholarde Hoop, Helen, Jetske Klatter, Gijs Mulder, and Tijn Schmitz 2016 “Imperatives and Politeness in Dutch.” In Linguistics in the Netherlands, ed. by Jenny Audring, and Sander Lestrade, 41–53. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 47). In the main experiment, thirty-seven participants were given the same task only with a forced-choice format — they were choosing one characteristic from a pool of fourteen possibilities selected in the pretest. The results showed that imperatives coded as benefiting the addressee were interpreted more positively than those that were in the speaker’s interest. The study showed that the distinction between two types of imperatives is important for their interpretation. However, the classification of imperatives as being in the speaker’s or addressee’s interest was based on the researchers’ intuition, as was the classification of the characteristics given by the participants as being negative, positive or neutral. The specific imperative stimuli did not only differ in terms of being in the speaker’s or addressee’s interest, but certainly also in many other ways (Clean the kitchen vs. Have a nice day), so that the beneficiary of the imperatives was correlated with, for example, the positive or negative characteristics of the content conveyed by the utterances. In the present study, we address these issues by keeping the imperative utterance the same and manipulating the context around it, as well as by collecting data from a sample of native speakers to confirm our intuition about the beneficiary of the imperatives.

2.2The effects of linguistic structure

Most accounts of the benefit factor emphasize that the speaker’s and addressee’s evaluations of benefits vary according to extralinguistic features of the speech situation (Leech 1983Leech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarLeech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 128–129; Hernandez and Mendoza 2002Hernandez, Perez Lorena, and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza 2002 “Grounding, Semantic Motivation, and Conceptual Interaction in Indirect Directive Speech acts.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 259–284. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarHernandez, Perez Lorena, and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza 2002 “Grounding, Semantic Motivation, and Conceptual Interaction in Indirect Directive Speech acts.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 259–284. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 268; Clayman and Heritage 2014Clayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarClayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 5). However, there is also some evidence that the choice of specific linguistic structures surrounding the imperative influences how the distribution of benefit is construed.

Particles have long been known to influence the force of the imperative in many languages (Aikhenvald 2010Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2010 Imperatives and Commands. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarAikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2010 Imperatives and Commands. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 203). In the study by de Hoop et al. (2016)de Hoop, Helen, Jetske Klatter, Gijs Mulder, and Tijn Schmitz 2016 “Imperatives and Politeness in Dutch.” In Linguistics in the Netherlands, ed. by Jenny Audring, and Sander Lestrade, 41–53. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholarde Hoop, Helen, Jetske Klatter, Gijs Mulder, and Tijn Schmitz 2016 “Imperatives and Politeness in Dutch.” In Linguistics in the Netherlands, ed. by Jenny Audring, and Sander Lestrade, 41–53. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, they found that the addition of a discourse particle makes the interpretation of an imperative that benefits the speaker more positive. Portner (2007Portner, Paul 2007 “Imperatives and Modals.” Natural Language Semantics 15: 351–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarPortner, Paul 2007 “Imperatives and Modals.” Natural Language Semantics 15: 351–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 378) suggests that in the central Rhaetoromance language Badiotto, the particle ma is used to describe an action that benefits the hearer, such as Eat it and you’ll grow or Take a day off for a holiday, while mo describes an action that benefits the speaker, such as Polish my shoes or Get my bath ready. Based on the idea that the semantics of imperatives and modal verbs are related, Portner (2007)Portner, Paul 2007 “Imperatives and Modals.” Natural Language Semantics 15: 351–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarPortner, Paul 2007 “Imperatives and Modals.” Natural Language Semantics 15: 351–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar then reformulates description of imperatives in Badiotto in terms of modal functions. He claims that imperatives with ma are interpreted in terms of the selection functions ‘bouletic’ or ‘teleo’ (corresponding to the meaning of the modal verb should), leading to the speech acts of invitation and suggestion. Imperatives with mo are interpreted as commands by selecting the function ‘deontic’ (corresponding to the modal verb must) (Portner 2007Portner, Paul 2007 “Imperatives and Modals.” Natural Language Semantics 15: 351–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarPortner, Paul 2007 “Imperatives and Modals.” Natural Language Semantics 15: 351–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 378).

Portner (2007)Portner, Paul 2007 “Imperatives and Modals.” Natural Language Semantics 15: 351–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarPortner, Paul 2007 “Imperatives and Modals.” Natural Language Semantics 15: 351–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar also argues that in a sequence with an imperative followed by a modal, or a modal followed by an imperative, the latter is interpreted in terms of the same kind of modality as the former. He gives Example (3), claiming that sentence (a) with a deontic modal forces the addressee to interpret (b) as an order, although this interpretation is strange because its natural interpretation is a suggestion. Portner (2007Portner, Paul 2007 “Imperatives and Modals.” Natural Language Semantics 15: 351–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarPortner, Paul 2007 “Imperatives and Modals.” Natural Language Semantics 15: 351–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 362) explains this difficulty in switching interpretation within a discourse unit by the fact that people care about “particular kinds of rationale for action (e.g. authority, desires, goals)” and focus on one kind of rationale for action at a time.

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  1. You must be there at least two hours early.

  2. Then have a bite to eat in that cute little place on the corner.

Pronouns are another linguistic structure that seems to influence the construction of the beneficiary of the future action in imperatives. Clayman and Heritage (2014Clayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarClayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 7–8) mention that one way to construct the distribution of benefits is to refer to the needs of the participants, giving examples with second-person pronouns for the needs of the addressee and with first-person pronouns for the interests of the speaker. Rossi (2017)Rossi, Giovanni 2017 “Secondary and Deviant Uses of the Imperative for Requesting in Italian.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 103–137. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarRossi, Giovanni 2017 “Secondary and Deviant Uses of the Imperative for Requesting in Italian.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 103–137. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, in his study of requests in Italian, states that imperatives are mainly used in informal conversation as requests for actions that are linked to a larger course of action and benefit both the requester and the requestee. The use of the imperative for requests that only benefit the speaker is less frequent and has to be linguistically marked by the inclusion of first-person dative pronouns (mi ‘to/for me’).

