Interpreting Imperatives

INTERPRETING IMPERATIVES

STUDIES IN LINGUISTICS AND PHILOSOPHY

VOLUME 88

Managing Editors LISA MATTHEWSON, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada YAEL SHARVIT, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA THOMAS EDE ZIMMERMANN, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Editorial Board JOHAN VAN BENTHEM, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands GREGORY N. CARLSON, University of Rochester, U.S.A. DAVID DOWTY, Ohio State University, Columbus, U.S.A. GERALD GAZDAR, University of Sussex, Brighton, U.K. IRENE HEIM, M.I.T., Cambridge, U.S.A. EWAN KLEIN, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, U.K. BILL LADUSAW, University of California, Santa Cruz, U.S.A. TERRENCE PARSONS, University of California, Irvine, U.S.A.

For further volumes in this series: http://www.springer.com/series/6556

INTERPRETING IMPERATIVES

by

MAGDALENA KAUFMANN University of Göttingen, Germany

123

Magdalena Kaufmann University of Göttingen Department of Linguistics/Courant Research Centre “Text Structures” Käte-Hamburger-Weg, 3 37073 Göttingen Germany [email protected]

ISSN 0924-4662 ISBN 978-94-007-2268-2 e-ISBN 978-94-007-2269-9 DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-2269-9 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2011937654 c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012  No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

Preface

The work that lead to this book started out years ago, in a different place and under a different name, when I was a new graduate student at the Graduiertenkolleg Satzarten in Frankfurt. Little may she have known that she set me on an enterprise that would occupy and intrigue me for many years when my then office mate Melani Wratil, herself deep in thought about the syntax of imperative clauses, suggested someone should look at their semantics. I’d like to thank her for this remark (as well as her support when I took to it), as the topic turned out to be one of the most interesting challenges of how to position the role of meaning at the interace between form and use. Years later what Magdalena Schwager handed in rather hurriedly as her doctoral dissertation in 2006 has been reworked and turned into a monograph by Magdalena Kaufmann. Although the result is still anything but perfect, it is now time to let go, and I hope that there is something to be learned from this book: for those interested in imperatives in particular, the meaning they carry and how it might be built up from smaller parts, and for those interested in how to conceive of the interface between form and function. Being an investigation at the interface between form and function, it touches necessarily upon many domains not every reader may be equally familiar with or even just equally interested in. I tried to be explicit and break things up in a perspicuous way so that readers can go about it somewhat selectively. To get an idea of what conception of the semantics-pragmatics interface I have in mind, it might be sufficient to look at Chapter 1 and Section 2.3. Readers interested in a comparison of different conceptions of the semantics-pragmatics interface, should look at Sections 2.1 and 2.2 in particular. Many of the more specialized topics (in particular, Sections 3.2.3, 3.2.4, 3.2.5 and Chapter 6) can be skipped by readers interested only in the core phenomena. Chapter 3 is most important to all concerns regarding the syntax-semantics interface. Chapter 4 spells out the technicalities of my account of imperatives, which is already introduced and motivated more informally in Section 2.3. Having reached this point, I would like to acknowledge the support and friendship of a number of people without whom the dissertation would never have made it into a monograph. You will find numerous notes of thanks and references to helpful comments and pieces of data distributed throughout this book, and I have— somewhat hesitantly—decided against repeating all of them here up front. In the v

vi

Preface

following, I will just try to mention a few people who had what I would like to call a ‘global’ impact on this particular piece of work. First of all, I want to thank my Doktorvater Ede Zimmermann. He has not only taught me an invaluable amount of things in semantics, but he has also passed on a bit of his constant curiosity and joy in discovering problems and their possible solutions, and he keeps doing so, as well as being incredibly helpful in all sorts of theoretical or practical matters. The process of turning the dissertation into a book started out from his comments, as well as those of my second supervisor, Günther Grewendorf, who keeps making me aware of what is thrilling about sytnax, and the external member of my committee, Arnim von Stechow, who was also my very first teacher in semantics and has never stopped to present me with thought provoking questions. The rewriting has profited a lot from discussion with the participants of my ESSLLI class on imperatives (Hamburg, 2008), and the joint one with Regine Eckardt on Speech Acts (Bordeaux, 2008). For their willingness to work through much messier earlier versions of this manuscript, their patience to really do so, and for providing me with annotated versions containing many challenging questions, I would like to thank in particular Cleo Condoravdi, Yurie Hara, Sven Lauer, the SLAP series editor Lisa Matthewson, Paul Portner, and an anonymous reviewer for Springer. Also, writing a book would have been extremely different without Nicholas Asher, Julie Hunter, Shin-Sook Kim, and Peter Sells, who were always there when I needed help with theoretical problems, with practical matters, or just with data. Ilaria Frana and Sarah Zobel watched my back to help me find the time for working on the book. Martin Prinzhorn and Viola Schmitt keep reminding me of the joy that lies in linguistics and how to combine it with other qualities of life. Thanks to Lewis Gebhardt for proof reading this manuscript, and to Helen van der Stelt for her patience with my delays and her careful supervision of the publication process at Springer. Finally, some people deserve thanks for their support in keeping my private life going during these past few years from dissertation to book. I want to thank my parents, Walter und Hildegund Scheiner, for all the help, patience and love they have been offering constantly—and for understanding so well that one can be so impassioned with work. Finally, Stefan and Sebastian had to put up with me through these painful last stretch of getting the monograph done. Maybe unexpectedly at the very end of acknowledgments, Stefan deserves credit as one of the most careful and also most unforgiving readers of earlier versions of this book. In addition to our joint work part of which is presented in Chapter 6, his thoughts have been extremely helpful in rewriting Chapter 2 in particular. But at the same time, and more in line with these acknowledgments coming to an end, he has my deepest gratitude for countless ways in which he would always make me take another step—from discussing problems to cooking lots of mabu tofu and Japanese-style karee. Sebastian beat the book by nearly a year, and he turned out to be infinitely more supportive of my work than what you’d usually expect of someone his age. While even his pure presence made a

Preface

vii

whole lot of a difference, his cheerful mood and nice sleeping habits deserve special mention as well. Many more people deserve acknowledgment here, and my failure to give a fairer list is just one of many mishaps that most certainly remain in an enterprise like this book. Let me stress that all mistakes and inadequacies are mine. This project was funded by the German Research Foundation and the German Initiative of Excellence Institutional support was provided by the University of Frankfurt, the University of Göttingen, and Northwestern University. Göttingen, Germany June 2011

Magdalena Kaufmann

Contents

1 Setting the Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Individuating Imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.1 Trying a Purely Functional Individuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.2 Trying a Purely Formal Individuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.3 Imperatives as Clause Types Individuated by a Form-Function Pair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Clause Types and Actual Utterances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Semantics or Pragmatics?—Deciding on the Boundaries . . . . . . . . . 1.4 The Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 3 4 5 10 16 21

2 How to Handle Imperatives in Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Three Parameters of Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Split and Uniform Representationalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2 Assigning Meaning to Imperatives: Static or Dynamic . . . . 2.1.3 Possible Denotata for Imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 A Few Recent Approaches to Imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 Speech Acts as Input to Semantic Computation . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2 Performative Modals and Non-epistemic Context Change Potentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.3 (Ex-)Changing the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.4 Imperatives as Updating To-Do Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Modalized Propositions: Idea and Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 Performative and Descriptive Modal Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2 Updates and Speech Acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.3 Imperatives and Declaratives on a Par . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

29 30 30 34 41 42 43 45 47 50 56 58 65 67

3 Imperatives as Graded Modals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Modality in Possible Worlds Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.1 Simple Modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.2 Personal and Impersonal Conversational Backgrounds . . . . 3.1.3 Graded Modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Imperatives at the Syntax-Semantics Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

73 73 74 76 83 86 ix

x

Contents

3.2.1

3.3

General Considerations on the Syntactic Make-Up of Imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 Tense, Aspect, and Their Relation to Modality . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.3 Temporal Oppositions in Imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.4 The Imperative Subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.5 Do Imperatives Express Personal Modality? . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

87 93 102 105 122 128

4 From Modalized Propositions to Speech Acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Contextual Dependence in the Propositional Meaning Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.1 ORDERs, COMMAND s, and REQUESTs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.2 PROHIBITIONs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.3 WISHes and ABSENT WISHes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.4 ADVICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Constraining the Predictions: The Presuppositional Meaning Component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 Restrictions Familiar from Modal Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.2 Authority: Deriving Self-Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.3 Epistemic Uncertainty and the Ordering Source Restriction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.4 Putting It All Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Some Considerations on Propositionality and Rejections . . . . . . . . .

129

155 162 163

5 Possibility Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Permitting Permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.1 P ERMISSION-like Speech Acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Any Troubles? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.1 Indifference Any-Imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.2 Subtrigged Necessity Any-Imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.3 Recapitulating Any-Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 For Example-A DVICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.1 (In)Exhaustive Necessity and Possibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2 Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

169 171 171 176 176 177 179 180 181 183 190

6 Embedding Imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Reported Speech and Imperatives from a Cross-Linguistic Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.1 Indirect Speech, Parentheticals, and Quotations . . . . . . . . . 6.1.2 Quotative Constructions in Japanese and Malagasy . . . . . . 6.1.3 Fossilized Constructions in Ancient Greek and Middle High German . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.4 Context Harmony in Old Germanic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

193

129 131 133 135 141 144 145 147

196 197 199 204 205

Contents

6.2

6.3

6.4

xi

6.1.5 Embedded Imperatives in Modern High German . . . . . . . . 6.1.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conditional Imperatives and Modal Subordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.1 A Full Paradigm of CIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.2 CIs and the Modal Operator Analysis of Imperatives . . . . . 6.2.3 Modal Subordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conditional Conjunctions and Disjunctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.1 Comparing Conditional Flavors in IaDs, IoDs, and Speech Act Conjunctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.2 Towards an Analysis of Type II IaDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.3 Imperatives in IoDs and Non-classical Disjunctions in General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

208 211 212 213 216 219 220 221 225 233 244 254

List of Tags for Grammatical Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Chapter 1

Setting the Scene

Probably anyone with an interest in language, or even anyone who is just learning a foreign language, is familiar with the basic distinctions between different types of sentences as declaratives, interrogatives and imperatives. As language users and as pragmaticists we have an intuition that we use them for different moves in the linguistic exchange. As semanticists we are used to thinking of declaratives as descriptions of states of affairs or as devices to enlarge joint information, and of interrogatives as requiring resolution with respect to what the state of affairs is in a particular respect. But imperatives are usually tip-toed around when it comes to the question as to what is the link between a linguistic form and its potential use. This book is meant to shed some light on the matter.

1.1 Individuating Imperatives ‘Enjoyable and fertile as their relations may have been, linguistics and philosophy are uneasy bedfellows. Nowhere more apparently so than over the matter of imperatives,’ Arthur Merin (1991:667) informs us. But there is hope; anyone who has ever worked on imperatives may have realized that within or across disciplines much disagreement as to what is the right analysis for ‘imperatives’ could be avoided if researchers made clear what the object of their study is. Some scholars think of particular verb forms in a paradigm (as often established by traditional grammarians), others think of a particular grammatical type of sentences, still others think of a particular grammatical sentence type used for a particular function, others again think of a particular conversational act (such as commanding), and yet others think of a sentence used for a particular conversational act (a concrete speech act). Clearly, the main parameter is whether the choice of what you call an imperative or not is a matter of form, of function, or of both, and, if function enters the picture, whether it is about utterance tokens or utterance types. What understanding you feel sympathetic to may well depend on your discipline. The concept of imperatives interests at least the linguistic domains of morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, as well as logic, philosophy of language, artificial

M. Kaufmann, Interpreting Imperatives, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 88, C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012 DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-2269-9_1, 

1

2

1 Setting the Scene

intelligence, and ethics, and most of these disciplines have a propensity towards a particular (default) understanding. As a semanticist, the phenomenon I find intriguing is what might be called the third clause type. Looking into an arbitrary grammar of an arbitrary natural language, there is a high chance of finding a distinction between at least declarative, interrogative and imperative sentences.1 For German, the paradigm looks like (1); the English translations exemplify the same phenomenon. (1)

a.

b.

c.

Du bist nett zu deiner Großmutter. you are nice to your grandmother ‘You are nice to your grandmother.’ Bist du nett zu deiner Großmutter? are you nice to your grandmother ‘Are you nice to your grandmother?’ nett zu deiner Großmutter. Sei be.I MP S G nice to your grandmother ‘Be nice to your grandmother!’

declarative

interrogative

imperative

Intuitively, while declaratives and interrogatives are concerned with what the world is like, imperative sentences seem concerned more with what the world should be like. Now, many scholars agree that with respect to declaratives and interrogatives, much can be said if we think of them in terms of truth conditions (or the truth conditions of their answers, respectively). For imperatives, establishing any connection to truth conditions looks like fighting a losing battle: imperatives simply don’t feel true or false—they may feel justified, or inappropriate, and they may feel related to certain courses of events.2 Yet, this is precisely what I will argue for in this book: semantically, imperatives do have truth conditions, and the reason that we do not normally perceive them as being true or false is pragmatic in nature. Many of my arguments will rely on imperatives that are not used as commands or as orders. For some of these cases it has been argued that they should not be considered imperatives—even by scholars who have an otherwise very similar understanding of ‘imperative’ as a particular clause type. So, the first thing that needs to be clarified is what underlies the more or less intuitive compilation of paradigms like (1). Ultimately, my understanding will be clearly form-biased. However, it is only if we take into account a relation to function that a cross-linguistically valid concept of imperatives as clause types can be established. The relevant arguments are presented in the following three subsections.

1

Cf. Sadock and Zwicky (1985).

2

In her recent handbook article on imperatives, Han (t.a.) asserts plainly: Imperatives cannot be said to be true or false. They do not assert anything about the current world and so it does not make sense to assign a truth value to imperatives.

1.1

Individuating Imperatives

3

1.1.1 Trying a Purely Functional Individuation It should be obvious that a purely functional conception of ‘imperative’ will never allow us to establish paradigms as in (1). And indeed, such an understanding is rareley adopted in linguistics, but it is quite common in philosophy. In his influential study entitled Imperatives3 Hamblin (1987:3) explicitly decides not to ‘make a case for any particular use of the word “imperative” other than what I take to be the usual and natural one.’ What he considers usual and natural turns out to be a purely functional conception, and the decision not to make it precise leads to a couple of shortcomings discussed in Merin (1992). But even making it precise would not help to single out our intuitive object of interest, namely paradigms like (1). The most widespread functional understanding of ‘imperative’ amounts to something like ‘directive speech act’ or ‘conduct-guiding act in conversation.’4 A purely functional understanding classifies as imperatives not only explicit performatives (cf. (2a)) or certain usages of modal verbs (cf. (2b)),5 but likewise questions used in indirect speech acts (cf. (2c)) and elliptic utterances (cf. (2d)). Under suitable circumstances, all of these can be used to give an order—certainly a most prototypically directive/conduct-guiding speech act. Therefore, in such utterances they should get classified as imperatives—and this is indeed the position taken by Hamblin (1987). (2)

a. b. c. d. e.

I hereby order you to leave. You must leave immediately! Could you leave the room now? Out! Leave the room!

