Opiniatrety

Kinds of Imperative Coordinations

Geoff Pullum thinks dissimilar illocutionary forces can be coordinated, and why not, but don't think that means you have to accept all his examples.*

In particular, he cites "Make one little remark and they jump all over you" as an imperative followed by a declarative--acknowledging that the first clause isn't semantically an imperative, but arguing that it is syntactically.

I guess I can't argue the syntactic issue, but why should that stop me from classifying the kinds of imperative-declarative coordinations? Imperative clauses are represented by A! and B!, where A and B are subjectless; declaratives by C and D.

(1) "A! and C" carries the force of an assertion, "If you A, then C." Note that the syntactically imperative clause A! doesn't have a trace of imperative force. Often sentences of the form "A! and C" carry the implication that you should do A, or that you shouldn't do A, but that is because C is obviously good (or bad). So the imperative force is derived from the assertion of the indicative conditional, not the other way around.

This trips up the third commentator in this discussion.** The first commentator says that the message of the Spanish elections was "Bomb us and we'll cave!" The second says that the message was "Bomb us and we will not be distracted...." The third says that that does not change the fact that the underlying message is "bomb us."

Not so; "Bomb us and we'll cave" means "If you bomb us, something you like will happen." "Bomb us and we won't be distracted...." means "If you bomb us, something you don't like will happen." By implication, the first is advice to "bomb us," the second is advice "don't bomb us." You just can't deduce A! from a sentence of the from "A! and C."

[Of course, there are all sorts of complications here because the recipients of any message are al-Qaeda, whose goals are completely immoral and irrational and opposed to those of the people allegedly sending the message. Also, I don't here endorse either reading of the elections, I'm just pointing out a syntax error.]

And "A! then C" can be completely neutral with respect to whether you should do A, as in "Drop salt into water and it will dissolve." Here, because the consequent is neither good nor bad, the hearer is neither told to drop salt into water nor ironically told not to. It's just a conditional telling you what will happen if you drop salt into water.

(2) (a) "A! and B!" ordinarily conveys the force of two imperatives: "Take two aspirin and call me in the morning." (Or you could think of this as the conjunction given imperative force.)
(b) But it can also carry the force of a conditional "If you A then you will B." For instance, "Marry in haste and repent at leisure." Or "Fill out this form and watch the money roll in."

In the second example the first clause is endorsed, in the second example the first clause is counter-endorsed. In both cases, though, I think this comes from the conditional that is conveyed rather from the imperativity of the first clause. Because you don't want to repent at leisure, the assertion "If you marry in haste then you will repent at leisure" tells you not to marry in haste; because you do want to watch the money roll in, the assertion "If you fill out this form then you will watch the money roll in" tells you to fill out this form.

And as in (1) I think it's possible to come up with neutral examples of (2b); "Add more water, and get runnier oatmeal; add less, and get thicker oatmeal." (Well, like Humpty-Hump I think this clearly tells you to add less, but your tastes may differ.)

(3) "A! or C" is pretty clear: it both conveys the imperative "A!" and the declarative "If you do not A, C" (which many take to be synonymous with "Either you A or C"). So "Stop or I will shoot!" orders you to stop, and tells you that if you do not stop I will shoot." "Be quiet or the bogeyman will get you" warns you to be quiet, and asserts that if you are not quiet the bogeyman will get you. "Pick me up or I'll have to take a cab" requests that you pick me up, and asserts that if you do not pick me up I will have to take a cab. Etc.

(4) "A! or B!" can have two interpretations.
(a) On one, you are told to do either A or B; "Fish or cut bait" for instance. (C.L. Hamblin, in his book Imperatives, argues that it can also mean "Do exactly one of A or B" or even "Don't do both A and B," but never mind that.)

(b) On the other interpretation, it means exactly the same as "A! or you B"; it conveys the imperative "A!" and the declarative "If you do not A, you B." So "Quit smoking or die of cancer" conveys the advice to quit smoking and the assertion that if you do not quit smoking you will die of cancer. "Die of cancer" is not given imperative force even ironically, it seems to me. Of course here, as in (3), the second clause has to express something you don't want, or it won't make any sense to convey the imperative "A!" along with the declarative "If you do not A, you B."

OK, so we have two cases, (2a) and (4a), in which two coordinated imperative clauses are both taken imperativally.

We have two cases, (1) and (2b), in which an imperative before "and" serves as the antecedent of a conditional assertion, with the second-person subject suppressed. In (2b) the imperative after "and" serves as the conditional's consequent, with the second-person subject suppressed.

We have two cases, (3) and (4b), in which an imperative before "or" plays double duty, as a stand-alone imperative and as the first disjunct of a disjunctive assertion, with the second-person subject suppressed. In (4b) the imperative after "or" serves as the second disjunct, with the second-person subject suppressed.

So it's not uncommon for an imperatival form to serve as a declarative. That's the typology. Insofar as I want to make something of this, it's that there seems to be something fishy going on with the imperatival antecedents in (1) and (2b); and by extension, with the second imperatival clauses in (2b) and (4b). I can't think of any Gricean account of how you get from a literal "A! and C" to the meaning "If A then C," but in the cases in which A is meant imperativally it's dead easy to see how you get there from "If A then C." Pullum is a syntax nerd and I'm not, so trust his judgment, but why does this form mean what it does?

I read a Dwight Bolinger piece (in a volume of To Honor Roman Jakobson, I think) on imperatives in which he argued that "A! then C" was an "aphetic"--the idea was that "[if you] Marry in haste, [you] repent at leisure" naturally acquired an "and." In comments to this post--lost in Brian's move to MT--Kent Bach referred to this as those corny delete-that insert-this transformations, but I mention it as a historical curio (or anyway, a sign that a good linguist thought something fishy was going on).

*Yes, the primary purpose of that sentence was to one-up Brian's link. The second time I coordinate three different forces in this post, they all have their literal meaning.
**8/13!

Posted by Matt Weiner at March 15, 2004 11:50 PM