This evidence suggests that some grammatical features of the utterance containing the imperative contribute to how the distribution of benefits is constructed in interaction. The precise contribution of specific grammatical features remains to be described. In this study, we use experimental methodology to determine whether a specific linguistic feature, the grammatical person of the modal verb giving a rationale for the imperative, has an independent influence on the perception of the beneficiary of the future action in imperatives.

2.3Research aims and hypotheses

The present study investigates how native speakers of Czech evaluate the benefit of the future action for the speaker/addressee in imperative sentences. The key characteristics of the study follow from two disagreements with the previous literature. First, unlike Leech (1983)Leech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarLeech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, we don’t think that there is one cost-benefit scale for each of the participants (speaker and hearer/addressee) that would typically vary inversely. Instead, we assume that the benefits are separate from the costs and the costs are always on the addressee’s side, while the benefits might be distributed diversely. We thus focus on the distribution of benefits while disregarding the costs.

Second, unlike de Hoop et al. (2016)de Hoop, Helen, Jetske Klatter, Gijs Mulder, and Tijn Schmitz 2016 “Imperatives and Politeness in Dutch.” In Linguistics in the Netherlands, ed. by Jenny Audring, and Sander Lestrade, 41–53. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholarde Hoop, Helen, Jetske Klatter, Gijs Mulder, and Tijn Schmitz 2016 “Imperatives and Politeness in Dutch.” In Linguistics in the Netherlands, ed. by Jenny Audring, and Sander Lestrade, 41–53. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, we don’t expect the speaker-benefiting interpretation to be necessarily associated with negative characteristics of the speaker. Although we would hypothesize that the speaker-benefiting imperatives might be as such perceived as less polite (not necessarily more negative), this was not empirically tested, and our study also does not focus on this aspect. Generally, we argue that it is possible (and necessary) to separate the ‘positive-negative evaluation’ from the ‘beneficiary evaluation’ to eliminate confounds from the results.

Our aim thus is to test whether and how it is possible to manipulate the beneficiary separately from the other possible confounds. To fulfill this aim, we conducted an experiment in which Czech native speakers were asked to judge the benefit of the imperative to the speaker and to the addressee. We kept the stimulus imperative utterance the same while manipulating the modal verb preceding the imperative to refer either to the speaker (first person form, 1P) or to the addressee (second person form, 2P). In our stimuli, the modal verb and the imperative were uttered in a situation that allowed plausible use of both first and second person forms. While the first-person modal verb modulated the utterance as an expression of the speaker’s need, the second-person modal verb modulated it as an expression of the addressee’s need (but identified by the speaker). The imperative then aimed at fulfilling the respective need. We expected that the imperative following a need expressed in 1P would be evaluated as benefiting the speaker, and the same imperative following the same need expressed in 2P would be evaluated as benefiting the addressee.

3.Method

3.1Participants

Participants were fifty-eight adult native speakers of Czech (twelve males, mean age = 22.5, SD age = 3.7), recruited from the students at Charles University in Prague. They volunteered to participate in the study for course credit.

3.2Materials and design

The materials used for the experiment included a set of twenty-four items. Each item described a situation including a speaker and an addressee, who were introduced through their social roles, mostly based on occupation or societal functions (e.g., organizer/helper, nurse/patient, warehouse keeper/worker, librarian/library visitor, etc.). The introduction was followed by two direct-speech utterances opening with the name(s) of the imaginary addressee(s) in the vocative case (e.g., Honzo, Františku, Lucie, etc.) and containing a modal verb and an imperative. The critical imperative utterance consisted of a ditransitive verb of position (place, put, hang, bring) in the morphologically imperative mood, a place adverb (here/there), and an inanimate accusative object modified by a reflexive possessive. Each imperative sentence closed with the politeness marker prosím ‘please’. Twelve different lexemes were used in the imperative, meaning that each verb lexeme occurred twice in the whole set of twenty-four test items. The combinations of the imperative verbs and their objects are displayed in Figure 5.

Each of the items occurred in four conditions according to the combination of two variables, person of the modal verb (1P or 2P) and number (singular or plural). The critical variable for the study was the person of the modal verb. We hypothesized that 1P modal verb will trigger speaker-benefiting interpretation of the imperative, and 2P modal verb will trigger addressee-benefiting interpretation.

Number was controlled for the following reason. The stimuli were constructed with a follow-up study in mind that will test how the imperative benefit (measured as a function of the person of the modal verb in the present experiment) alongside number (and other factors) influence the choice of a reflexive vs. non-reflexive possessive pronoun in the imperative utterance. While constructing the stimuli, we realized that there is likely to be a difference in the evaluation of the imperative benefit in the plural vs in the singular due to the inclusive or exclusive interpretation of the 1P plural form in Czech. In Czech, as in most European languages, the 1P plural can be interpreted as either including or excluding the addressee and is thus ambiguous in this respect. This could lead to a higher indeterminacy regarding who is thought to benefit from the action described by the plural imperative, speaker or addressee. In the plural condition, both speaker and addressee were plural and thus all the verbs agreeing with them in number were also plural. The object of the imperative verb was plural as well.

An example of a test item in the four conditions based on the two variables is given in (4a)–(4d). In (4a), an example instruction for the participants is also presented (Decide who will…).

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  1. Organizátor se při rozdělování činností před závodem obrací na pomocníka: “Honzo, musím sledovat čas, ale nemám stopky. Přines sem svůj mobil, prosím.”

    Rozhodněte, kdo bude mít hlavní prospěch z toho, když Honza přinese svůj mobil: pouze mluvčí (organizátor) — oba stejně — pouze adresát (Honza)

    The organizer turns to his helper while dividing up the pre-race activities, “Honza, I have to keep track of the time, but I don’t have a stopwatch. Bring your cell phone here, please.”

    Decide who will be the main beneficiary when Honza brings his mobile phone: only the speaker (organizer) — both equally — only the addressee (Honza)

  2. Organizátor se při rozdělování činností před závodem obrací na pomocníka: “Honzo, musíš sledovat čas, ale nemáš stopky. Přines sem svůj mobil, prosím.”