Clearly, such an individuation is orthogonal to the aim of establishing paradigms as in (1). In particular, if the distinction between declaratives, interrogatives and imperatives is semantically relevant, individuation by function would give rise to massive ambiguity. Under that scheme, all the sentences in (2) can occur as imperatives; therefore, all of them can express the imperative meaning. For example, a sentence like (2c) is ambiguous between an interrogative interpretation (as it can easily be used to inquire if the addressee is able to leave the room) and an imperative interpretation (as—with the right intonation—it can be used to order him to do so). In general, all indirect speech acts would turn out to involve semantic ambiguities, and this is not a plausible assumption. Sadock and Zwicky (1985) argue explicitly that indirect speech acts are fundamentally different from other instances of natural language ambiguities. They adduce the following arguments: (i) The effect of indirect 3

Published posthumuously.

4

Broadie (1972) reserves ‘imperative’ for commands and orders and coins ‘imperation’ for the larger class of conduct-guiding conversational moves.

5

Modals under such a usage are called performative modals, see Section 2.3.1.

4

1 Setting the Scene

speech acts draws precisely on a deviation from a usage associated with their conventionally associated meaning. (ii) The difference between e.g. posing a question and giving a command differs crucially from structural ambiguities. Therefore, it does not seem to be a grammatical distinction of English. Structural ambiguities can often be resolved by grammatical operations. For example, (3a) is structurally ambiguous. Applying the operation of passivization results in (3b), which is no longer ambiguous. It only has the reading that the boy is taking a decision regarding the boat, not that the boy’s process of deciding is happening on the boat: (3)

a. b.

The boy decided on the boat. The boat was decided on by the boy.

their (144) their (145)

And (iii), indirect speech acts differ from classical ambiguities in that they are assumed not to be language specific. ‘Equivalent forms in other languages are likely to be just as effective in getting requests across and would succeed for exactly the same reasons’ (cf. Sadock and Zwicky (1985:192)). From this, we can conclude that a purely functional individuation does not help us to understand the intuitive relevance of paradigms like (1).

1.1.2 Trying a Purely Formal Individuation As the paradigm in (1) cannot be established in terms of purely functional considerations, we might use ‘imperative’ as a classification of a sentence form type. And indeed, such an understanding is often proclaimed in linguistics. To single out imperatives, we could draw on formal features exhibited by certain morphological or syntactic entities. One possibility for making sense of imperatives as a form type at the sentence level is to consider them ‘matrix sentences that have an uninflected verb and lack a subject pronoun’. This might be a good approximation to single out the class of linguistic elements traditionally understood as English imperative clauses (but cf. Bolinger, 1967; Broadie, 1972, for problems). We could then safely talk about the class of sentences that has exactly these properties in English. Nevertheless, in general, we take ‘imperative’ to be a cross-linguistically applicable concept. And intuitively, what we want to single out here is not just a certain morphosyntactic property a language might employ for some purpose or other (viz. a language might make systematic use of sentences with uninflected verb forms and lacking subject pronouns). It may indeed be interesting to see what is cross-linguistically encoded by e.g. uninflected verbs, and, in that particular case, we would even find that at least many Indoeuropean languages in fact use them for what is labelled the ‘imperative’ in paradigms like (1) (Wratil, 2005). Nevertheless, such an understanding of our empirical finding would already presuppose that we know what we are looking for. But these formal properties become of interest to us in connection with other properties, namely, (i) some sort of default function of influencing the addressee’s behavior, and (ii) in relation to other types of sentences that are traditionally classified as declaratives, interrogatives or exclamatives. Consequently, even if an imperative were to be identified with some cluster of

1.1

Individuating Imperatives

5

morphosyntactic properties, we would still have to know which cluster to pick: intuitively, given formally characterized sentence types of an arbitrary natural language, we have a clear idea what should be called the interrogative and what should be the imperative. But our conviction of which is which does not depend on purely formal criteria; rather, it depends on what the respective form types are normally used for within that language. Even if, cross-linguistically, lack of an overt subject pronoun and unusual inflectional poverty seem to constitute characteristics of sentences traditionally classified as imperatives, this is not the only way of marking them. Some languages employ sentence final particles (e.g. Korean) or morphological marking of the verb (e.g. Maricopa6 ) to do so, and some even have special pronouns to designate the imperative subject (e.g. Yokuts7 ), (cf. Sadock and Zwicky, 1985; Wratil, 2005, for general discussion). Therefore, we may conclude that the semantically relevant understanding of ‘imperative’ as a cross-linguistically applicable category cannot be rendered in purely formal terms either.

1.1.3 Imperatives as Clause Types Individuated by a Form-Function Pair I argued that neither a purely functional nor a purely formal understanding of ‘imperative’ allows us to single out precisely the phenomenon that is of intuitive interest to my investigation. Instead, I will employ an understanding of imperatives as clause types in the sense of Bach and Harnish (1979) and Sadock and Zwicky (1985). Ultimately, the role this concept plays in my investigation will turn out to be purely heuristic: as soon as the semantic analysis is in place (that is, at the end of Section 4.2.4), it is derivable from the semantic interpretation of formally marked clause types together with considerations as to what are prototypical utterance contexts. Sadock and Zwicky (1985) define clause types as pairs of form types at the sentence level together with their (prototypical) functions. Clause types are required to induce a partition on the set of all disambiguated sentences (that is, each sentence shows the formal marking of exactly one clause type), and we can find sets of sentences whose members differ only with respect to their respective clause type. These are exactly paradigms like our initial (1). More abstractly, we can think of such paradigms as follows. Syntactically, we distinguish a set of (disambiguated) sentential form types, H (e.g. types of standard LFs). On the other hand, pragmatics distinguishes various types of speech acts, i.e. types of moves speakers make in a conversation (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969), a set K , which is usually considered universal.8 Throughout, I am using small caps to 6

A North American Indian language which belongs to the Yuman family and is spoken in Arizona.

7

A family of North American Indian languages spoken in Northern and Central California.

8

The elements in K are often called illocutionary forces, cf. e.g. Gazdar (1981), who reserves ‘speech acts’ for the combination of sentence meaning and illocutionary force in a concrete

6

1 Setting the Scene

indicate speech act types. This should remind us that they are labels that need to be filled with content by a full-fledged theory of speech acts, which is more than I can provide in this book. Crucial differences between various theories of speech acts are largely orthogonal to the issues we are concerned with. Therefore, for the sake of concreteness, I will resort to a standard Austinian-Searlean conception in terms of preconditions, felicity conditions and sincerity conditions and combine it with likewise standard assumptions about the representation of utterance contexts (Stalnaker, 1978; Kaplan, 1989). This interaction will be described in more detail in Section 1.4. For the moment, it should suffice that speech acts are moves in the conversational game people make with utterances. Thereby, they change the commitments (both with respect to how to act and what to believe) of the various participants in the conversation. The set of clause types of a given language L can be conceived of as a set of pairs C TL ⊆ H × K , s.t. for each h ∈ H , there is exactly one k ∈ K , s.t. h, k ∈ C TL . Hence, each sentence level form type appears in exactly one clause type. It is thus unproblematic to assign the same label to both the sentential form type and the clause type it instantiates, which is why I will often omit ‘sentence’ even when talking about the form type. (4)

A simple Clause Type System a. declarative := <declarative (sentence), A SSERT> b. interrogative := c. imperative :=

Equipped with this understanding of clause types, we can try to individuate imperatives across languages as elements in the respective languages’ clause type systems. We have thus decided to give primacy to the form side. In the following, I will discuss some consequences of the understanding in terms of form-function pairs and explore some possible difficulties in singling out ‘imperatives’ that arise in various languages. Assume that we have individuated a certain sentence form type as being prototypically used for O RDERs. If we then find a token of that form type in an utterance that clearly cannot be meant as an O RDER, this doesn’t constitute evidence that the respective sentence is ‘not an imperative’ and that the corresponding usage could be disregarded in the enterprise of exploring the semantics of imperatives. At best, we could claim that two clause types can be realized by one and the same surface structure, giving thus rise to an instance of ambiguity. At first glance, this may seem tempting. Consider for example (5).

utterance. Speech act types would then most likely be categories of speech acts comprising the sentence meaning, e.g. the type of ‘commanding someone to pass the salt’, a concept I have not reserved a term for. For me, the corresponding speech act type is just ‘commanding’. I avoid the term ‘illocutionary force’ because of the heavy bias it seems to have achieved in favor of the literal meaning hypothesis, cf. Section 1.2.

1.1

(5)

Individuating Imperatives

a. b.

7

Close the door! Be blond!

While it is easy to imagine (5a) used as an O RDER (assumed to be the prototypical function of an imperative), this seems hardly possible for (5b). Out of the blue, the sentence may sound awkward, but it becomes perfect if you imagine someone muttering it to herself while on her way to a blind date. Should this mean that cases of apparent imperatives containing individual level verbs9 like (5b) should belong to another clause type (e.g. optative, prototypically linked to W ISH)? I don’t think so. Rather, we should make sure that mutual exclusion between clause types is not based on lexical properties. Instead of distinguishing two clause types depending on lexical properties, I would prefer to acknowledge that one and the same clause type interacts with certain lexical properties to render a particular speech act type more plausible in the respective context (ideally, all clause types should be able to co-occur with all propositions—although imperatives in particular are known to be problematic in that respect).10 In most though not all languages a particular morphological form of the verb figures prominently in distinguishing the imperative form type (exceptions being e.g. Hungarian that uses subjunctives; or Chrow11 that marks imperatives by intonation, cf. Sadock and Zwicky, 1985). In such cases, ‘imperative’ is often used interchangeably for morphological verb form and sentential form type—a common practice I will also subscribe to as long as it does not cause any harm. Where there is need for clarification I will resort to ‘imperativized verb’ vs. ‘imperative sentence’. However, sometimes we find grammatical distinctions that raise the question whether a language has various subtypes of the imperative clause type, or if we are faced with (minor) clause types that are closely related to, but distinct from, imperatives. In the following, I will briefly introduce a couple of such phenomena. Ultimately, these issues can only be settled by careful investigation of the respective cases.

9

Cf. Carlson (1977), Kratzer (1995) for the distinction between stage and individual level predicates. It has been claimed at various points that individual level predicates cannot be imperativized (cf. e.g. Han, 2000). I do not think that this is correct. (5b) is a perfectly natural thought (or, rather silent wish) for someone on their way to a blind date, hoping that the person they are about to meet would be blond. 10 An anonymous reviewer points out that this decision is not uncontroversial. I still believe that there is enough motivation for it. Firstly, declaratives and interrogatives are not affected by similar considerations. Secondly, even for (some) individual level predicates, the question of whether they are under the control of the subject depends on world knowledge—for example, under appropriate assumptions about magical abilities, whether one is blond or not could be chosen by the subject at birth and then be settled for the rest of their life. In that case, be blond would still behave like an individual predicate (e.g. with respect to temporal quantification), yet, (5b) could constitute a felicitous O RDER to a newborn. At the same time, our assumptions about magical powers do not seem to change the semantics of the verb. Thirdly, (5b) could be used as an A DVICE or an O RDER if the speaker wants to mock the addressee. The result strikes me as an insincere speech act rather than a non-literal use of the verb. 11

A Siouan language spoken in Montana.

8

1 Setting the Scene

Consider first two cases that suggest a classification as subtypes of the imperative clause type: Tagalog is sometimes claimed to distinguish imperatives that are to be complied with in the immediate future from imperatives that can be complied with later on; Maidu12 is said to formally distinguish between imperatives to be carried out in the presence vs. in the absence of the speaker.13 A closely related clause type (maybe not a subtype) are past imperatives, which are to be found at least in Dutch (cf. Mastop, 2005) and maybe Tsakhura14 (cf. Wratil, 2005). These express that something should have been done at a particular time in the past; even if one prefers to classify them as a minor clause type distinct from imperatives, their semantic meaning should be derived compositionally from ingredients found in ordinary imperatives combined with different temporal information. Their status and analysis will be discussed in more detail in Section 3.2.2. Another important area of typological variation is constituted by person agreement. Some languages seem to have specialized form types for third person imperatives (cf. Mauck, 2005, on the Indian language Bohjpuri). Other languages allow for first person equivalents of imperatives (called hortatives). English let’s + BARE I NFINITIVE has been handled as a case in point. Likewise German subject-verbinverted structures without interrogative intonation: (6)

a. b.

Let’s get started now. Fangen wir endlich mal an! start.1P.PL we finally QP RT VP RT ‘Let’s finally get started.’

Imperatives with first or third person subjects do not normally reach the degree of grammaticalization that second person imperatives reach (cf. e.g. Hopper and Traugott, 1993). In this study, I will confine my attention to the clearly addressee-related constructions. Yet, I am positive that the insights gained from second person imperatives will provide a useful basis for the analysis of clause types closely related to imperatives as conceived of here, or of subtypes of a more general imperative clause type. Ideally, some of the components in the semantics assigned to imperatives can be combined with different person information to give the right meaning for imperative-like clauses that don’t address the second person.15 Further research is needed to test this issue and elaborate on it. Clausal negation is another phenomenon that can make it hard to decide between two closely related clause types or two subtypes of one and the same clause type. 12

A cover term for three closely related North American Indian languages spoken in California. Cf. Wratil (2005). Unfortunately, many of the data in typologically oriented discussions of imperatives come from descriptive grammars that are not supported by theoretically informed semantic and pragmatic investigations. Therefore, some caution is warranted.

13

14 15

A (Lezgi-Samur) Dagestan language spoken in Azerbaijan.

One of the core questions in the analysis of third person imperatives is if the addressee still figures prominently as the one to bring about the action of someone else doing what is requested, or if any such effect should rather be treated as an epiphenomenon, maybe due to Gricean implicatures (Grice, 1975a).

1.1

Individuating Imperatives

9

Sadock and Zwicky (1985) discuss the possibility of distinguishing declaratives and denials, in contrast to assuming (positive and negative) declaratives. Imperatives pose a similar problem: the data in (7) could be captured in clause type systems that contain either (8a) or just (8b): (7)

a. b.

Get yourself one more beer. Don’t get yourself one more beer.

(8)

a.

imperative := prohibitive := <prohibitive, P ROHIBITION> imperative :=

b.

Depending on whether one assumes (8a) or (8b), (7b) is either a negated imperative, or belongs to an independent sentence type prohibitive (used to issue a P ROHI BITION ). Option (8a) amounts to the claim that English does not allow for negated imperatives. But I think that there are good arguments for (8b). In particular, it offers a better explanation for why we find the same range of non-prototypical functions for the negative case as for the positive case. Just as (9a) can under certain circumstances be used as a C ONCESSION that the addressee need not stay, (9b) can constitute a C ONCESSION that he need not go. Likewise, (9c) and (9d) seem to be parallel in being able to convey P ERMISSION to take an apple and to abstain from taking one respectively. (9)

a. b. c. d.

Okay, go then. Okay, don’t go then. Take an apple (if you like). Don’t take one (if you don’t want to).

I will therefore conclude that (at least in English) negation counts as part of the semantic object that expresses the content of an O RDER (or, in less prototypical cases, of a C OMMISSION or a P ERMISSION).16 Even if we have thus decided against a couple of possible splits of the clause type imperative, the clause type system of English, German and other languages is most likely more fine-grained than the simple three-element system in (4): at least exclamatives may enter the picture; in other languages, we may also find permissives or commissives.17 In any case, it is the three clause types listed in (4) that seem to be most interesting from a universal point of view: It is in some respects a surprising fact that most languages are similar in presenting three basic sentence types with similar functions and often strikingly similar forms. These are the declarative, interrogative, and imperative. (Sadock and Zwicky, 1985:160)

This immediately raises a big challenge: why is it that natural languages encode these three clause types instead of providing specific form types for additional functions or letting collapse, let’s say, interrogatives and imperatives? Intuitively, it 16

Compare Sadock and Zwicky (1985) for arguments against an independent clause type ‘denial’.

17

The latter two types are cross-linguistically rare. Pak et al. (2004) discuss their status in Korean.

10

1 Setting the Scene

somehow depends on what speakers want to achieve with utterances. It is difficult, however, to predict for which functions languages reserve particular form types. An interesting proposal (and, indeed, the first I am aware of) is sketched in joint work by Paul Portner, Raffaella Zanuttini, and Miok Pak (cf. e.g. Portner, 2005; Pak et al., 2004). They draw on the meanings assigned to the individual clause types together with assumptions about how the context of a linguistic exchange is represented to the participants. Unfortunately, one of the basic assumptions remains stipulative, namely that contexts are represented in this particular way. Portner’s more recent approach to imperatives (Portner, 2007) is more cautious in what can be predicted about the universality of clause types (see Section 2.2.4). The scope of my investigation is more modest. Given a system of clause types, what establishes the link between the form types and the function types? In particular, given the clause type of imperatives as realized in many languages, what is it that binds together that particular form type at sentence level (e.g., in German, sentences with a particular verb form in the position of the finite verb, mostly empty preverbal position, optional subject) with the prototypical function of an O RDER? The general question can be stated as follows: Issue 1.1 The problem of clause type encoding (CTE) Clause types are pairs of form types and function types. How are these pairs encoded? In particular, this poses the question whether the encoding is done by semantics18 or by pragmatics (Grewendorf and Zaefferer, 1991, dub this issue the question of modularity). In Section 1.3 I will argue for an answer in favor of semantics. For imperatives, CTE boils down to explaining why O RDER is felt to be the prototypical function of imperative sentences. A central goal of this book is to resolve this problem. But before approaching it, I want to shed some light on the difference between the prototypical function associated with a sentence level form type and the actual function performed by an actual utterance of one of its tokens.

1.2 Clause Types and Actual Utterances In Section 1.1.3, I have argued that each of the relevant sentence level form types comes with a prototypical speech act type. In this section, I will focus on the fact that each normal utterance19 is assigned a particular speech act type that can, but

18

‘Semantics’ in the sense of Cresswell’s (1973:238) ‘semantic pragmatics’, namely as concerned with meaning as a function from contexts to senses. That is, the way in which context produces the sense is part of the meaning. This contrasts with Montague’s (1974) view of semantics as completely independent of contextual notions. 19

Gazdar (1981) introduces ‘normal utterance’ for utterances that are used to perform a speech act (in contrast, for example, to utterances that are used to test a microphone).

1.2

Clause Types and Actual Utterances

11

need not, match the prototypical function of the sentence uttered. For example, declaratives are typically used for A SSERTIONs. Nevertheless, it is well known that declaratives can be used for many other speech acts as well; depending on the context, utterances of declarative sentences can constitute P ROMISE s, T HREATs, WARNINGs, O RDERs, etc. Now, this is of course reminiscent of Searle’s (1975) category of indirect speech acts, which he defines as speech acts that come about additionally in virtue of some other speech act being performed. It is well known that an interrogative like (10a) can be used as a R EQUEST to hand over the salt, or that a declarative like (10b) can work as an O RDER to close the window. (10)

a. b.

Can you pass the salt? I am cold.

The assumption that such utterances achieve two (independent)20 speech acts at one time is corroborated by observations that they allow for the addressee to react to direct, indirect, or both speech acts (Morgan, 1975; Gazdar, 1981). (11)

a. b.

A: Could you pass the salt? B: Yes. A: Do you mind if I use your two-way radio B (handing microphone to A): Sure. [from Gazdar (1981), who refers to a script of a TV series]

The standard assumption is that the second clause type comes in either via conventionalization (cf. Searle, 1975; Asher and Lascarides, 2001, e.g. (10a), (11b)) or via Gricean inference (cf. Gordon and Lakoff, 1975, e.g. (10b)). Therefore, the utterances realize the speech act type prototypically associated with the respective form type, but, in the particular utterance context, this gives rise to an additional act being performed (or, according to Asher and Lascarides, 2001, one complex act being performed). For such cases of indirect speech acts it is thus unproblematic to let the form type contribute the prototypical speech act type and start inferencing from there. Nevertheless, the plurifunctionality of declaratives mentioned above does not always warrant a treatment in terms of indirect speech acts. It seems to be one of the hallmarks of A SSERTIONs that they can be countered by That’s (not) true. (see also Section 4.3). Yet, such a follow-up is infelicitous with many of the usages made of declaratives. For example, if (12) is meant and understood as a P ROMISE , B’s reply is odd, even on the negative. (12)

A: I’ll be there on time! B: # That’s (not) true.

If the P ROMISE came about as an indirect speech act, in addition to an underlying A SSERTION, the follow-up should be acceptable as it could still target the

20

In particular, it is not the case that one is more specific as the other.

12

1 Setting the Scene

underlying A SSERTION-part of the utterance. Moreover, P ROMISEs, W ISHes, WARNINGs, . . . performed by declaratives lack the sense of indirectness present in examples like (10a) and (10b), which always seems to result in an additional pragmatic effect—oftentimes politeness or impoliteness.21 I therefore conclude that despite their canonical association with A SSERTION, declaratives can also perform a series of other speech act types without the other speech act type riding along on an underlying A SSERTION. Things are no different for imperatives. It is useful to look at a language with unambiguous marking of the imperative clause type, as for example German. Donhauser’s (1986) detailed study of German imperatives lists at least the speech act types in (13)–(14); moreover, (15) displays occurrences of imperatives that are apparently associated with functions at a sub-speech act level (see Section 6.3 for discussion and analysis). (13)

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

g.

Lies das! read.I MP S G this ‘Read this!’ Bleib weg vom Projektor! stay.I MP S G away from-the projector ‘Stay away from the projector!’ Geh nicht auf diese Party! go.I MP S G not to this party ‘Don’t go to the party!’ Hab viel Spaß auf der Party! have.I MP S G lot fun at the party ‘Have fun at the party!’ Dreh bitte das Licht ab. turn.I MP S G please the light off ‘Turn off the light, please.’ Nimm den A, wenn du nach Harlem willst. take.I MP S G the A, if you to Harlem want ‘Take the A train if you want to go to Harlem.’22 Fahr zur Hölle! go.I MP S G to-the hell ‘Go to hell!’

21

C OMMAND

WARNING

P ROHIBITION

W ISH

R EQUEST

A DVICE

C URSE

Ultimately, the distinction of whether a linguistic object achieves a particular speech act type directly or via the recognition of some other speech act type can only be answered by empirical study (for discussion of early experiments, see Noveck and Sperber, 2004). Thereby, it may also turn out that conventionalized indirect speech acts like Could you pass me the salt, please are truly different from non-conventionalized ones. Maybe they do not rely on the recognition of the underlying speech act type but are already grammaticalized as minor clause types with their own particular meaning. This issue is left aside as orthogonal to the investigation I am pursuing here. 22

Billy Strayhorn, via Sæbø (2002).

1.2

(14)

Clause Types and Actual Utterances

a.

b.

(15)

a.

b.

13

(Es beginnt um 8, aber) komm früher, wenn du magst! (it starts at 8, but) come.I MP S G earlier, if you like ‘(It starts at eight, but) come earlier if you like!’23 P ERMISSION Ok, dann komm eben nicht! (Wenn du dich für so schlau ok, then come.I MP S G P RT not (if you yourself for so clever hältst.) hold) ‘All right, don’t come then! (If you think you are so clever.)’ C ONCESSION Komm pünktlich und du kriegst einen Sitzplatz. come.I MP S G punctually and you get a seat ‘Come in time and you’ll get a seat.’ Conditional and, (IaD) pünktlich oder du verpasst den ersten Vortrag! Komm the first talk come.I MP S G punctually or you miss ‘Come in time, or you’ll miss the first talk!’ Conditional or, (IoD)

Davies (1986) offers a similar overview for English; typological studies like Palmer (1986), Bybee et al. (1994), and Xrakovskij (2001) parallel these observations for various types of languages whose imperatives have been studied in detail.24 Given this wide range of speech act types that imperatives can be associated with depending on the context, any attempt to reduce them to a common functional core faces the challenge of this common core becoming trivial. Note in particular that, despite the widespread idea that imperatives are always used for ‘directive speech acts’, not all of the above mentioned examples meet the commonly accepted characteristics of directive speech acts (cf. e.g. Searle and Vanderveken, 1985). With an A DVICE like (13f), the speaker can simply express what is the best way to get to Harlem without trying to get the addressee to actually take the A-train.25 Moreover, 23

Example from Hamblin (1987). It is particularly interesting that this spectrum of usages is even available in languages that have more specialized forms grammaticalized to express one or the other of them (e.g. Korean marks permissives as distinct clause type different from imperatives or declaratives, yet it can still employ imperatives to convey P ERMISSIONS), cf. Pak et al. (2004). 24

25

Searle and Vanderveken (1985:181) acknowledge two readings of the English speech act verb advise. According to them, when construed with a that-clause it describes an assertive act of presenting something as the optimal solution, whereas when construed with a to-infinitival, it describes a directive act of trying to get the addressee to do something. Without taking any stance on this syntactic distinction, addressing exchanges like (i), I intend my label A DVICE to describe a speech act that does not require the speaker to have any preference for the prejacent to be acted on (hence, not directive), yet, it requires that the propositional content be constituted by a future act of the addressee and that the speaker somehow accept or endorse the addressee’s goals. Hence, while Searle and Vanderveken (1985) would classify it as an assertive speech act, it differs from an A SSERTION:

(i)

A: How do I get to Harlem? B: Take the A-train.

See Section 4.2 for the relevant notion of endorsement.

A DVICE

14

1 Setting the Scene

W ISHes don’t require the propositional content to describe a future action of the addressee, and indeed we find W ISH-imperatives with non-future oriented content (see Section 4.1.3 for examples). In general, any attempt to find a common functional core would have to be combined with an explanation of how this common core can get specified to particular speech act types for imperative tokens in their context of use. I record the apparent inhomogeneity of usages associated with imperatives as the functional inhomogeneity problem (FIP): Issue 1.2 The functional inhomogeneity problem (FIP) Cross-linguistically, the imperatives of a given language tend to get associated with a rather inhomogeneous range of speech act types (C OMMAND , WARNING , P RO HIBITION , W ISH , R EQUEST, A DVICE , C URSE , P ERMISSION , C ONCESSION, etc.) and, at least in some languages, also function (in a pre-theoretic sense of the word) on a sub-speech act level (e.g. as conditional antecedents). In addition, we have to note that besides general inhomogeneity recorded by FIP the range of functions observed embodies a particular, highly intriguing inhomogeneity. Most of the speech act types (such as R EQUESTS , C OMMANDS , P ROHIBITIONS , W ISHES , WARNINGS , A DVICE , etc.) assigned to imperatives seem somehow concerned with constraining the development of the situation so as to verify the course of events described by the imperative. But a few of them (P ERMISSION , C ONCES SION ) are concerned with opening up further possibilities for developments of the situation. This pragmatic distinction of narrowing or liberalizing the addressee’s commitments is often represented formally as universal vs. existential quantification over possible worlds as the semantic meaning of the elements that are used to achieve that effect (e.g. the modal verbs must and may, see Sections 2.3.1 and 3.1). I would like to record this as the quantificational inhomogeneity problem (QIP): Issue 1.3 The quantificational inhomogeneity problem (QIP) The functional spectrum associated with imperatives in many natural languages includes both elements that, in semantics, are normally associated with universal quantification (C OMMAND , O RDER , R EQUEST, W ISH , . . . ) and elements that are usually associated with existenital quantification (P ERMISSION , C ONCESSION ). If we want to be able to deal with FIP (and QIP) we must not overdo our task of determining the prototypical function of a clause type, or of imperatives in our particular case. If imperatives were tied invariably to their prototypical function of O RDERing, it would be unclear how they could be used for A DVICE, WARNINGs, R EQUESTs, etc. The only natural way to still allow for other functions would be to classify them as indirect speech acts. But as I pointed out above, this does not seem motivated unless there is any evidence for both speech acts to be actually computed (for example replies, modifiers like please, or (im)politeness effects). Consider for example (13f): it does not live on the recognition of a primary order and it does not show any additional effects of (im)politeness resulting from the abuse of an O RDER for giving A DVICE. Likewise, follow-ups that should be appropriate for an O RDER (Ok, but give me a moment./I am right at it./ . . . ) are also unacceptable. A similar

1.2

Clause Types and Actual Utterances

15

argument can easily be given for (silent) W ISHes as (5b). Therefore, if we have settled the issue of how to encode clause types, in view of FIP (and QIP) an analysis of imperatives (and of sentential mood in general) has to face a challenge that can be spelled out as follows: Issue 1.4 The problem of assigning speech acts to utterances (ASA) What determines the speech act type assigned to an utterance? It would be a lot easier to deal with this problem if the entire range of functions observed in FIP/QIP could be reduced to a few core elements. Above I have argued that resorting to indirectness does not seem motivated. Likewise, I have already argued in Section 1.2 that there is little evidence for the assumption that some of the speech act types listed in the FIP could be set aside as occurring with other clause types that happen to have the same surface form as imperatives. As far as I know, no convincing arguments for such ambiguities have been offered in the literature so far. In their absence, arbitrarily splitting clause types is at odds with the form-biased individuation of imperatives I have argued for in Section 1.1. Moreover, the puzzling range of functions is not confined to a few Indo-European languages like English or German. Cross-linguistic commonness of a coincidence is generally considered a strong argument against ambiguity.26 Consequently, I consider it important not to stash away the more troublesome usages before embarking on the enterprise of assigning semantic value to imperatives. To my knowledge, none of the existing approaches to the semantics of imperatives gives priority to that. For a large part of the literature, the main goal lies in capturing the impossibility of imperatives being used as A SSERTIONs, and therefore, to make them differ from declaratives (cf. McGinn, 1977, for particular emphasis in this respect). What is stressed is that imperatives cannot describe the world as it is. I want to underline that this is only one side of the coin, and that, somehow, imperatives do give information as well (cf. Aloni, 2004, for a guarded argumentation in that direction). In Section 2.3.3, I will present a couple of arguments why the non-declarative/non-descriptive issue should not be stressed as much as it has been recently (for example by Portner, 2005; Mastop, 2005; Veltman, 2005; Franke, 2005; Portner, 2007; Han, t.a.). To make this point even clearer, consider a couple of examples from the literature that display how a very narrow understanding of what imperatives do tends to be presupposed when setting out to explore their semantics. 26 An anonymous reviewer points out that the cross-linguistic existence of ambiguities may be less unexpected if such ambiguities result along the path of grammaticalization processes, for instance. This point is certainly worth considering. In general, I think that such expressions or constructions should be treated as semantically uniform or polysemous (i.e., sharing a semantic core) as far as possible—in that sense, the burden of proof that two surface structures no longer share a common semantic core is on the objector. Now, in the given case, there is little evidence that imperatives used for O RDERs, A DVICE or W ISHes may show different degrees of grammaticalization. It seems that we are dealing with one and the same morphosyntactic construction that can be used for various types of speech acts. But note that this is less clear for imperatives occurring below the speech act level, e.g. (15), Therefore, in Section 6.3, I offer detailed arguments that these cases, too, are formally and semantically identical to ordinary imperatives.