    The organizer turns to the helper while dividing up the pre-race activities, “Honza, you have to keep track of the time, but you don’t have a stopwatch. Bring your cell phone here, please.”

  3. Organizátoři se při rozdělování činností před závodem obracejí na pomocníky: “Františku, Lucie, musíme sledovat čas, ale nemáme stopky. Přineste sem svoje mobily, prosím.”

    The organizers turn to the helpers when dividing up the pre-race activities, “František, Lucie, we have to keep track of the time, but we don’t have a stopwatch. Bring your cell phones here, please.”

  4. Organizátoři se při rozdělování činností před závodem obracejí na pomocníky: “Františku, Lucie, musíte sledovat čas, ale nemáte stopky. Přineste sem svoje mobily, prosím.”

    The organizers turn to the helpers when dividing up the pre-race activities, “František, Lucie, you have to keep track of the time, but you don’t have a stopwatch. Bring your cell phones here, please.”

3.3Procedure

The experiment was conducted online using the IbexFarm platform (Zehr and Schwarz 2018Zehr, Jérémy, and Florian Schwarz 2018 PennController for Internet Based Experiments (IBEX). Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarZehr, Jérémy, and Florian Schwarz 2018 PennController for Internet Based Experiments (IBEX). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). All participants interested in the study received a link for the experiment. On the introductory pages, they were given some general information about the study and were asked to give informed consent with participation. They had to indicate their gender, age, native language, any language or reading disabilities, and field of study. After that, participants received specific instructions about what they were required to do. They were asked to read the stimuli carefully and answer the question indicated in (4a) by assessing whether the speaker or the addressee is more likely to benefit from the proposition of the imperative.

Participants indicated their decision on a continuous scale designed as a semantic differential with ‘only the speaker’ and ‘only the addressee’ being the two extreme positions. Figure 1 represents the appearance of the scale at each trial except that the participants did not see the corresponding number values used by IbexFarm to represent their responses in the exported data frame.

Each trial started with the slider placed in the middle. To start the next trial, the slider had to be moved at least slightly even in the case that the participant wanted to respond with the middle position. We decided that such a scale is a more appropriate way of representing the benefit assessment than a binary choice because we considered benefit assessment a matter of degree rather than all or nothing decision.

Figure 1.Schematic depiction of the semantic differential scale used in the experiment
Figure 1.

Three initial stimuli were practice trials where the participants should get familiar with the task. Once a participant had pressed the space bar, the first stimulus appeared on the screen. After the participant had responded and pressed the space bar again, the next stimulus appeared. We applied a full within-subject design, i.e., each participant had all the ninety-six stimuli to evaluate. The order of the stimuli was pseudorandomized so that stimuli from one item would not follow soon after each other. There were three simple control items determining the attention of the participants. The experiment took about 20–25 minutes to complete.

3.4Data analysis

The analysis was conducted using R (R core Team 2024R Core Team 2024 R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Vienna, Austria. 〈https://​www​.R​-project​.org/〉.R Core Team 2024 R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Vienna, Austria. 〈https://​www​.R​-project​.org/〉.) and RStudio (Posit Team 2023Posit team 2023 RStudio: Integrated Development Environment for R. Posit Software, PBC. Boston, MA. 〈http://​www​.posit​.co/〉.Posit team 2023 RStudio: Integrated Development Environment for R. Posit Software, PBC. Boston, MA. 〈http://​www​.posit​.co/〉.), applying the tidyverse (Wickham et al. 2019Wickham, Hadley, Mara Averick, Jennifer Bryan, et al. 2019 “Welcome to the Tidyverse.” Journal of Open Source Software 4 (43): 1686. 〈 〉.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarWickham, Hadley, Mara Averick, Jennifer Bryan, et al. 2019 “Welcome to the Tidyverse.” Journal of Open Source Software 4 (43): 1686. 〈 〉.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), lsr (Navarro 2015Navarro, Danielle 2015 Learning Statistics with R: A Tutorial for Psychology Students and Other Beginners (Version 0.6). Sydney: University of New South Wales.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarNavarro, Danielle 2015 Learning Statistics with R: A Tutorial for Psychology Students and Other Beginners (Version 0.6). Sydney: University of New South Wales.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), lmerTest (Kuznetsova et al. 2017Kuznetsova, Alexandra, Per B. Brockhoff, Rune H. B. Christensen 2017 “lmerTest Package: Tests in Linear Mixed Effects Models.” Journal of Statistical Software 82 (13): 1–26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarKuznetsova, Alexandra, Per B. Brockhoff, Rune H. B. Christensen 2017 “lmerTest Package: Tests in Linear Mixed Effects Models.” Journal of Statistical Software 82 (13): 1–26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), and ggeffects (Lüdecke 2018Lüdecke, Daniel 2018 “ggeffects: Tidy Data Frames of Marginal Effects from Regression Models.” Journal of Open Source Software 3 (26): 772. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarLüdecke, Daniel 2018 “ggeffects: Tidy Data Frames of Marginal Effects from Regression Models.” Journal of Open Source Software 3 (26): 772. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) packages.

First, we excluded irrelevant data by removing data from eight participants who indicated other language than Czech as their native language and from another four participants who did not pay attention to the experiment appropriately based on their responses to the control items. This resulted in a sample of fifty-eight participants.

We then based the visualization of the data on calculating mean rating for each condition and each individual item/participant. The critical inferential analysis consisted of a mixed-effect linear regression model that included person of the modal verb as well as the interaction between person of the modal verb and number as fixed effects, random intercepts for participants and items, and by-item random slopes for both, person of the modal verb and number.