16

1 Setting the Scene In natural language, the distinction between imperative mode and declarative mode is made by assuming that declarative sentences describe a state of the world, while imperative sentences convey an intention of the speaker that the addressee takes responsibility for changing the world in some particular way. We will study some simple logical languages where commands to change the world are interpreted literally as transitions that make things happen by effecting the desired change. (van Eijck, 2000:41) As a first, intuitive approximation, we can say that imperatives represent actions which the addressee should take. (Portner, 2005) I will assume for the remainder of this chapter that we can identify such a thing as the ‘imperative sentence type’. By this I mean a syntactically and/or semantically definable class of sentences of which all members share an interpretation of being some kind of instigation from the speaker to the hearer to perform some action. (Mastop, 2005:10)

Under such assumptions, the scholar’s task becomes to enrich her model of the semantics-pragmatics interface to encompass the particular function presupposed to underly imperatives. This differs crucially from the task of assigning adequate meaning to a linguistic expression and is therefore in opposition to the ultimately form-biased individuation via clause types that I am advocating here. The position exemplified by the quotes above allows (or rather, opts) for a far more specific and confined semantics than what will be needed for my task.

1.3 Semantics or Pragmatics?—Deciding on the Boundaries In this section, I will argue for a particular division of labor between semantics and pragmatics when it comes to the encoding of clause types and the assignment of speech act types to actual utterances. The first step towards an analysis of imperatives is to decide upon a general strategy to find compatible answers to the problems of how to encode clause types (CTE, cf. Issue 1.1), and how to assign speech act types to utterances (ASA, cf. Issue 1.4). Let us first focus on CTE, the problem of how the relation between form type and prototypical function as listed in a clause type system is encoded. I want to argue that the relation is mediated by the semantic value of the form type. Let us call this the mediating semantics hypothesis for clause types and phrase it as follows:27 Hypothesis 1.1 The mediating semantics hypothesis for clause types (MSH) Assume that the system of clause types for some language L is the set of ordered pairs CT L ⊆ H × K (where, H is the set of disambiguated sentence level form types, K the set of speech act types; see Section 1.1.3). Assume further that I is the interpretation function for L. Then, for each < h i , ki >∈ CT L , I (h i ) determines ki . At first glance, MSH looks similar to what Gazdar (1981) ascribes to Searle (1975) under the name of the literal meaning hypothesis.28 To encompass indirectness, it is 27 28

The deliberately vague notion of ‘determining’ will be discussed in detail in Chapter 2.

Translated into my framework by substituting ‘speech act type’ for ‘illocutionary force’. Note that Gazdar/Searle sees R EQUEST as the prototypical function of an imperative.

1.3

Semantics or Pragmatics?—Deciding on the Boundaries

17

assumed that an utterance can perform more than one speech act, so each utterance context c is associated with a (possibly singleton) set of speech acts Mc ⊆ K , and for each utterance, c E is the disambiguated syntactic object uttered in c; E L is the set of disambiguated syntactic objects that can be generated by the grammar of L (in particular, c E ∈ E L for any non-deviant context c). Hypothesis 1.2 (not adopted) The literal meaning hypothesis (cf. Gazdar, 1981): There exists a function F ∈ K E L such that for all c ∈ C, F(c E ) ∈ Mc . If c E contains a performative prefix, then F(c E ) = k where k is the speech act type named by the performative verb in the prefix. Otherwise: F(c E ) = Q UESTION , when c E is interrogative F(c E ) = R EQUEST , when c E is imperative F(c E ) = A SSERTION, when c E is declarative. The basic message of the literal meaning hypothesis is that the linguistic object expressed strictly determines (one of) the speech act(s) associated with the utterance. Speech act types other than the prototypical one can appear at best in addition, in the case of indirect speech acts. Gazdar (1981:74f) argues convincingly that this runs into various kinds of problems. Similarly, I also argued above that declaratives can be associated with speech act types other than A SSERTION, and that imperatives can be associated with speech act types other than O RDER (or, R EQUEST as considered prototypical in the literal meaning hypothesis), without there being any evidence of indirectness. But note that, contrary to superficial appearance, the mediating semantics hypothesis (MSH) is very different from the literal meaning hypothesis. MSH is an answer to CTE, the problem of clause type encoding (cf. Issue 1.1), not to ASA, the problem of assigning speech act types to utterances, cf. Issue 1.4. That is, MSH claims that the semantic interpretation of the imperative form type is responsible for why O RDER is perceived to be the prototypical function of an imperative. It does not claim that the semantic interpretation of the syntactic object could in itself determine what speech act type a particular imperative token is used for in its utterance context. In contrast, assigning a speech act type to imperative tokens (and thus answering ASA) is exactly what the literal meaning hypothesis is meant to do (allowing for standard Gricean inferences to identify additional indirect speech act types). In opposition to the literal meaning hypothesis, I think that an answer to ASA has to take into account the influence of the context even where there is no evidence of indirectness. I will therefore propose the following (assume again that I is an interpretation function for the language under consideration):29 29

My view is similar to Hausser’s (1980): Syntactic mood does not determine the speech act. Rather, syntactic mood participates with all the other linguistic properties of a given surface expression φ in delimiting the

18

1 Setting the Scene

Hypothesis 1.3 The speech act assignment hypothesis (SAH) The speech act type associated with an utterance of a disambiguated object c E in a context c is determined by interplay of the semantic object I (cd ) with properties of the utterance context c (to be described in terms of beliefs, desires, obligations, etc. of the participants in c). So, both MSH (my answer to the problem of clause type encoding) and SAH (my answer to the problem of assigning speech act types to utterances) rely crucially on the semantic object expressed by the sentence uttered. But MSH claims that we only need to consider this semantic object, while SAH requires that we have to consider it in its interplay with an actual utterance context. Still, MSH answers the question of modularity in favor of semantics: clause types are encoded semantically. Alternatively, one could have opted for an encoding in pragmatics. For example, Dummett (1973) assumes that all clause types have the same Fregean sense, but are supplied with a force (comparable to the speech act types I have been talking about) that is to be analyzed in pragmatics (for discussion, cf. McGinn, 1977). Other authors claim that different clause types can differ in semantic meaning, and that this constrains which force operators they can combine with (e.g. Frege, 191830 ; Han, 2000). Still, the interpretation of the force operators (and hence, the crucial part of the encoding of the associated speech act type) is left to pragmatics. Without arguing against the possibility of a pragmatic encoding in detail, I want to list a few more or less standard arguments in favor of a semantic treatment of sentence mood. First, phenomena that prove to be robust with respect to embedding are traditionally classified as part of the recursive component of meaning assignment encoded in semantics. Sentence mood distinctions as established for matrix sentences are typically paralleled in the realm of embedded sentences:31 (16)

a. b.

John knows that it is raining. John knows whether it is raining.

Given the well known resistance of imperatives against embedding, relevant phenomena are harder to find for that particular clause type. But some instances seem to exist after all (see Chapter 6 for discussion). One case is quantifiers taking wide scope with respect to the imperative: set of use-conditions of φ. Since there is no one to one relation between syntactic moods and speech acts, it would be a mistake to implement speech act properties in the semantic characterization of syntactic mood. (Hausser, 1980:73) 30

In contrast to Dummett, Frege states explicitly that the sense of a declarative is a thought (ein Gedanke), but the sense of an imperative is not. 31

Even if generally accepted, this criterion has not gone completely undisputed. See e.g. Kamp (1978) for early arguments in favor of letting pragmatics (certain implicatures) enter the recursive component of meaning assignment. More recently, consider also work on scalar implicatures, cf. Chierchia et al. (t.a.).

1.3

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Semantics or Pragmatics?—Deciding on the Boundaries

a.

b.

19

Die meisten Anträge hat Hans nicht mal gelesen. the most proposals has Hans not P RT read ‘For most proposals it is the case that John has not even read them.’ Die meisten Anträge lies erst gar nicht. the most proposals read.I MP S G DP RT P RT not ‘Most proposals don’t even read.’

Another case is evidenced by languages that allow for imperatives in reported speech. This seems to be the case for colloquial varieties of German: (18)

da morgen Hans hat dir doch schon gestern gesagt, geh Hans has you DP RT already yesterday told go.I MP S G there tomorrow hin! VP RT ‘Hans already told you yesterday to go there tomorrow.’

Conditional imperatives like (19) constitute another phenomenon where imperatives seem to play a role at sub-speech act level (see Section 6.3 for discussion): (19)

Take a step to the left and you’ll fall off the stairs.

Here, the first conjunct can be shown to bear all the characteristics of the imperative clause type. Yet, it is not used for an independent speech act, and the overall speech act type assigned to (19) is most likely T HREAT or WARNING . Second, besides the prototypical function indicated in the clause type pair, most form types can cover a variety of other functions (cf. FIP for imperatives, Issue 1.2). A purely pragmatic solution would either have to require that for each form type all the speech act types it can be used for are listed along with the most prototypical one, or that we can assign a suitable supertype that is underspecified enough to encompass all other types. But this pragmatic account would also have to tell a story about why one element of the list is felt to be prototypical, or why one specification of the supertype is (apart from the fact that such a supertype still remains to be found). Third, if the encoding is taken care of by the semantic meaning assignment, some aspects follow automatically. For example, the semantic meaning assignment is assumed to be a function from forms to meanings. If we can define a suitable architecture of the semantics-pragmatics interface that draws on it, we derive automatically that each disambiguated form type belongs to exactly one clause type. On the other hand, if the encoding of clause types were taken care of by a separate pragmatic meaning assignment, its functional nature would have to be established independently. Fourth, a pragmatic solution seems to run into trouble if indirect speech acts are to be distinguished from direct usages. On the view presented above, any form of indirect speaking consists in the exploitation of the literal meaning of a linguistic item to convey something different. Hence, it depends on the literal meaning being computed and understood—including the sentence mood and the speech act that is being executed directly. Compare (20a) and (20b):

20

(20)

1 Setting the Scene

a. b.

I am cold. Am I cold?

While the declarative in (20a) can easily be understood both as an A SSERTION and an O RDER that the addressee close the window at the same time, the interrogative in (20b) requires considerably more context to achieve an additional effect of constituting an O RDER. But if both the interpretation of clause types and the inference to additional effects happen at the level of pragmatic interpretation, it is not clear how they interact and why there is an effect of indirectness. In any case, it seems that a layered system of pragmatic processes would have to be worked out carefully (compare e.g. Gazdar, 1979, for the interaction between entailments, implicatures, and presuppositions). Fifth, McGinn (1977) points out that we have to distinguish between what he calls the force associated with an utterance and the sentence mood associated with a linguistic object (i.e., our clause type). While the former can be suspended in a non-intentional context (e.g. example sentences in a grammar book, testing a microphone), sentence mood stays unaffected. That is, a sentence token can be recognized as an imperative without being associated with any particular speech act type. Sixth, if clause types are encoded in the pragmatic component, it is unclear how the assignment of pragmatic meaning interacts with the form type. A listwise associaton of complex form types with the respective functions does not seem very intuitive as a component of natural language grammar. On the other hand, if the encoding were to depend on the various aspects of a form type in a systematic way (similar to the compositionality hypothesis governing the relation between syntactic structure and semantic interpretation), the syntactic object would have to be subjected to semantic and pragmatic interpretation in parallel. Again, it seems preferable to make do with semantic interpretation alone if possible, and derive pragmatic meaning from its output in interaction with the context. Now that we have motivated a semantic encoding of clause types, we can reconsider their status for the theory. On closer inspection, they turn out to be a purely heuristic tool for the semantic analysis. If the semantic interpretation of the LF of a given sentence determines the prototypical function of this sentence as the one corresponding to its form type in the clause type system, it is enough for any given sentence to have syntax tell us the correct LF and to have semantics tell us its correct interpretation. But at least as far as imperatives are concerned, this is not what the current literature can offer us; it is our goal, not our starting point. Therefore, clause type systems prove highly useful to find out what data to look at when working out the semantics of ‘imperatives’. Ultimately, it is certainly desirable to discard clause types as a stepping stone towards the object of analysis. After all, the function type could only be indicated as ‘prototypical’. For any given language, a plausible list of clause types will tell us which of its sentence-level form types has to be assigned the imperative semantics we are about to develop. Working out a cross-linguistically uniform ‘imperative semantics’ is motivated by the empirical observation that the relevant form types behave surprisingly similarly cross-linguistically. As I have already pointed out in Section 1.2,

1.4

The Framework

21

languages may vary slightly in what subtypes of imperative they distinguish, or if they mark additional, closely related minor clause types. The MSH allows for a very natural solution to such slight differences. If the semantic representation of the imperative clause form type is computed compositionally, differences in the ingredients may give rise to different subtypes (still corresponding to one and the same prototypical function) or closely related types (associated with different prototypical functions). For detailed discussion of one such parameter see the interaction with tense and reference time (see Section 3.2.2). In the remainder of the book, I will pursue two goals. On the one hand, I will try to make clear what it means for a semantic object to determine a prototypical function by exploring what semantic object could be assigned to an imperative. On the other hand, I will show how that same semantic object can interact with the actual constellation of an utterance context to give rise to a particular speech act possibly different from the prototypical one.32 To account for this interaction between semantic meaning and speech act types, we first need to spell out a reference model for the semantics-pragmatics interface. This is the aim of the next section.

1.4 The Framework It was first pointed out by Robert Stalnaker that the relation between context and content is twofold: context influences content, since the expressions used to say something are often contextdependent: what they are used to say is a function, not only of the meanings of the expressions, but also of facts about the situations in which they are used. But second, the contents that are expressed also influence the context: speech acts affect the situations in which they are performed. (Stalnaker, 1999a:4).

Clearly, this mutual dependence is relevant for any attempt to spell out a semantic account for clause types or imperatives in particular. In order to address these questions, I will use a model of discourse that follows the informal outline in Stalnaker (1999b). I will slightly modify Stalnaker’s own implementation (e.g. in Stalnaker, 1978) in order to integrate a Kaplanian concept of indexicality (cf. Kaplan, 1989). Amendments along these lines are widespread practice in linguistic semantics. Any utterance context c is uniquely determined by a quadruple containing a speaker c S , an addressee c A , a time cT and a world cW .33 Assume that De is the

32

While I will not offer a theory of how further indirect speech acts are inferred from a primary direct speech act, I will try not to dismiss too quickly alternative solutions in terms of indirect speech acts. 33 The addressee parameter is added for simplicity. Strictly speaking, a context is already uniquely determined by the corresponding triple that excludes the addressee c A (cf. Lewis, 1980). Given c S , cT and cW , c A can always be determined as the person c S is addressing at cT in cW .

22

1 Setting the Scene

set of individuals, T is the set of intervals and W is the set of all possible worlds. The set of contexts C is then defined as follows. Definition 1.1 The set of contexts C is the set of quadruples < c S , c A , cT , cW > ∈ (De × De × T × W ), such that c S is speaking to c A at cT in cW .34 Additionally, each such context determines many more parameters: e.g., the location of a context c is determined as the place c L such that c S is at c L in cW at cT ; or, c E is the (disambiguated) linguistic object uttered in c by c S ; etc. Now, one of the core aims of linguistic exchange is to obtain a better understanding of one’s situation. In general, speaker and addressee will not be able to determine exactly what context they are in. For example, they may be insecure of the identity of their interlocutor, or, in a less marked case, they may not be exactly sure what the time is. In particular, in any normal utterance context, speaker and hearer are unable to determine the exact nature of cW . There are many facts they are ignorant about, which renders worlds that agree on all issues that constitute mutual joint belief of speaker and addressee, but may settle all other issues in all possible ways, equally good candidates for cW . For our purposes, only uncertainty with respect to the world parameter will matter. Instead of considering alternative contexts which speaker and hearer in the actual utterance context consider good candidates for their actual utterance context, we will thus focus on the alternative worlds they hold possible. Therefore, as an additional parameter determined by a given context c we will take into account the set of worlds that are compatible with what speaker and hearer hold as mutual joint belief in c.35 Stalnaker calls the set of such beliefs the common ground; the set of possible worlds that are compatible with mutual joint belief of speaker and hearer, i.e. the intersection of the common ground, is called the context set. Definition 1.2 The context set of a context c (henceforth CS(c)) is the set of possible world-time pairs that are compatible with what c S and c A hold as mutual joint belief at cT in cW . In the following, I sometimes ignore the temporal parameter and speak of a context’s context set as a set of possible worlds. We should keep in mind that this is a simplification. If it is clear what context c we are talking about, I will also write CS for CS(c) (and CG for the common ground CG(c)). Another, somewhat theory-internal parameter that is determined by the context is the variable assignment c G . Intuitively, the variable assignment is needed to store what is being talked about and can thus be referred to by pronouns. Additionally, it is also used on a purely technical level to implement binding as created by movement (cf. Heim and Kratzer, 1998). It may seem a particularly coarse simplification to rely on a single variable assignment as determined by the actual context. Usually, 34 Thereby we constrain the notion of ‘context’ in the sense of Kaplan (1989); for discussion cf. Zimmermann (1997). 35

For a formal definition of mutual joint belief, cf. Stalnaker (2002) and Fagin et al. (1995). Note that all alternatives according to mutual joint belief for a given utterance context have to agree on what is mutual joint belief of speaker and hearer.

1.4

The Framework

23

multiple variable assignments compatible with the information in the context are used to model indeterminacy as to the referents of indefinites (cf. Groenendijk and Stokhof, 1991, for a full-fledged dynamic treatment of variable assignments in utterance contexts). However, as all related intricacies strike me as orthogonal to the issue I am pursuing here, I will stick to this very useful simplification. c E stands for the disambiguated LF of the linguistic object uttered in a context c. It gets interpreted by a function ·c . This meaning function interprets declarative sentences as propositions and their constituents as individuals and functions of various types. Expressions are typed by the primitive types e for individuals, s for worlds, t for truth-values, i for times, and ε for events, as well as the complex types built from them in the usual way.36,37 Given these basic assumptions, Stalnaker (1978) provides us with a model of information exchange as it lies at the heart of A SSERTing (and accepting) declaratives. Declaratives express propositions. An (unmarked) utterance of a declarative constitutes an attempt to add it to the common ground, i.e. to intersect it with the context set. The core effect of a successful A SSERTION of a declarative φ in c (i.e., an A SSERTION whose content is accepted by the addressee) amounts to the following: the set of worlds compatible with mutual joint belief are intersected with the proposition expressed by φ in c, i.e. φc . Consequently, the context set of c records all accepted information pertaining to the issues discussed in c and gets updated by (successful) assertions. At the same time, it records all facts about the current discourse that both participants are aware of. That is, if both c S and c A are aware that c S has just pronounced the sentence I like porridge and are not in doubt about their respective identities, then all worlds in the context set in the context c make true that c S has pronounced a three-word sentence of English immediately before cT . In that sense, the context set has to reflect meta-conversational information as well. Moreover, if c A is willing to believe that c S was right in what she said (namely, that she indeed likes porridge), all worlds in CS(c) will further have the property that c S likes porridge, thus reflecting information expressed explicitly by the utterance.38 Stalnaker’s model allows us to represent how, in the course of an A SSERTION, the content of a declarative sentence influences the context. It does not aim at a general understanding of speech act types, though. In order to fully understand what it means for particular form types to get associated with some but not other speech act types, we need a better understanding of speech acts (i.e. acts in the world people undertake by making use of the literal meaning of linguistic expressions), 36

The set of logical types for any given natural language L consists of (i) the five primitive logical types, and, (ii) if α and β are logical types, α, β is a logical type. An expression of logical type α is interpreted as referring to something in the corresponding domain Dα . The domain Dα,β of a complex logical type α, β is the set of functions from Dα to Dβ .

37 Throughout this book I will not distinguish between sets and their characteristic functions. In other words, functions χ A of type α, t for any logical type α will often be treated as the largest subset A of Dα s.t. χ A maps all elements of A to the truth-value 1. 38

The metalinguistic aspects of an assertion are not modelled explicitly by Stalnaker (1978). For an implementation, cf. e.g. Roberts (1996).

24

1 Setting the Scene

and how they interact with the contextual settings. In the following, I will briefly present a standard Austinian-Searlean conception of speech acts (cf. Levinson, 1983, for an overview) and bring it together with the model of contexts outlined above. In fact, not much hinges on the particular details of the speech act theory chosen: any speech act theory should—minimally—offer us a description of what is happening in an utterance situation in which a particular speech act is being executed. Searle (1969) assumes that each speech act consists in combining a propositional content p with a force F, where ‘force’ corresponds to what I call ‘speech act type’. Each force is jointly constituted by a set of rules. In contrast to Searle’s own interest, I will use his theory of speech acts in a purely descriptive way. In particular, the status of the rules need not concern us: we will view them as descriptions of what has to be the case in a linguistic exchange such that we are willing to consider the speaker’s action (and possibly, the addressee’s reaction) a successful speech act of a particular type (or, as having a particular force).39 Searle distinguishes four types of rules that constitute a force: propositional content rules, preparatory conditions, essential condition, sincerity condition. Propositional content rules are needed to capture the fact that P ROMISEs are about future actions of the speaker, whereas R EQUESTs are about future behavior of the addressee, and T HANKing is about past actions of the addressee.40 Preparatory content conditions target (i) evidence with respect to the status of the propositional content, e.g. for an A SSERTION, the speaker has to have evidence for the truth of what she is asserting; and (ii) institutional facts, e.g. for the speech act of M ARRY ing, both parties have to be unmarried; for C OMMAND ing, the speaker has to have authority over the addressee. Sincerity conditions require that speaker and addressee have the relevant intentions and feelings; e.g. for an A SSERTION, the speaker has to believe the propositional content; for A DVIS ing, the speaker has to believe the propositional content will benefit the addressee. Finally, the essential condition states that the society must have a corresponding convention ensuring that utterances that meet all other conditions for a particular illocutionary act count as achieving that illocutionary act, and thus, as long as all other conditions are met, this speech act comes about. As we are interested only in what has to be observable in a particular linguistic exchange for a particular speech act type to be realized, we can ignore the essential 39 Ultimately, I believe that the rule based approach to speech acts should be replaced by an intentional treatment (cf. Bach and Harnish, 1979). The speaker’s utterance has to meet something like Grice’s (1975a) intentionality condition. This assures that the context transformation is indeed brought about by a speaker who employed his utterance with a particular communicative intention (cf. Grice, 1975b, for extensive discussion of all kinds of pathological cases concerning this condition, and a precise notion of the principle). For our particular concerns, this difference does not play a crucial role, and I will ignore it in the following. 40 Searle’s examples make clear that he does not intend the propositional content to be the output of the compositional semantic component, e.g. the propositional content of Thanks! can be ‘that you showed me the way’.

1.4

The Framework

25

condition. The only thing of interest to us will be that it specifies what is the intended effect of the speech act type (e.g. ‘counts as an attempt to get c A to do A’ (R EQUEST)), so it also tells us what will be the consequence of the act if it does not misfire. Moreover, we can more or less ignore the propositional content condition, as it will follow largely from presuppositions that are part of the formulations of preparatory conditions and sincerity conditions. For example, consider R EQUEST s: from one of the preparatory conditions, namely, that ‘it is not obvious to both c S and c A that c A would do A without being asked’ it follows that ‘A has to be a future act of c A ’.41 I will thus focus on sincerity and preparatory conditions. How do they relate to the model of context spelled out above? Apart from Stalnaker’s work on A SSERTIONs, there is surprisingly little systematic interaction between the literature on semantic meaning and utterance contexts and the literature on speech acts (concerned with linguistic exchange as (social) interaction) (but cf. Eckardt and Schwager, 2009; Condoravdi and Lauer, 2010). Nevertheless, Searle’s conditions (or any more systematic version of them) can be translated directly into a classification of sequences of contexts, such that the precontext c meets certain requirements (the preparatory and sincerety conditions), and the postcontext c of a successful execution of the speech act meets the aim mentioned in the essential condition (or, depending on the particular speech act type, sometimes the addressee’s recognition of the aim can be sufficient).42 Moreover, there is an intermediate context c that is characterized by the speaker uttering an element of the language spoken in the particular context. The standard classification of speech act types can now be spelled out in terms of properties of sequences of contexts. Searle’s conditions can be translated as properties of the precontext c , the actual utterance context c and the postcontext c , where cT immediately precedes the utterance context c in which the speaker expresses c E , which, in turn, is followed immediately by cT . Loosely speaking, I call such a sequence c < c < c a minimal sequence of contexts.43 Note that these 41 It has to be noticed that—without explicit discussion of the differences—Searle’s examples are not entirely systematic. For example, in some cases, preparatory conditions are spelled out as epistemic requirements ‘has reason to believe that’ (for WARNINGs), in other cases, they require both facts about the world and a certain status ‘c A is able to do A. c S believes that c A can do A’ (R EQUESTs). 42

Zeevat (2003) distinguishes explicitly between the aim that the speaker wants to achieve and the minimal effect. The former can be of various kinds and it does not depend on the speaker alone whether she is going to reach it. The latter is the effect the utterance will achieve simply in virtue of being perceived and recognized as such (with the intended speech act type). For example, for a WARNING it is sufficient that the addressee realizes that the speaker considers the given situation dangerous (minimal effect), while it is not necessary that she acts on it and avoids whatever she was warned of (aim). Strictly speaking, c and c  are not utterance contexts as no linguistic object c E is uttered in them. We can consider them as paracontexts that agree with c on all parameters apart from the linguistic object and the temporal parameter cT (which is shifted backward/forward minimally).

43

26

1 Setting the Scene

descriptions are not definitions, as reference to speaker intentions, and in particular to the causality between the linguistic utterance and the contextual effect, is omitted. For A SSERTIONs, the sequences can be described as in (21) and can be formalized straightforwardly in the Stalnaker-Kaplan set-up of contexts (‘possible’ is taken to be compatible with the common ground, ‘has-reasons-to-believe’ is a complex modal notion which I take as primitive for the moment). (21)

A SSERT(φ): (Pre1 ) φ is taken to be possible and ¬φ is taken to be possible. CS(c ) ∩ φ = ∅ ∧ CS(c ) ∩ ¬φ = ∅ (Pre2 ) It is possible that S has reasons to believe φ. CS(c )∩ has-reason-to-believe-φ (c S ) = ∅ (Post) c S and c A jointly believe that c S believes φ. CS(c ) ⊆ c S believes φ.   (Action) There is c in between c and c , such that at c c S utters a linguistic object c E .

The speech act theoretic descriptions for the sequences corresponding to P ERMIS SION s and COMMAND s are given in (22) and (23): (22)

P ERMIT(φ): (Pre1 ) φ is prohibited. (Pre2 ) c S is entitled to permit c A to do φ. (Post) It is mutual joint belief between c S and c A that φ is permitted. (Action) There is c in between c and c , such that at c c S utters a linguistic object c E .

(23)

C OMMAND (φ): (Pre1 ) ¬φ is not prohibited. (Pre2 ) c S is entitled to command c A to do φ. (Post) It is mutual joint belief between c S and c A that φ is commanded. (Action) There is c in between c and c , such that at c c S utters a linguistic object c E .

Stalnaker’s account of how the content of a linguistic object influences the context focuses on the exchange of information, and on A SSERTIONs in particular. In contrast, it is not immediately clear how to translate the descriptions of context sequences that speech act theory provides for P ERMISSIONs, C OMMANDs and other non-assertive speech act types into a representation that can be used to model interaction with linguistic objects. In other words, our contextual set-up allows us to specify what it means for a piece of information to be or become mutual joint belief, to contradict mutual joint belief, or to be compatible with mutual joint belief. Do we have to enrich the set-up so as to account for what it means that a particular course of events is or becomes commanded, permitted, recommended or the like? This question is crucial to an understanding of how imperatives affect contextual

1.4

The Framework

27

constellations and how the contextual constellations affect the particular speech act type assigned to an imperative token. In Section 2.1.1, I will discuss various possibilities of enriching the contextual set-up in order to integrate non-assertive speech acts. Ultimately, I will advocate a theory of imperatives that does not necessitate any such enrichment.44

44 In the meantime, many aspects have been recognized that require additions to the Stalnakerian picture even for pure information exchange, e.g. discourse referents (cf. Heim, 1982; Kamp and Reyle, 1993; Groenendijk et al., 1996), epistemic modals (cf. Veltman, 1996), consideration of a proposition for update (cf. Roberts, 1996; Groenendijk and Roelofsen, 2009), discourse particles and awareness (Karagjosova, 2004; de Jager, 2009). For all of these phenomena the literature contains proposals of additional mechanisms that work on the contextual representation in terms of common ground/context set as is and do not require an enrichment of the latter. The difference will become clear during the discussion in Section 2.1.1.