In a secondary analysis, we aimed at comparing the magnitude of speaker preference in 1P modal condition vs. addressee preference in 2P modal. Because the two poles of the scale were mutually exclusive, we could convert the imperative-benefit rating into two separate scales for speaker vs addressee benefit: e.g., if the rating in a particular trial was 13, thus implying high preference for speaker benefit, it was converted into 86 for speaker benefit and 13 for addressee benefit (maximum possible rating was 99); if it was 70, thus implying high preference for addressee benefit, it was converted into 70 for addressee benefit and 29 for speaker benefit. We then selected only the values for the speaker benefit in 1P modal condition and addressee benefit in 2P modal condition to analyze the difference in their magnitude. For this new dependent variable called benefit magnitude, we fitted another mixed-effect linear regression model including the beneficiary (either speaker-in-1P-modal or addressee-in-2P-modal) and the interaction between beneficiary and number as fixed effects. We included similar setting of the random effects as above, only because of singularity issues, we left out the random slope for the interaction.

4.Results

We will first present a quantitative analysis of the results and then discuss individual items.

4.1Quantitative analysis

The mean ratings for each condition are plotted in Figures 2 and 3. Figure 2 shows mean ratings for individual items (small dots) averaged across participants, with large dots representing group means in each condition. Figure 3 shows means for each participant averaged across test items.

Figure 2.The mean imperative-benefit ratings with regard to the experimental conditions (person of the modal verb X grammatical number). Small shapes represent means for individual items; large shapes represent the means per condition
Figure 2.
Figure 3.The mean imperative-benefit ratings with regard to the experimental conditions (person of the modal verb X grammatical number) for individual participants
Figure 3.

Figures 2 and 3 show that in the items with 1P modal verbs, the speaker was judged as the one who is more likely to benefit from the imperative action (the dots are rather low). In the items with 2P modal verbs, participants judged the addressee as the one who is more likely to benefit from the imperative action (the triangles are rather high). We also see that this contrast was more pronounced in the singular than in the plural.

There are two other important observations from Figures 2 and 3. First, the variation of ratings across individual participants (Figure 3) is rather narrow and thus it seems to be quite consistent. Second, the participants did not use the ends of the scale, so that none of the conditions was evaluated as bringing benefit in (nearly) 100% to the speaker or (nearly) 100% to the addressee.

For the mixed-effect model, the base values of the fixed factors were set to the 1P modal + singular (β0  = 26.939, SE = 2.966, p < 0.001). The model clearly supported what was suggested by the visualization in Figures 2 and 3. First, it indicated a strong positive main effect of person of the modal verb (2P modal β1  = 44.141, SE = 3.327, t = 13.266, p < 0.001). Thus, our manipulation of this variable had the expected effect on judgments of the speaker’s/addressee’s benefit. Imperatives preceded by a 1P modal were evaluated as speaker-benefiting and the same imperatives preceded by a 2P modal were evaluated as addressee-benefiting. Second, the interaction between person of the modal verb and number was significant (1P modal + plural β2  = 11.984, SE = 1.263, t = 9.485, p < 0.001; 2P modal + plural β3  = −4.071, SE = 1.263, t = −3.222, p = 0.002). The interaction indicates that the plural ratings were higher than singular within the 1P modal condition and lower than singular within the 2P modal condition, and that the effect of number was very weak within the 2P modal condition. We do not believe this to be a true effect of number, at least not entirely. We assume that the interaction is likely to result from the not controlled variation in inclusive/exclusive interpretation of the 1P modal + plural condition. We suppose that the inclusively interpreted 1P modal + plural stimuli pushed the ratings of this condition nearer to the middle of the scale. It means that our operationalization of the speaker- vs. addressee-benefiting imperatives by manipulating person of the modal verb was more appropriate for the singular stimuli.

The secondary question we asked was whether the preference for speaker benefit in 1P modal stimuli was stronger than the preference for addressee benefit in 2P modal stimuli. In other words, we asked whether participants generally perceive the speaker as a more likely beneficiary of imperatives like the ones used in our study. To answer this question, we converted the rating scale as described above and fitted another mixed-effect model for the benefit magnitude scale. The base values of the fixed factors for this model were set to speaker-in-1P-modal+singular (β0  = 72.061, SE = 3.195, t = 22.553, p < 0.001). There was no main effect of the beneficiary (addressee-in-2P-modal β1  = −0.981, SE = 4.474, t = −0.219, p = 0.828), but the interaction between beneficiary and number was significant again (speaker-in-1P-modal+pl β1  = −11.984, SE = 1.019, t = −11.766, p < 0.001; addressee-in-2P-modal+pl β2  = −4.071, SE = 1.019, t = −3.997, p < 0.001) indicating that plural ratings were lower than singular ratings in both beneficiary conditions but this effect was much stronger within the speaker-in-1P-modal condition.

Figure 4 plots the values and the differences predicted by the benefit-magnitude model. It shows that there is no general preference for the speaker as the beneficiary of the imperatives in either the singular or the plural condition. In the plural condition, there is a stronger preference for the addressee as the beneficiary, which we believe is a confound from the inclusive reading of the 1P modal + plural stimuli, which pushes the ratings toward the middle of the original scale.

Figure 4.The magnitude of preference for speaker benefit in the 1P modal condition (the grey color) and addressee benefit in the 2P modal condition (the black color) with its 95% confidence intervals as predicted by the benefit-magnitude model
Figure 4.

To summarize the quantitative analysis, we have found that in general, 1P modal stimuli were evaluated as benefiting the speaker, and 2P modal stimuli were evaluated as benefiting the addressee. This effect was stronger in the singular than in the plural condition. Furthermore, there was no across-the-board preference for a speaker as the beneficiary of a future imperative action.

4.2Variation in individual items

Moving on to the analysis of individual items, we will now examine Figure 5, which plots the mean ratings and their 95% confidence intervals for each test item. It shows how large the difference between the two ratings (2P modal — 1P modal) is within each of the items.

Figure 5.The mean imperative-benefit ratings with respect to the experimental conditions (person of the modal verb X grammatical number) for individual items in detail. The items are ordered by the difference between their mean ratings in the singular condition
Figure 5.

There are three observations we can make from Figure 5. First, for each item there is always at least a small difference between the two conditions, and the difference is always in the expected direction: the black dot (2Pmodal) for each item is closer to the right end of the scale (beneficiary is the addressee), while the grey dot (1P modal) is closer to the left end (beneficiary is the speaker). Second, the difference between the conditions for each item is more pronounced in the singular than in the plural. Third, items sharing an imperative verb lemma are evaluated differently.