Chapter 2

How to Handle Imperatives in Semantics

In Sections 1.1.3 and 1.2, I introduced two problems any theory of clause types has to address. First, it should tell us how clause types (pairs of sentence level form types and their prototypical use) are encoded. This is the problem of clause type encoding (CTE, Issue 1.1). Second, it should account for the fact that, in a given context of use, a particular sentence is used for a particular speech act. This is the problem of assigning speech act types to utterances (ASA, Issue 1.4). In response to the first, I argued that clause types should be encoded semantically (mediating semantics hypothesis, MSH, cf. Hypothesis 1.1). This of course is compatible with radically different views on what the denotations of the various clause types should look like. In the following, I will only be concerned with imperatives. I will compare various ways of encoding them semantically (CTE for imperatives) and will evaluate how these approaches fare with respect to the challenge of explaining what speech act type is assigned to a particular utterance of an imperative sentence (ASA for imperatives). Most attempts to assign semantic meaning to imperatives start out from two observations. First, imperatives appear to be fundamentally different from declaratives in that they are not felt to have truth values/truth conditions. Second, imperatives seem to somehow manipulate or constrain the future course of events with respect to the actions of the addressee. But even if they start out from the same observations, the proposals vary considerably. In Section 2.2 I will discuss in detail a few of them that have helped me to shape my own ideas on imperatives. To get a better understanding of the particular contribution of each of these theories, I will introduce three parameters. The first one is not special to investigations at the semantics-pragmatics interface: as for any other attempt to assign semantic meaning to a linguistic element or construction, approaches differ as to whether they rely on a static or on a dynamic conception of meaning. In contrast, the other two parameters are particular to investigations conducted at the semantics-pragmatics interface. The second parameter concerns the choice of how utterance contexts are represented. Theories of imperatives differ as to whether they are developed against the background of a split representationalist or a uniform representationalist conception of contexts. The last parameter is perhaps the least clear-cut: the proposals vary in

M. Kaufmann, Interpreting Imperatives, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 88, C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012 DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-2269-9_2, 

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the degree to which speech act related matters are imported into the semantics. Some approaches rely on (core) semantic meanings (i.e., propositions, properties, actions,. . . ) that do not make reference to particular speech act types, but are assumed, thanks to their very nature, to interact with the utterance context so as to obtain the effect a particular speech act type would have; other approaches explicitly import speech acts (or their effects on the contextual settings) into the realm of semantic denotata. When discussing a few proposals one by one, it will become obvious that the distinction is more a tendency than a clear-cut line. However, the classification along these lines proves helpful to gain a better understanding of the respective conceptions of the semantics-pragmatics interface. While theoretically independent, the possibilities of setting these three parameters show some connections. In particular, the assumption that linguistic expressions denote pragmatic concepts is hard to concretize unless it is backed by a dynamic conception of meaning. I will first discuss the parameter of how given theories choose to model utterance contexts (see Section 2.1.1). I will then show that, when applied to imperatives, both static and dynamic views on the meaning of linguistic expressions encounter serious problems (see Section 2.1.2). As a third parameter, I will discuss the differences between the semantic denotata various theories assign to imperatives depending on whether these semantic objects can be captured independently of particular speech act types (see Section 2.1.3). Having introduced these parameters, I will discuss a few recent approaches. While I find that all of them illuminate particular facts about imperatives, none of them is entirely satisfactory. In Section 2.3 I will introduce and motivate my own theory of imperatives.

2.1 Three Parameters of Classification 2.1.1 Split and Uniform Representationalism The observation that imperatives typically manipulate or constrain the future course of events with respect to the actions of the addressee forces any theory of imperative meaning to look at the interaction between utterances and the world in non-assertive speech acts. The Stalnakerian set-up discussed in Section 1.4 provides a model for how declaratives interact with the utterance context in the course of A SSERTIONs but it has little to say about how linguistic expressions interact with the utterance context in the course of other speech acts. Lewis (1979a) aims to extend Stalnaker’s model of the context in order to capture what one agent is permitted or commanded to do according to another and how these parameters can be changed. He implements commanding and permitting as a language game between a master and a slave and adds to the context set (i.e., the worlds that record mutual joint belief) a second set of worlds that describe what the slave is permitted to do according to the master. Lewis calls this set the permissibility sphere (PS). Crucially, this means that permissions and obligations are stored

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independently from the context set,1 and that their status can be affected directly by certain linguistic devices. Lewis assumes that in this particular language game between master and slave, sentences modalized by must and may (i) describe the status of the permissibility sphere (hence, they express propositions), and (ii) when issued by the master, the permissibility sphere self-adjusts to make such propositions true.2 I reserve the term split representationalism for any such approach to the semantics-pragmatics interface that makes use of particular storage sites for different sorts of information, for example for epistemic and deontic information. If more types of speech acts are taken into account, further storage sites come into play, e.g. question sets that store questions under discussion (cf. Ginzburg, 1995a, b; Roberts, 1996; Portner, 2005) and are reserved for modification by interrogatives. Split representationalist models of utterance contexts are particularly attractive for the analysis of non-declarative clause types because they offer immediate possibilities for linguistic objects to interact with the context differently from the way declaratives would interact with it. Recent versions of split representationalism often give up on a uniform type of semantic objects stored in the respective sites. For example, Portner (2005) assumes that, in addition to the common ground, which stores propositions, there is also a question set storing Hamblin-Karttunen-style question denotations (i.e., sets of propositions) and, for each participant in the conversation, a To-Do-List, which stores properties. Imperatives affect the To-Do-List of the addressee. Mastop (2005) adopts the framework of partial update semantics and assumes that epistemic and non-epistemic (action related) information is stored in a schedule and a plan respectively. The schedule contains for each point of time a set of pairs of the propositions whose truth value is known together with that truth value; the plan set contains for each point of time a set of actions (roughly similar, but different from properties; cf. Mastop, 2005, for details). Crucially, the different storage sites are each meant to play a particular role in discourse. As usual, the common ground is meant to record the information that constitutes mutual joint belief. Portner’s (2005) To-Do Lists are meant to provide a rationality check on the behavior of an agent: each participant in the conversation agrees that an agent acts rationally to the degree that (s)he strives to realize a maximal set of properties appearing on his/her To-Do List. Mastop’s (2005) plan set is meant to record the agreed-upon future actions of the addressee, though he does not specifiy what a violation would amount to. Despite suggestive names like ‘plan set’ or ‘To-Do List’, we have to ask if these storage sites can actually be assigned a uniform role in the context of the conversation. For example, the agreement that the addressee will close the door (because the

1 Lewis’s conception is easily integrated into our picture of the utterance context if we assume that PS is a function that assigns each context c its permissibility sphere PS(c). 2 Lewis himself acknowledges that he does not try to offer an account for how this self-verification works. My analysis aims to account for the non-descriptive behavior of propositional meanings assigned to imperatives and performative modals in general.

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speaker asked him to do so) and the agreement that it is best for him to do so softly (or else the addressee’s daughter will wake up and start crying) have a different status in the further interaction between speaker and addressee. Such distinctions are ignored in Mastop’s (2005) plan set. In contrast, Portner (2007) splits up the To-Do Lists into properties that came in as commanded, properties that came in as recommended, and properties that came in as desired by the agent the To-Do List belongs to. Still, they are all taken together when it comes to computing the rationality check. A challenge for any account in terms of split representationalism is the question of how the content stored in non-epistemic sites (e.g. what is commanded or permitted or questioned) is supposed to interact with what is stored in the epistemic site (i.e., what is mutually believed). Are these storage sites meant to reflect actual information about the world or simply facts about the conversation? For example, could something like Lewis’s permissibility sphere specify something an agent is committed to doing although the participants have no idea that this is the case?3 What if the addressee presumes that it is objectively settled by the speaker whether she may take an apple or not, but she does not know what the matter is? Intuitively, this seems to mean that she is uncertain about the exact content of the permissibility sphere. Alternatively, additional spheres could encode only information that is local to the on-going conversation. Extending the usual idealization that the conversational participants do not forget information, this would mean that there cannot be epistemic uncertainty about the status of any of the storage sites. But then, for many approaches it becomes questionable if such a storage site can actually play the role it is supposed to play. For example, how could Portner’s (2007) To-Do Lists constitute the sources of rationality checks if they didn’t interact with general rules that are being (tacitly) accepted in the on-going conversation (e.g. ‘stealing is bad’)? In general, split representationalism faces the challenge of determining how the contents of non-epistemic storage sites are supposed to interact with the common ground. Intuitively, the fact that something has been commanded, recommended or permitted should also be recorded as mutual joint belief. Update mechanisms that ensure the appropriate interaction are spelled out e.g. by Roberts (1996) and Portner (2007). In exchange for the challenge of assigning a uniform appropriate role to each storage site and for the technical complexity of keeping the common ground up-todate, split representationalism allows for semantic meanings that lead to an immediate effect on a non-epistemic storage site. It is easy to see that this may come in handy in defining a semantics for imperatives that accounts for their strictly nonassertive behavior (cf. e.g. Mastop, 2005; Portner, 2007). Yet, this has also a downside: sometimes, apparently declarative sentences can have similar non-assertoric

3 For a simple example, consider the following. Suppose that the speaker has obliged the addressee to clean all and only the speaker’s watches. Now, the speaker has forgotten that the watch in the top-most drawer of her desk belongs to her, too (mistakenly, she thinks its her grandfather’s). Should Lewis’s permissibility sphere entail that the addressee cleans this watch?

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effects. It should be subject to careful investigation in what sense they could interact with information in storage sites different from the common ground. Compare the alternative expressions in (1): (1)

a. b. c.

Open the door now! You must open the door now! I hereby command you to open the door.

Intuitively, not only imperatives as in (1a), but also some modalized sentences (like (1b)), and explicit performatives (like (1c)) directly affect what is permissible. Just like imperatives, such utterances seem to express semantic objects that lack truth values and can hardly be countered by That’s not true. Modal verbs used to change, rather than report on, what is permissible, have been dubbed performative modal verbs in contrast to the standard usages as descriptive modal verbs (cf. Kamp, 1973, 1978; Lewis, 1979b). The status of this distinction will be discussed in detail in Section 2.3.1. As it stands, none of the split representationalist approaches to imperatives addresses the problem of imperative-like effects of declarative sentences.4 In contrast to split representationalism, the type of approach I pursue in this book will be labelled uniform representationalism. As suggested by the name, what is commanded and what is permitted is considered information about the world just like ordinary, non-modalized facts. Consequently, what is commanded and what is permitted is also stored in the common ground only.5 Interestingly, the modelling of P ERMISSIONs proves intricate for both uniform and split representationalist frameworks. A particular problem resulting for split representationalist frameworks that employ a set of possible worlds as the permissibility sphere is introduced by Lewis (1979b) as ‘a problem about permission’. Assuming duality between what is permissible and what is commanded,6,7 split representationalist frameworks mostly only store what is commanded. That is, on Lewis’ classical picture, PS(c) can be obtained as the intersection of all propositions commanded in c. Permitting p has to have the effect of adding p-worlds to PS(c). Yet, as Lewis points out, it is unclear which worlds to add. Clearly, we cannot simply add all p-worlds to PS(c), as this would amount to removing an obligation towards verifying any proposition q as long as ¬q is compatible with p. For example, giving 4

But see Section 2.2.2 on van Rooy’s (2000) treatment of performative modal verbs.

5

For the sake of completeness, we can assume that questions also affect the context set, but nothing hinges on that. I will not spell out how the representation of contexts has to be enriched to distinguish whether a question has been raised (the belief state is partitioned) or not. For an implementation, cf. the framework of inquisitive semantics (Groenendijk and Roelofsen, 2009). 6 Two operators O and P are dual if the inner negation of one is equivalent to the outer negation of the other, [λp.O(¬ p)] = [λp.¬P( p)]. 7 Cf. Mastop (2005) for a different view on the issue. He refers to von Wright (1996), who treats this assumption as a closure condition on artificial systems of permissibility, as e.g. the law for a political unit. Mastop offers an elaboration of the non-dual view within a system of partial update semantics.

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the permission in (2a) should not result in also permitting (2b) or removing the information that the latter is not permissible. (2)

a. b.

You can use my car tonight. You may drink 6 pints of beer tonight and then drive home in my car.

Nevertheless, the set of worlds where the addressee drinks 6 pints of beer and drives home in the speaker’s car are certainly a subset of the set of worlds in which he uses the speaker’s car. Consequently, these worlds would also be added by a naive analysis of permissions that generates the new permissibility sphere by unifying the old one with the proposition expressed by the argument of the permission modal/operator (‘the addressee uses the speaker’s car’, for (2a)). Therefore, permission for (2a) could not be given without permitting (2b), too. Van Rooy (2000) proposes a solution that relies on a relation of comparative reprehensibility between worlds.8 Intuitively, only the (previously) least reprehensible of all worlds in which you use my car tonight get added to the permissibility sphere. It has to be assumed that speaker and addressee know that only worlds of this kind (i.e., worlds where the least reprehensible φ-worlds become accessible by a speech act of permission) are within the realm of epistemic possibilities. The modelling of permissions in split representationalist accounts that store nonepistemic information as sets, lists, schedules, etc. of non-propositional objects (e.g. properties or actions) is even less straightforward (for various possibilities, consider Mastop, 2005; Portner, 2007, 2010). Analogously, we have to ask what a permission of φ amounts to on a uniform representationalism framework. In Section 5.1, I will explore how the temporal parameter and facts about the world interact to let the context set of the precontext c transition to the one of the postcontext c such that at no world in CS(c ) φ-worlds were deontically accessible, whereas at all worlds in CS(c ) some φ-worlds are deontically accessible.

2.1.2 Assigning Meaning to Imperatives: Static or Dynamic In Section 1.3, I argued for a semantic analysis of clause types. Thus, it should be possible to discover the meaning of the imperative form type by the very same strategies semantic theories employ for other linguistic expressions. Depending on their conception of linguistic meaning, semantic theories are usually classified as being static or dynamic. In the following, I will explain some of the specific challenges posed by imperatives for either conception of meaning.

8

In contrast, Rohrbaugh (1997) considers Lewis’ problem about permission a knock-down argument against a possible worlds analysis for deontic speech acts in general. As an alternative, he spells out a partial update structure which allows for adding and removing paths (cf. Rohrbaugh, 1997, for details).

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Static semantic theories constitute the traditional camp. They rely on speakers’ intuitions about particular linguistic expressions that serve as primitives. The semantic value of expressions that cannot be analysed by intuitions about their reference is to be determined by abstraction, that is, by inferences about what such expressions contribute to the meaning of larger expressions. In the classical (and prevailing) version (Frege, 1892; Russell, 1905; Tarski, 1936), the expressions that are taken as primitives are sentences (referring to truth values/sets of possible worlds) on the one hand, and singular terms (i.e., expressions referring to individuals) on the other hand. Hence, truth conditions and reference to entities become the guiding stars to semantic meaning.9 In contrast, dynamic theories conceive of the semantic meaning of a linguistic expression as its (potential) effect on the utterance context, i.e. its context change potential. The so-called dynamic twist from static to dynamic theories is motivated primarily by the need to account for phenomena like anaphora, pragmatic presuppositions, and epistemic modality. All these phenomena are hard to account for at the sentential level and, thus, favor a theory of meaning that allows for consideration of larger linguistic objects. In contrast to dynamic theories, static theories do not necessarily talk about the relation between the output of the semantic interpretation and the use that is made of the linguistic expressions thus interpreted. Still, one of the pivotal assumptions of a truth-conditional static analysis translates naturally to a conception of meaning in terms of effects on the context. Declarative sentences are taken to express propositions. This idea can be motivated in two ways. On the one hand, if we think of propositions as truth-conditions (characteristic functions of sets of possible worlds), they model the language users’ capacity to decide if a sentence is verified by a given situation or not;10 this is the traditional static semantic motivation. On the other hand, if we are interested in a model of information exchange, propositions as sets of possible worlds can easily be reconciled with a simple view of belief states and the update of belief states. Stalnaker (1978) (see Section 1.4) assumes that belief states are modelled as sets of possible worlds that are compatible with the beliefs held by one agent or (mutual joint belief) of more agents. He proposes that a (successful) assertion of a declarative amounts to adding the proposition it expresses to the stock of mutual joint belief (the common ground) and thus to intersecting it with the context set. For simple sentences that do not involve any phenomena motivating a dynamic analysis (e.g., for sentences that do not introduce new discourse referents in the sense of Heim, 1982 and Kamp and Reyle, 1993), their effect on the discourse (if accepted) amounts to just this.11 Therefore, any linguistic expression that can

9 The following discussion of static theories is confined to this classical conception, i.e. to static theories that assign privileged status to truth conditions/values. E.g., I will not try to provide a comparison with situation semantic theories (cf. Barwise and Perry, 1983). 10 Ignoring questions of possible truth-value gaps. 11 Groenendijk and Roelofsen’s (2009) Inquisitive Semantics aims to explicitly account for the step between the decision of whether an assertion is to be accepted and the actual modification of the context.

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be captured satisfactorily in terms of a propositional object, can also be captured as a dynamic object: it can always be assigned the context change potential of removing all previously epistemically accessible indices that are incompatible with its truth conditions. It is a marginal difference whether this update effect is part of the semantic object proper, or whether the semantic object is a proposition and the update comes from a default process of what it means to update an utterance context with a proposition. At this point, it’s natural to ask if imperatives require a non-trivially dynamic treatment, or if they are amenable to an analysis within a static framework. At first glance, at least standard static theories which interpret sentences by assigning truth conditions face an obvious problem when applied to imperatives. If imperatives have truth conditions, for any arbitrary imperative, it should be possible to fill in Tarski’s (1936) schema in (3): (3)

The sentence ‘. . .’ is true if and only if . . . .

Despite its sentential status, it is highly counter-intuitive to ask whether an imperative is true (or false). Note that—in contrast to what is generally assumed in the literature—this should not be considered a proof that imperatives do not have truth values; it is just a fact about speaker intuitions.12 But no matter how decisive for whether imperatives have truth values or not: if speakers have no intuitions about how to fill in (3) for imperatives or even deny that this is possible, imperatives cannot be treated as primitives on the standard static view. In this they contrast with declarative clauses and singular terms, whose reference to truth values (depending on a condition accessible to every native speaker) and individuals respectively can be used as a starting point in the exploration of semantic meaning.13 Unfortunately, the strategy for ‘semantically unknown’ expressions, namely, to look at larger expressions in order to individuate systematic contributions, fails, too. Imperatives simply do not normally occur as parts of larger linguistic expressions. Where they do after all, the truth-conditions of the entire expression are equally disputable; compare (4a) and (4b). (4)

a. b.

Marry that man and we will kill you. If you want to go to Harlem, take the A-train.

Cosmopolitan, Feb 2010

What about other non-declaratives? They, too, fail an intuitive application of Tarski’s schema, but at least for interrogatives the overall situation is somewhat more favorable. First, main clause interrogatives possess counterparts in embedded positions, whose meaning can be assessed according to the Fregean strategy of asking what they contribute to the meaning of the complex expression they occur in. Embedded 12 The theory I will develop in the following chapters argues that it is indeed particular constraints on the contexts in which imperatives can be used—spelled out in Section 4.2—that prevent the intuition that imperatives are true or false. 13 Note that it is uncontroversial that imperatives do not refer to individuals under the standard e/t dichotomy of semantic reference.

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and matrix interrogatives are generally assumed to share common traits in semantics, therefore knowledge about matrix interrogatives can be gained from studying their embedded counterparts. Second, interrogatives are usually assumed to have a straightforward connection to the propositions that count as their answers. As these answers can be captured in terms of truth-conditions, an analysis of interrogatives as sets of answers (Hamblin, 1973; Karttunen, 1977), or as index-dependent propositions (Groenendijk and Stokhof, 1984, the exhaustive true answer) becomes available. Within the framework of static semantics, the general strategy of finding suitable links to propositions has also been applied to imperatives. In this case, despite the apparent lack of a truth-value, the imperative itself is (semantically) identified with a proposition, or even, syntactically, with a declarative that describes its impact on the situation in which it is used. Hamblin (1987) discusses the following three strategies of propositional reduction that have been proposed in the literature: (5)

a. b. c.

Go home!c = You will go home.c Go home!c = You should go home.c Go home!c = I order you to go home.c

you will-reduction you should-reduction performative hypothesis

All three types have been disputed at length since their respective inventions. The one that has gained the most attention is the performative hypothesis as developed in a syntactic variant mostly by Ross (1967, 1970) and Sadock (1974).14 Extensive criticism of this theory is to be found in Grewendorf (1972) and Gazdar (1979). The semantic variant of the performative hypothesis has been developed out of remarks in Lewis (1970), and it has likewise faced a lot of criticism (e.g. Grewendorf, 1979, 2002; for critical discussion pertaining to imperatives in particular, cf. Hamblin, 1987 and Mastop, 2005). In view of the extensive and detailed criticism to be found in the literature, I will just emphasize one problem that is especially obvious when trying to spell out any version of the performative hypothesis for imperatives. In Section 1.2, we saw that imperatives can be associated with a broad range of functions at, and maybe even below, the speech act level (the problem of functional inhomogeneity, FIP). It is unclear how this spectrum could be reduced to a particular speech act type (or, a suitable supertype). However, in the performative prefix, the slot for the performative verb has to be filled. If on the other hand, various options are available as the performative verb, it is unclear how the respective set is to be constrained, and what decides that O RDER is to count as the prototypical instantiation.15 I take this to be a particular problem any variant of the performative hypothesis faces in its application to imperatives. The you will-reduction has been given less general discussion. Syntactically, it has been motivated by the possibility of will you/won’t you-tags in imperatives (Katz and Postal, 1964). Recently, Truckenbrodt (2005) presents a you will-reduction that 14 15

It actually goes back to a footnote in Katz and Postal (1964).

See Section 1.2 for arguments against an analysis for functions other than ordering/commanding as indirect speech acts.

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relies on the effect of the acceptance of a simple you will-proposition in a particular context. Hence, it does not build any pragmatic notions or discourse effects into the semantic meaning of the imperative. Asher and Lascarides (2003a) (see Section 2.2.3) can be seen as a dynamic equivalent of the you will-theory, here, the effect of a simple you will-statement is built in as the update effect an imperative has on the context. Much of Hamblin’s (1987) criticism against the original you will-reductions carries over to the modern variants. In linguistics, much less energy has been put into developing and also into deconstructing the you should-theory. In contrast, Hamblin (1987) shows that the link between you should-statements and ‘imperatives’ (on Hamblin’s functional understanding, see Section 1.1.1) has gained much interest throughout the history of philosophy, reaching back at least to Kant’s Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics.16 But note that this entire discussion is grounded in a clearly functional understanding of ‘imperative’, and the philosophical difficulties arising from the difficulties of treating moral statements in general and you should-statements in particular (cf. Carnap, 1935). From the point of view of linguistic semantics, the fact that despite their (apparent) declarative clause type, certain modalized sentences are problematic in their relation to truth-values is highly interesting. Prima facie it is hard to decide between two options: is it that proposition-denoting linguistic expressions can sometimes behave as if they had no truth-value; or is it that certain seemingly declarative clauses belong to particular (minor) clause types that are not interpreted as denoting propositions? In Section 2.3.1, I will focus on modalized declaratives, and I will argue for the first option. If such an argument can be made convincingly for modalized declaratives, the philosophers’ intuitions as to the apparent absence of truth-values for moral statements turn into an argument in favor of the you should-reduction rather than an argument against it: speaker intuitions and use in conversation can simply not be considered decisive evidence as to whether a linguistic object denotes a proposition or not. If, at the level of the theoretical analysis, the correct behavior can be derived from a propositional object, there is no motivation to adopt a more complicated set-up of the context representation (causing independent problems as discussed for split representationalism, cf. Section 2.1.1) or an inherently dynamic theory. An independent argument that has often been adduced against any propositional reduction for imperatives is called Ross’s paradox. Ross (1944) observes that, while declaratives allow for disjunction introduction, imperatives do not:17 (6)

16

a. b.

I posted the letter. → I posted the letter or I burnt the letter. Post the letter!  Post the letter or burn it.

‘All imperatives are expressed by the word ought [or shall] and thereby indicate the relation of an objective law of reason to a will, . . . , They say that something would be good to do or to forbear.’ (Kant, 1959:35). 17 Ross’s original example is Either slip the letter into the letter-box or burn it! Ross (1944:41).

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At first glance, this seems like evidence that imperatives cannot be interpreted as propositions. Yet, in the meantime, similar effects like Ross’s paradox have been observed in other contexts as well, in particular in connection with modals. Therefore, it is natural to see Ross’s observation as arising from the phenomenon of free choice disjunction (see Section 2.3.1 for discussion). I will argue that it is captured most naturally under an analysis of disjunctive imperatives as modalized disjunctions. But even if a propositional reduction may seem to be the most obvious treatment in a (truth-conditional) static framework, it is certainly not the only possibility. A static theory (even one that relies on truth conditions) could also assign all kinds of non-propositional denotations as linguistic meanings to matrix level objects (i.e. objects that constitute the final output of semantic interpretation and do not serve as the input to further semantic computation). Usually, the assignment of a nonpropositional object would be motivated by considerations of what the respective expression contributes on alternative occurrences where it forms part of a larger expression (i.e., when it serves as the input to further semantic computation). But if non-propositional objects occur as the meanings of matrix level objects in the discourse as well, a theory is needed of how, on these occasions, they interact with the contextual settings. One option is to combine them with pragmatic operators (i.e. speech act operators). In this case, an analysis of clause types is no longer semantic, but pragmatic. Another option is to try to find an analogy to the treatment of propositions. Following Stalnaker (1978) one could assume that, by their very nature of characterizing sets of possible worlds, they can be associated with the default effect of intersection with the context set. A similarly suitable default update effect would have to be established for non-propositional objects. For imperatives, it is mostly assumed that an appropriate default effect for nonpropositional meanings can only be spelled out under the assumption of split representationalism (see Section 2.1.1). Hausser (1980) and Portner (2005) suggest that imperatives denote properties. Portner (2005) explicitly addresses the question of how these properties are to interact with the contextual settings. His theory (as well as the newer version Portner, 2007) is discussed in detail in Section 2.2.4. Another static, non-propositional solution is to be found in Han (1999). She proposes that imperatives denote restricted quantifiers over possible worlds, hence sets of propositions.18 This assumption receives immediate motivation from the fact that imperatives occur in complex constructions like (7) (repeated from (4a) above): (7)

Marry that man and we will kill you.

18 Although Han does not say so explicitly, this is what her analysis amounts to. According to her, imperatives are interpreted as expressing necessity w.r.t. an ideal set of worlds that is obtained by intersecting the set of propositions known to the speaker and applying a deontic ordering source to which the imperative is added. As the constrained operator is not combined with a nuclear scope argument, the standard Kratzer (1991b) semantics Han claims to draw on should result in an object of type st, t. For details on Kratzer’s semantics of modal verbs as well as an alternative theory of imperatives in terms of modal operators, see Sections 2.3, 3.1.3 and Chapter 3.

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In these cases, the imperative in the first conjunct behaves highly similarly to the antecedent of a conditional, hence, like the semantic object assigned by Han (1999).19 However, Han does not offer an account of how her imperative denotation interacts with the context in case of imperatives that are not embedded into a conditional conjunction.20 Han (2000) departs from her earlier view and assumes that imperatives consist of a combination of a particular type of irrealis marked proposition that is the input to a force feature directive. While the former is interpreted by standard truth-conditional semantics, the latter is interpreted pragmatically. Hence, her newer approach constitutes a pragmatic answer to the problem of clause type encoding. Mastop (2005) also assigns static, non-propositional denotata. For him, imperatives are interpreted as actions (a concept somewhat similar to properties, yet independent), and actions are treated by a particular update rule that adds them to the plan (the storage site reserved for non-epistemic information, see Section 2.1.1) as something that is ‘to do’. Like Portner (2005), Mastop lets a semantic object trigger a particular update process, but the choice of a new type of objects (actions) avoids the misprediction that other expressions with the same denotation should behave like an imperative (see Section 2.2.4). At the same time, the concept ‘action’ remains unsatisfactorily vague. Also, the relation between action-denoting and propertydenoting versions of the underlying lexical items is not fleshed out.21 Many recent approaches to imperatives give up on static conceptions of meaning altogether and exploit denotata that become available thanks to the dynamic twist. If the meanings of sentences are identified directly with their potential to update the context, under a uniform representationalist conception of the utterance context, dynamic theories open up ways of affecting the context set in a way that is different from what would be the effect of an assertion of a declarative (e.g. Asher and Lascarides, 2003a, see Section 2.2.3); on a split representationalist model of the context, additional storage sites become available for modification, which opens up an even broader range of possible denotations (see Sections 2.2.2 and 2.2.4). Thereby, we obtain intrinsically dynamic theories (i.e., theories that cannot be reduced to a simple update rule that adds a static semantic object to one of the storage sites). The main strong point of such theories is that they immediately capture the inherent non-descriptive nature of imperatives. The challenge for such theories is to keep the

19

For sentences like (7), Schwager (2006b) independently derives an analysis along these lines from her you should-analysis of imperatives. Details and problems (all of which affect Han’s proposal as well) are discussed in Section 6.3.

20 Note also that her analysis faces obvious problems with embedding in other contexts, e.g. conditional disjunctions:

(i)

Marry that man or you’ll stay single for the rest of your life. ≈ If you don’t marry that man you’ll stay single for the rest of your life.

21 For problems with the interpretation of temporality and in particular temporal quantification in Mastop’s (2005) system, see Section 3.2.2.

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Three Parameters of Classification

41

effect abstract enough in order not to invariably link imperatives to one particular speech act type (thus failing to account for FIP and QIP in particular).

2.1.3 Possible Denotata for Imperatives The third and last parameter aims to classify semantic analyses of imperatives in terms of what denotations they assign on an axis between traditional semantic (‘core semantic’) and speech act-related objects. Roughly, on the standard (static) picture, declaratives denote propositions and are canonically used for A SSERTIONs. I will call such an output of the semantic interpretation ‘core semantic’, as the output of the semantic interpretation function (in this case, a proposition) does not involve reference to the level of speech acts (in this case, an A SSERTION). Alternatively, the domain of possible semantic denotata can be enriched to contain—in addition to propositions, properties, entities, truth values and the like—also speech act-like elements. On such a view, some concept of A SSERTION itself becomes the semantic value of a declarative. At first glance, this may seem in conflict with the mediating semantics hypothesis (MSH, see Section 1.3). The latter claims that natural language grammar does not encode any links between a sentence (as a form type) and a speech act type apart from what is contributed through the ordinary semantic interpretation function. But on more careful consideration, MSH is perfectly compatible with the assumption that the output of semantic interpretation contains reference to particular functions or speech act types. MSH does not exclude that (correspondents of) pragmatic objects, as for example speech acts or corresponding update functions, exist as semantic objects and can thus be assigned to syntactic objects by the semantic interpretation function. Of course, such a move raises the question as to what exactly is meant by a linguistic expression ‘denoting a speech act’. Intuitively, speech acts are things that happen in the world, and it is quite obvious that we have descriptions or names for them. However, for speech acts to occur as the denotata of linguistic expressions, we need more than that. Just consider the following: in a certain sense, the verb thank can be taken to denote a certain class of events; yet, this does not suffice to make it ‘denote a speech act’ in the sense that is needed for a theory of clause types (else, the idea collapses to the performative hypothesis, i.e. a propositional reduction). Intuitively, it is much easier to make sense of speech acts as semantic denotata in a dynamic than in a static setting. If speech acts are understood as changes in the epistemic and deontic commitments of the participants to the conversation, under appropriate assumptions as to how these commitments are represented, a dynamic framework enables us to spell out the corresponding context change potentials. These can then be assigned as semantic meanings. Krifka’s (2001) proposal (see Section 2.2.1) makes obvious that the assumption of a particular class of semantic denotata that is different from core semantic denotata and corresponds to clause types may have explanatory value as such, i.e. even without spelling out what exactly these objects are.