The items in Figure 5 are ordered according to the decreasing difference between the ratings of the two conditions. Thus, item 22, reported in (5), showed the largest difference between the 1P and 2P modal conditions in both the singular and plural. The 2P modal condition was judged to benefit the addressee on average by 88.9% in the singular and 86.9% in the plural, and the 1P modal condition was judged to benefit the speaker on average by 85.2% in the singular and 68.9% in the plural. The large effect of person manipulation in this example may be connected to the ambiguous nature of the situation regarding the rights and obligations of the participants. The extralinguistic context does not clarify who is expected to put the dishes away. There are self-service snack bars where customers are asked to put the dishes away, as well as snack bars where the staff takes care of it.

(5)

Servírka v bistru se obrací na pravidelného zákazníka: “Jakube, za minutku mi / ti jede autobus, nestíhám / nestíháš to uklidit. Nech tady svůj tác, prosím.”

A waitress in a snack bar addresses a regular customer, “Jakub, my / your bus is leaving in a minute, I / you can’t put the dishes away. Leave your tray here, please.”

At the bottom of Figure 5, there are items with the smallest difference between the 1P and 2P conditions. In items 02, 09, and 14, there was a large overlap between the confidence intervals of the ratings in the 1P modal and 2P modal conditions, both in the singular and in the plural. For items 02 and 14, reported in (6) and (7), respectively, there was a preference for the addressee-benefiting interpretation in both the 1P and 2P modal conditions. For item 09, reproduced in (8), the ratings of both conditions were close to the midpoint, suggesting both speaker and addressee as beneficiaries. A rather small effect of person manipulation on these items is likely due to a strong bias in the beneficiary status of the participants. For example, in the hospital setting described in (6), situational knowledge suggests the addressee as the beneficiary because it is the patient who is supposed to benefit from the medical treatment. The situation of the cloakroom in a party location in (7) implies a strong benefit for the one who leaves their clothes there because we expect cloakrooms in public places to provide a service for users. In (8), the situation of traveling together implies a strong bias toward a mutual benefit of the action of having both the speaker’s and the addressee’s tickets validated.

(6)

Sestřička na klinice upozorňuje čekající pacientku: “Hano, jestli jsi od posledně změnila pojišťovnu, musím / musíš to nahlásit v ordinaci. Přines sem svoji kartičku pojištěnce, prosím.”

A nurse at the clinic says to a waiting patient, “Hannah, if you’ve changed insurance company, I / you need to report it to the office. Bring your insurance card here, please.”

(7)

Manažer upozorňuje kolegu, který právě dorazil na firemní večírek: “Petře, tady už nemám / nemáš žádné místo, ale v zasedačce je další skříň. Pověs tam svůj kabát, prosím.”

The manager points out to a colleague who has just arrived at the company party, “Peter, I / you don’t have any more space here, but there is another cupboard in the meeting room. Hang your coat there, please.”

(8)

Při společné cestě vlakem se muž obrací na kolegu, který cestu rezervoval: “Štěpáne, blíží se průvodčí, musím / musíš najít jízdenky. Podej sem svoji tašku, prosím.”

While travelling together by train, the man turns to his colleague who has booked the journey: “Stephen, the conductor is coming; I / you must find the tickets. Hand me your bag, please.”

In summary, the analysis of individual examples shows that the effect of person manipulation was consistent across items, although the effect was stronger in some items than in others.

5.Discussion

This study investigated how Czech speakers evaluate the benefit of the imperative to the speaker/addressee with two objectives:

  1. to develop a rigorous way of operationalizing the speaker/addressee benefit of an imperative that eliminates likely confounds and investigates the role of the preceding linguistic context, specifically the grammatical person of the modal verb preceding the imperative (speaker vs. addressee perspective), in the evaluation of imperative benefit;

  2. to test the level of consistency and variability in evaluation of imperative benefit based on this operationalization in a sample of native speakers.

The results show that Czech native speakers consistently evaluated imperatives preceded by a first-person modal verb as benefiting the speaker and imperatives preceded by a second-person modal verb as benefiting the addressee, as expected by the researcher who constructed the items. Such inter-speaker consistency in the evaluation of the benefit factor in imperatives has indeed been assumed in all the accounts reviewed in the theoretical section, but our study provides empirical evidence that speakers of the same language share intuitions about whether an action described by an imperative in a given situation benefits the speaker, the addressee, or both. This finding suggests that there should be something like a cognitive model of cost-benefit evaluation of actions in social interaction shared by speakers of the same language community, as discussed by Hernandez and Mendoza (2002)Hernandez, Perez Lorena, and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza 2002 “Grounding, Semantic Motivation, and Conceptual Interaction in Indirect Directive Speech acts.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 259–284. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarHernandez, Perez Lorena, and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza 2002 “Grounding, Semantic Motivation, and Conceptual Interaction in Indirect Directive Speech acts.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 259–284. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar and by Leech (1983Leech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarLeech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 124–125). Leech (1983Leech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarLeech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 124) describes the relationship between cost-benefit analysis and illocution in terms of the “mercantile metaphor” of commercial transactions. For example, requests involve a transfer of goods or services from the addressee to the speaker, and offers involve a transfer in the opposite direction. The cost-benefit scale of the transaction entails an implicit imbalance in the relationship between speaker and addressee that must be redressed through politeness (Leech 1983Leech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarLeech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 125). While both Leech (1983)Leech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarLeech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar and Hernandez and Mendoza (2002)Hernandez, Perez Lorena, and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza 2002 “Grounding, Semantic Motivation, and Conceptual Interaction in Indirect Directive Speech acts.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 259–284. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarHernandez, Perez Lorena, and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza 2002 “Grounding, Semantic Motivation, and Conceptual Interaction in Indirect Directive Speech acts.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 259–284. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar emphasized the importance of socially accepted rights and duties as factors influencing the valuation of benefits, it is not clear to what extent these rights and duties are specific to a particular culture or valid across cultures. This is certainly an interesting question for future research. However, our results also suggested that the beneficiary of imperative action is a concept separate from the positive-negative evaluation of the action or of the speaker of the imperative and thus, it seems to be also separate from politeness per se. It is an open question whether the 1P modal vs 2P modal stimuli from our study would also differ in their perceived politeness, as they did differ in the perceived beneficiary.

The results of our study also showed that the evaluation of the imperative proposition in terms of benefit to the speaker or the addressee is a matter of degree, rather than an all-or-nothing decision. We believe that the semantic differential methodology was an appropriate way to reveal the scaling nature of benefit evaluations, as postulated by Leech (1983)Leech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarLeech, Geoffrey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar and Takahashi (2012)Takahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarTakahashi, Hidemitsu 2012 A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of the English Imperative. With Special Reference to Japanese Imperatives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar. Theoretical studies typically come up with easily interpretable, highly contrasting, and not directly comparable examples that are chosen intuitively (e.g., the speaker-beneficial Hand me the newspaper vs. addressee-beneficial Have a nice day). In our study, none of the items was rated 100% as beneficial to either the speaker or the addressee.

There are several possible explanations for why we did not find categorical judgments in benefit evaluations.

One is that the items in our study generally represented the speech acts of a request (1P modal) or a suggestion (2P modal). Since we have kept the speech acts in both our experimental conditions close to each other, we excluded the most important confounds we have identified in the prior studies: orders, often used as representatives of speaker-benefiting imperatives, are generally very impolite and negatively perceived, while good wishes, often used as representatives of addressee-benefiting imperatives, are generally very polite and positively perceived. It is likely that the requests and the suggestions in our items are closer to each other than orders and good wishes in all the relevant respects, the politeness, the positive-negative valence, as well as the beneficiary. However, we believe that our manipulation affected primarily the beneficiary while otherwise keeping the situation the same.

It may also be that the request in a prototypical imperative does indeed imply some benefit to both the speaker and the addressee, as argued by interactional accounts (Auer 2017Auer, Peter 2017 “Epilogue. Imperatives — The Language of Immediate Action.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 411–423. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarAuer, Peter 2017 “Epilogue. Imperatives — The Language of Immediate Action.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 411–423. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Rossi 2017Rossi, Giovanni 2017 “Secondary and Deviant Uses of the Imperative for Requesting in Italian.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 103–137. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarRossi, Giovanni 2017 “Secondary and Deviant Uses of the Imperative for Requesting in Italian.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 103–137. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and by Dominicy and Franken (2002)Dominicy, Marc, and Nathalie Franken 2002 “Speech Acts and Relevance Theory.” In Essays in Speech Act Theory, ed. by Daniel Vanderveken, and Susumo Kubo, 263–283. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarDominicy, Marc, and Nathalie Franken 2002 “Speech Acts and Relevance Theory.” In Essays in Speech Act Theory, ed. by Daniel Vanderveken, and Susumo Kubo, 263–283. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar from a Speech Act Theory perspective. Discussing Example (9) below, Dominicy and Franken (2002Dominicy, Marc, and Nathalie Franken 2002 “Speech Acts and Relevance Theory.” In Essays in Speech Act Theory, ed. by Daniel Vanderveken, and Susumo Kubo, 263–283. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarDominicy, Marc, and Nathalie Franken 2002 “Speech Acts and Relevance Theory.” In Essays in Speech Act Theory, ed. by Daniel Vanderveken, and Susumo Kubo, 263–283. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 265) argue that Mary successfully performs a directive speech act if she tries “to get Peter to bring about the future state of affairs described by the propositional content of the utterance” and if Mary’s directive illocutionary act is sincere, i.e. if she is “in the psychological state of wishing that Peter takes a number 3 bus”. This means that Mary not only tries to get Peter on the number 3 bus, but also wishes that he takes it, even though her attempt and wish are purely altruistic and depend on a wish of Peter’s (Dominicy and Franken 2002Dominicy, Marc, and Nathalie Franken 2002 “Speech Acts and Relevance Theory.” In Essays in Speech Act Theory, ed. by Daniel Vanderveken, and Susumo Kubo, 263–283. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarDominicy, Marc, and Nathalie Franken 2002 “Speech Acts and Relevance Theory.” In Essays in Speech Act Theory, ed. by Daniel Vanderveken, and Susumo Kubo, 263–283. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 266).

(9)

  1. PETER: Excuse me, I want to get to the station.

  2. MARY: Take a number 3 bus.

In the context of our study, a similar analysis would explain why all items with expected addressee benefit were also judged to benefit the speaker, albeit to a lesser extent than the addressee. The question now is why the items expected to benefit the speaker were judged to have some benefit for the addressee. There are two possible answers. First, it could be that the prototypical meaning of an imperative indeed implies the benefit not to the speaker (alone), but either to that of the recipient or both participants, as argued by interactional (Auer 2017Auer, Peter 2017 “Epilogue. Imperatives — The Language of Immediate Action.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 411–423. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarAuer, Peter 2017 “Epilogue. Imperatives — The Language of Immediate Action.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 411–423. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 414) and cognitive linguistic accounts (Hernandez and Mendoza 2002Hernandez, Perez Lorena, and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza 2002 “Grounding, Semantic Motivation, and Conceptual Interaction in Indirect Directive Speech acts.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 259–284. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarHernandez, Perez Lorena, and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza 2002 “Grounding, Semantic Motivation, and Conceptual Interaction in Indirect Directive Speech acts.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 259–284. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 268). As Hernandez and Mendoza (2002Hernandez, Perez Lorena, and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza 2002 “Grounding, Semantic Motivation, and Conceptual Interaction in Indirect Directive Speech acts.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 259–284. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarHernandez, Perez Lorena, and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza 2002 “Grounding, Semantic Motivation, and Conceptual Interaction in Indirect Directive Speech acts.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 259–284. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 268) suggest, the third component of the idealized cognitive model of benefit depicted in (10) might actually hold in both directions, i.e., an expectation in (10) also holds for B with respect to A. This would imply that both the speaker and the addressee are expected to bring about a potential state of affairs that is beneficial for their interlocutor.

(10)

If it is manifest to A that a potential state of affairs is beneficial to B, then A is expected to bring it about.

The second explanation for the speaker-benefit imperatives that allow for the ‘addressee benefit’ interpretation is related to the design of our study. All test items described an informal situation in which participants addressed each other using a familiar T-pronoun. In Czech, there is a semantic opposition when addressing the second person: a formal/honorific/polite vy (V-form) is opposed to the informal/familiar/confidential ty (T-form) (Běličová 1998Běličová, Helena 1998 Nástin porovnávací morfologie spisovných jazyků slovanských. Praha: Karolinum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarBěličová, Helena 1998 Nástin porovnávací morfologie spisovných jazyků slovanských. Praha: Karolinum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 73). As in many European languages (Brown and Gilman 1960Brown, Roger, and Albert Gilman 1960 “The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity.” In Style in Language, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 253–276. New York: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarBrown, Roger, and Albert Gilman 1960 “The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity.” In Style in Language, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 253–276. New York: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), the T-pronoun signals a smaller social and power distance between interlocutors than the V-pronoun. Among relatives and friends, the T-form is usually the only form used, while the V- form is typically used with strangers (Nekvapil and Neustupný 2005Nekvapil, Jiří, and Jiří Václav Neustupný 2005 “Politeness in the Czech Republic: Distance, Levels of Expressions, Management and Intercultural Contact.” In Politeness in Europe, ed. by Leo Hickey, and Mirand Stewart, 247–262. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarNekvapil, Jiří, and Jiří Václav Neustupný 2005 “Politeness in the Czech Republic: Distance, Levels of Expressions, Management and Intercultural Contact.” In Politeness in Europe, ed. by Leo Hickey, and Mirand Stewart, 247–262. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). For our study, the fact that the speaker addressed the listener with a T-pronoun might suggest that solidarity has been established between the interlocutors. Solidarity is a symmetrical and reciprocal relationship based on similarity of thought and/or behavior (Brown and Gilman 1960Brown, Roger, and Albert Gilman 1960 “The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity.” In Style in Language, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 253–276. New York: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarBrown, Roger, and Albert Gilman 1960 “The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity.” In Style in Language, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 253–276. New York: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar 257). It is thus possible that the solidarity established by the T-address implies a degree of symmetry and reciprocity in benefit evaluations that would not be found if the speaker addressed the listener with the V-pronoun. Whether this suggestion is correct remains to be seen in future research.

We now turn to the question of whether the interpretation of benefit in imperatives is influenced by the person of the modal verb describing the reason for the imperative. We found that when an imperative was preceded by a modal verb in the 1P, participants judged the imperative as benefiting the speaker more than the addressee. When the imperative was preceded by a modal verb in the 2P, participants indicated that the addressee benefited more from the imperative than the speaker. The grammatical person has thus an independent influence on benefit judgments in addition to the extra-linguistic situational context. However, in some situational contexts, person manipulation had a stronger effect on benefit judgments than in others. A weak effect of person manipulation on benefit judgments was observed in situations implying a strong bias in the benefactive status of participants, such as the one in Examples (6) and (7). In line with Clayman and Heritage (2014Clayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarClayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 33–34), such situations allow for less linguistic manipulation of the benefactive stance, as the benefactive status of participants is predetermined by social roles that are asymmetrical and mutually known (Clayman and Heritage 2014Clayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarClayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 33–34). Future experimental research can explore this effect further.

Our finding that the person of the modal verb preceding the imperative influences the evaluation of the benefit of the imperative thus both confirms and extends the claim that an imperative is interpreted against the previously expressed rationale for the imperative action (Portner 2004 2004 “The Semantics of Imperatives within a Theory of Clause Types.” In Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) XIV, ed. by Robert Young, 235–252. Ithaca: Cornell University. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar 2004 “The Semantics of Imperatives within a Theory of Clause Types.” In Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) XIV, ed. by Robert Young, 235–252. Ithaca: Cornell University. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 2007Portner, Paul 2007 “Imperatives and Modals.” Natural Language Semantics 15: 351–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarPortner, Paul 2007 “Imperatives and Modals.” Natural Language Semantics 15: 351–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Portner (2004 2004 “The Semantics of Imperatives within a Theory of Clause Types.” In Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) XIV, ed. by Robert Young, 235–252. Ithaca: Cornell University. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar 2004 “The Semantics of Imperatives within a Theory of Clause Types.” In Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) XIV, ed. by Robert Young, 235–252. Ithaca: Cornell University. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 237) claims that distinctions between subtypes of imperatives have to do with the pragmatic or sociolinguistic basis for the speaker’s attempt to add an action to the addressee’s to-do list, and that a correct interpretation of an imperative is only possible in the light of an understanding of what this basis is. According to Portner (2004 2004 “The Semantics of Imperatives within a Theory of Clause Types.” In Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) XIV, ed. by Robert Young, 235–252. Ithaca: Cornell University. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar 2004 “The Semantics of Imperatives within a Theory of Clause Types.” In Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) XIV, ed. by Robert Young, 235–252. Ithaca: Cornell University. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 237), the basis of imperatives, as in our study, is the speaker’s or addressee’s benefit. In this study, we have shown that the speaker can manipulate how the addressee will perceive the benefit of the imperative by using linguistic structures (the category of person) to highlight different elements of the benefactive status. This study thus provides evidence for the claim that grammatical features of utterances are relatively reliable indicators of the actions that the addressee is supposed to recognize (Clayman and Heritage 2014Clayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarClayman, Steven E., and John Heritage 2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Couper-Kuhlen 2014Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 2014 “What Does Grammar Tell Us about Action?” Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–647.Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarCouper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 2014 “What Does Grammar Tell Us about Action?” Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–647.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Thompson and Couper-Kuhlen 2005Thompson, Sandra, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen 2005 “The Clause as a Locus of Grammar and Interaction.” Discourse Studies 7: 481–505. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarThompson, Sandra, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen 2005 “The Clause as a Locus of Grammar and Interaction.” Discourse Studies 7: 481–505. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar).

More broadly, our findings provide empirical support for the perspective hypothesis (MacWhinney 2005MacWhinney, Brian 2005 “The Emergence of Grammar from Perspective.” In Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics, ed. by James Minett, and William Wang, 1–58. City University of HK Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarMacWhinney, Brian 2005 “The Emergence of Grammar from Perspective.” In Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics, ed. by James Minett, and William Wang, 1–58. City University of HK Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and contribute to the line of research that aims to specify how grammatical devices are used to manage perspective taking. MacWhinney (2005MacWhinney, Brian 2005 “The Emergence of Grammar from Perspective.” In Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics, ed. by James Minett, and William Wang, 1–58. City University of HK Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarMacWhinney, Brian 2005 “The Emergence of Grammar from Perspective.” In Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics, ed. by James Minett, and William Wang, 1–58. City University of HK Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 139) argues that perspective taking and shifting are so fundamental to communication that language provides a wide range of grammatical devices for marking perspective. Perspective allows us to assemble information from semi-modular sources of prior direct experience, spatial locations, plans, and social roles into a coherent integrated cognitive model (MacWhinney 2005MacWhinney, Brian 2005 “The Emergence of Grammar from Perspective.” In Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics, ed. by James Minett, and William Wang, 1–58. City University of HK Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarMacWhinney, Brian 2005 “The Emergence of Grammar from Perspective.” In Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics, ed. by James Minett, and William Wang, 1–58. City University of HK Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 139). Linguistic structures codify ways of linking these subsystems for perspective taking, thus providing us with controlled access to the objects of imagery and cognition (MacWhinney 2005MacWhinney, Brian 2005 “The Emergence of Grammar from Perspective.” In Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics, ed. by James Minett, and William Wang, 1–58. City University of HK Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarMacWhinney, Brian 2005 “The Emergence of Grammar from Perspective.” In Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics, ed. by James Minett, and William Wang, 1–58. City University of HK Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 99). For example, we are more likely to take the perspective of the agent when the action is immediately present (encoded by tense and aspect) and when the agent is closer to the ego (encoded by grammatical person).

Finally, we found that when the modal verb and imperative were in the plural, participants were less likely to judge the 1P modal items as benefiting the speaker and the 2P modal items as benefiting the addressee than in the singular condition. The effect of person manipulation on benefit judgments was much stronger for the 1P modal condition. As discussed in Section 3.2, we expected that person manipulation would have less effect on benefit interpretation in the plural than in the singular because the 1P plural verb is ambiguous between inclusive and exclusive readings. The fact that participants judged the “speaker benefits” interpretation less likely for 1P plural modals than for 1P singular modals suggests that, at least in some cases, participants must have preferred the inclusive reading of the 1P plural form. Indeed, if a reader takes a 1P plural verb to express the needs of the speaker and the addressee, then he or she is likely to infer that the following imperative sentence must benefit the addressee, at least to some extent. Our conclusion about participants’ preference for the inclusive meaning of the 1P plural verb is supported by a large body of cross-linguistic evidence suggesting that the inclusive reading is the primary, less pronounced, and somehow privileged in the clusivity opposition (Filimonova 2005Filimonova, Elena 2005 “Clusivity Cross-linguistically: Common Trends and Possible Patterns.” In: Clusivity: Typology and Case Studies of Inclusive-Exclusive Distinction, ed. by Elena Filimonova, 399–424. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google ScholarFilimonova, Elena 2005 “Clusivity Cross-linguistically: Common Trends and Possible Patterns.” In: Clusivity: Typology and Case Studies of Inclusive-Exclusive Distinction, ed. by Elena Filimonova, 399–424. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 418). In our study, participants seemed to prefer the inclusive interpretation and to draw their imperative inferences from it in favor of the speaker or the addressee. Although it was much weaker, there was an effect of number in the 2P modal condition as well, which cannot be explained by the same mechanism. We believe that number had an effect on the 2P modal condition because it affected the degree of individuation of the addressees. Plural addressees, i.e. a group that includes the addressee, are less individuated than a singular addressee, which could lead to a less clear evaluation of the addressee’s benefit than in the case of a single addressee.

In summary, this study has shown that benefit evaluations of a given imperative utterance are influenced not only by the extralinguistic situational context but also by the linguistic construal of the rationale for the imperative action in terms of the grammatical person of the modal verb used by the speaker. When the first person is used, the rationale assigns the necessities, obligations and (in)abilities that serve as an impulse for action to the speaker and the imperative is likely to be interpreted as benefiting the speaker. When the second person is used, the rationale assigns the underlying necessities, obligations and (in)abilities to the addressee, and the imperative is more likely to be interpreted as benefiting the addressee. This effect is stronger for imperatives addressed to a singular addressee than for imperatives addressed to a plural addressee. Thus, our study highlights the role of the grammatical category of person as a powerful means of constructing the speaker’s benefactive stance in imperative utterances.

Funding

This work was supported by the European Regional Development Fund project “Beyond Security: Role of Conflict in Resilience-Building” (reg. no.: CZ.02.01.01/00/22_008/0004595).

This article was made Open Access under a CC BY 4.0 license through payment of an APC by or on behalf of the authors.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the student intern Kristýna Jarošová from Charles University who collaborated on creation of the items for the study.

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Address for correspondence

Tatiana Perevozchikova

Slavic Department

Universität Tübingen

Wilhelmstraße 50

D-72074 Tübingen

Germany

[email protected]

Biographical notes

Tatiana Perevozchikova is an Associate Professor of Slavic Linguistics at the University of Tübingen. Her research has centered on variation in morphosyntax, language contact, second language acquisition and heritage languages from a usage-based perspective.

ORCiD logo with linkhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-5294-4834

Anna Chromá is a PhD student and a research assistant at Charles University and at the Psychological Institute of Czech Academy of Sciences. Her focus is on first language acquisition, especially on early morphosyntax and personal pronouns. She founded the first Czech corpus of child language and further collaborates on its development.

 
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