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Theories that interpret imperatives by assigning speech act-related denotata share the ability to predict the non-descriptiveness of imperatives: imperatives simply do not denote A SSERTION(-like context potential)s. The biggest challenge for any such theory is constituted by the problem of functional inhomogeneity (FIP). In principle, they could either identify an effect that is general enough so as to underlie all the functions observed and add a theory that, depending on particular contextual constellations, predicts how it gets specified to a particular speech act type (thus accounting for ASA), as well as an explanation for why O RDER is perceived to be the prototypical function of imperatives (thus accounting for CTE). Alternatively, such a theory could specify a family of effects assigned to imperatives (in the sense of an ambiguity). This again, would require an additional theory to decide between its members for particular imperative occurrences (to account for ASA) and, again, an explanation for the canonical link to O RDERs. In contrast, theories that stick to core semantic denotata face two challenges. On the one hand, if they assign objects that, like propositions or properties, can also be denoted by other linguistic forms they need to explain why these form types cannot generally play the role of imperatives and vice versa. On the other hand, they have to explain how the imperative denotation interacts with the contextual settings and what role this plays in the coming about of a particular speech act.

2.2 A Few Recent Approaches to Imperatives In this section, I will discuss a few recent semantic approaches to imperatives and the closely related phenomenon of performative modals. I will try to point out what settings of the above introduced parameters they rely on. The discussion (Sections 2.2.1, 2.2.2, 2.2.3, and 2.2.4) can be skipped by readers already familiar with the approaches or readers only interested in the proposal I’ll be developing myself. The presentation starts with accounts that motivate and play on the introduction of pragmatic objects into the realm of semantic denotata, and then moves to more core semantic solutions. I start with Krifka’s (2001) general arguments for such a widening of the semantic domain and show that they do not carry over to imperatives. I then discuss van Rooy’s (2000) dynamic implementation of an update of a Lewisonian permissibility sphere, which builds the effects of C OMMANDs and P ERMISSIONs into the semantic denotata of performative must and may respectively. Next, I focus on Asher and Lascarides’s (2003b) theory of imperatives that relies on a particular non-assertive update effect on the common ground. Finally, I discuss Portner’s (2005) attempt to let a purely semantic object constrain its effect on the discourse and compare it to the more detailed, but slightly different version of Portner (2007). All these approaches bring up interesting aspects any theory of imperatives has to deal with. However, I do not find any of them fully satisfactory as an answer to both CTE and ASA. In Section 2.3 I will thus motivate and introduce my own analysis of imperatives.

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A Few Recent Approaches to Imperatives

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2.2.1 Speech Acts as Input to Semantic Computation Krifka (2001) proposes that speech acts constitute possible denotata for natural language expressions. The existence of this class is motivated by a particular pattern of behavior w.r.t. logical operations. In the following, I will evaluate whether imperatives show the relevant restrictions and whether they should thus be interpreted as having pragmatic objects as their denotata. Krifka observes that there is a class of linguistic objects that can easily be conjoined and outscoped by universal quantifiers, but cannot be disjoined or outscoped by other quantifiers. Consider questions as in (8). While (8a) is indeed the conjunction of two questions, (8b) does not feel like a ‘disjunction’ of two questions, in the sense that it would e.g. leave it to the addressee which one she chooses to answer; (8b) feels more like a correction (taking back the first move) than the presentation of two options. (8)

a. b.

What and why? Who went to Sweden, or who went to the US?

Krifka (2001) argues that the contrast is due to the fact that interrogatives, imperatives and declaratives are interpreted semantically as belonging to the particular semantic type a of speech acts. Upon the corresponding semantic domain A of speech acts, only the operation of conjunction, but not the one of disjunction, is defined. Krifka extends this to predict quantifier scope possibilities in interrogatives: pair list-readings (intuitively paraphrasable with wide scope for the quantifier) are possible for universal quantifiers, but not others: (9)

a. b.

Which dish did every guest bring? ok: ‘for each guest x: which dish did x bring?’ Which dish did most guests bring? not:‘ for most guests x: which dish did x bring?’

He argues that this is due to the fact that (i) interrogatives denote objects of type a, (ii) conjunction is the only operation defined on objects of type a, and (iii) universal quantifiers can be construed as conjunctions over all instances, while other quantifiers cannot. The contrast in availability extends to some embedded interrogatives (under wonder, ask), but not others (e.g. under know). It is straightforward to argue that wonder and ask embed objects of type a (hence the restriction to pair-list readings with universal quantifiers only) while predicates like know embed standard interrogative denotations of type st, t (which can be outscoped by arbitrary quantifiers). On closer inspection, imperatives conform to the restrictions only partly. According to Krifka (2002), matrix clause imperatives behave like objects of type a (i.e., speech acts) in that wide scope is available for the universal quantifier in (10a), but not for the proportional quantifier in (10b). (10)

a. b.

Confiscate every bottle of alcohol you can find! Confiscate most bottles of alcohol you can find!

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While I agree with the contrast for (10a) and (10b), I suspect it to be an artefact of the examples chosen. Wide scope readings for most require (speaker) specificity of the set of bottles that are to be affected.22 But restricting the domain by you can find would (under normal circumstances) block this (it cannot be known beforehand which bottles will be found), thereby hindering a wide scope reading of most. Consider the following examples instead: (11)

a.

b.

c.

nie nach Die meisten Bücher in diesem Regal lies the most books in this shelf read.I MP S G never after Mitternacht. midnight ‘For most books x on this shelf: don’t read x after midnight.’ Die meisten Anträge gib einfach gleich deinem the most proposals give.I MP S G simply immediately your Assistenten. assistant ‘For most proposals x: immediately give x to your assistant.’ Don’t even look at most of these proposals. (It is already clear from their titles that they are complete crap. But two or three seem to be really good.)

All these readings are stronger than what would be obtained if the imperative took wide scope w.r.t. the quantifier. The imperative is meant to hold for a (particular) major part of the books/proposals. In German, the reading requires a particular rise-fall intonation (bridge accent) which signals that the constituent carrying the rise is to be interpreted as a contrastive topic (Büring, 1999).23 For questions, this 22

Here, imperatives differ from other operators, as, generally, outscoping other operators does not automatically lead to specificity: (i)

You may not read most of these books.

If may in (i) is understood deontically, but with a source of obligation different from the speaker, the wide scope reading for most of these books is perfectly compatible with the speaker being ignorant as to what particular books verify the quantification. The fact that imperatives differ in that they require speaker specificity for wide scope quantifiers seems to be a side effect of their inherently performative nature. For reasons of space, I cannot attempt an in-depth analysis of specificity and wide scope quantifiers. Intuitively, the restriction should be made to follow from the authority condition (see Section 4.2.2). Compare also its relations to rhetorical effects for questions, see Section 2.3.3.3. 23 Note that this shows more generally that, at least in German, specific DPs can appear in imperatives, pace Portner (2004). Cases he deems unacceptable in English are grammatical in German and involve the same bridge accent: (i)

EINen Apfel iss NICHT. Der ist nämlich vergiftet. Ich zeig dir gleich, a apple eat.I MP S G not. it is DP RT poisoned. I show you immediately, welcher es ist. which-one it is ‘There is one apple that you must not eat. It’s poisoned. I’ll immediately show you which one it is.’

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A Few Recent Approaches to Imperatives

45

reading corresponds (modulo specificity) to the pair-list readings absent from matrix interrogatives or embedded interrogatives of the particular speech act type a. Obviously, imperatives do not obey the restrictions Krifka observes for speech act-denoting expressions. I conclude that, irrespective of whether in general objects corresponding to speech acts appear as semantic denotata or not, the semantics of imperatives can and should be characterised differently.

2.2.2 Performative Modals and Non-epistemic Context Change Potentials Van Rooy (2000) does not deal with imperative clauses but focuses on performative modal verbs. However, the analysis he offers constitutes a plausible candidate for the imperative clause type as well (van Rooy himself calls the performative modals he analyses ‘imperatives’). According to van Rooy, the distinction between descriptive and performative modal verbs24 is a matter of lexical ambiguity rather than a distinction in use. Consider the following examples in which additional material should help to bring forth one or the other type of modal verb. The examples in (12) suggest descriptive modal verbs, while the examples in (13) suggest performative modal verbs. (12)

a. b.

Peter has to do the shopping today (as far as I know). Peter may come tomorrow. (The hostess said it was no problem.)

(13)

a. b.

You must call me. Okay, you may come at 11. (Are you happy now?)

While the sentences in (12) are most naturally used to describe Peter’s obligations and possibilities, (13) can easily be used to bring about an obligation for the addressee to call the speaker (C OMMAND ), or render it permissible for the addressee to come at 11 (P ERMISSION ). Van Rooy argues that the performative modals in (13) and the descriptive ones in (12) have to be interpreted differently, and he develops a dynamic account for the performative versions of must and may. He relies on a split representationalist model of the context that, in addition to the Stalnakerian context set, contains also a permissibility sphere (adopted from Lewis, 1979b). The latter is the set of all possible worlds in which the addressee meets all her obligations. Now, while descriptive deontic modals just report on the state of the permissibility sphere (i.e., for must, what is entailed, and for may, what is compatible), in virtue of their

24 I.e. modal verbs in sentences that describe modal affairs (i.e., what is deontically/epistemically/teleologically/. . . possible or necessary) and modal verbs that change such states of affairs see Section 2.1.1; for detailed discussion of the phenomenon as well as an opposing conclusion, see Section 2.3.1 below.

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lexical semantics, (felicitous) utterances containing performative modals change the permissibility sphere. The entry for performative must is unproblematic: all it has to do is to eliminate from the permissibility sphere all those worlds that falsify its prejacent (i.e., the propositional argument of the modal operator). (14)

PS(c)[must(φ)] = PS(c) ∩ φ.

The entry for may is more intricate due to Lewis’s (1979b) problem about permission (see Section 2.1.1). Van Rooy proposes a solution in terms of a reprehensibility order: based on the state before the permission, he induces a reprehensibility order on all sets of possible worlds. Now, the effect of performative may is specified as adding to the permissibility sphere only the least reprehensible φ-worlds.25 (15)

PS(c)[may(φ)] = PS(c) ∪ PS(c)∗φ , where PS(c)∗φ is the set of worlds that make as many propositions entailed by PS(c) true as possible, but make also φ true.

Intuitively, an imperative φ! on its prototypical use as an O RDER has the very same effect van Rooy encodes for a performative must φ-declarative: all ¬φ worlds are eliminated from the permissibility sphere. It is thus tempting to explain the link between imperative sentences and O RDERs by equating imperatives and performative must: (16)

PS(c)[φ!] = PS(c)[must(φ)] = PS(c) ∩ φ.

This move has the immediate advantage that imperatives do not have truthconditions and cannot be used descriptively. They are semantically specified for being used as O RDERs, which immediately accounts for CTE (the problem of clause type encoding). However, the account creates problems for ASA (the assignment of speech acts to actual utterances): how come an actual imperative utterance can be used for a wide range of functions that have nothing to do with permissibility (e.g. A DVICE , T HREATs, W ISHes,. . . )? One possibility would be to further enrich the contextual representation by additional spheres for what is advisable, what is desired, what is being warned against, etc. The entry of the imperative (and to a certain extent the same problem exists already for modal verbs themselves) can then be underspecified w.r.t. which one of a designated set of spheres it affects in that particular context (note that, for example, the context set is not a possible site of modification, as imperatives and deontic modals cannot be used to enforce epistemic information). This, in principle, is a possibility, yet one has to ensure appropriate constraints on what spheres are needed in the contextual representation, what spheres can be modified by what elements, and how the particular spheres are supposed to depend upon each other (e.g. it seems that one can only advise what one permits, etc.). Also, an account is needed to explain which sphere is modified by a

25 Throughout the paper, van Rooy develops various refinements to account for conjunctions, disjunctions and lumping. For our purposes, these details can be ignored.

2.2

A Few Recent Approaches to Imperatives

47

particular utterance (ASA), and why the classical permissibilty sphere (and, hence O RDER) constitutes the default (CTE). Moreover, the theory faces a problem with respect to possibility-type usages of imperatives (P ERMISSIONs, in particular). Like many other authors (Wilson and Sperber, 1988; Han, t.a.; Portner, 2007, 2010), I will argue that they have to be derived indirectly (see Section 5.1). But given that a context change potential like (16) specifies a very particular effect on the contextual settings, I am not sure how it could be weakened to have an effect more like (15). An alternative would be to analyze imperatives as ambiguous between (16) and (15), but this strikes me as implausible for independent considerations (see Section 2.3.1). To sum up, I do not think that van Rooy’s (2000) proposal for performative must provides a suitable interpretation for imperatives. However, I agree with the intuition (suggested by his terminology) that performative modal verbs and imperatives have much in common. In Section 2.3.1, I will argue for a different treatment of performative modal verbs and will take it as a starting point for my analysis of imperatives.

2.2.3 (Ex-)Changing the World Asher and Lascarides (2003a)26 start out from the observation that imperatives ‘change the world’ in a more drastic sense than declaratives do. They assume that an imperative changes the context set to one that entails that the addressee complies with the imperative. The core effect of a (successful) directive speech act is captured in a uniform representationalist framework and without reference to permissibility or the like, merely by changing what count as possible futures after the execution of the imperative. If we compare their dynamic implementation to the propositional reductions discussed in Section 2.1.2, it should be obvious that it has some connections with the you will-reduction. The key motivation for Asher and Lascarides is the following observation: the canonical change induced by a felicitous use of an imperative φ! is that subsequently speaker and addressee agree that the addressee will do φ. They argue that this becomes manifest in exchanges like the following: (17)

Go to the traffic lights. There’s a roundabout to your right.

The sequence in (17) is uttered naturally in a scenario where the roundabout in question is not present at the location of the utterance context, but will be to the addressee’s right the moment she has advanced to the traffic lights. Yet the indicative in the second sentence is perfectly fine. Hence, the imperative Go to the traffic lights. allows the speaker to proceed as if it were mutual joint belief that the addressee 26 The analyses in the book (Asher and Lascarides, 2003b) and the article (Asher and Lascarides, 2003a) are similar apart from a minor detail with respect to the treatment of disjunction and how to avoid Ross’ paradox, which is irrelevant to our concerns here. My presentation follows the article.

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(at the (new) reference time) has moved to the traffic lights. Asher and Lascarides (2003a) abstract away from the temporal parameter and propose to account for this as follows:27 Imperatives change the context set (i.e., the set of worlds that are compatible with mutual joint belief) in such a way that each element of the resulting belief state verifies the content of the imperative. To ensure this, imperatives are translated as action term discourse representations28 that encode particular update relations between the elements of the input and the output context sets. As usual, an update with a declarative relates a world w in the input context set to the same world w in the output context set iff w makes the declarative true. Otherwise, w is eliminated from the output context set. Action terms as encoded by imperatives have a different effect on the context set. They express relations that hold between worlds w in the input context set and w in the output context set iff w makes true the corresponding declarative. Consequently, an update with an action term maps the old context set s to a new context set s  , such that all the worlds in s are replaced by worlds where the imperative is complied with. That is, we obtain a new information state that is entirely independent of the worlds that were accessible previously. This accounts for the observation that before the utterance of Go to the traffic lights! it is mutual joint belief that the addressee is not at the traffic lights, whereas afterwards, it is mutual joint belief that the addressee has gone to the traffic lights. Asher and Lascarides’s (2003a) account encodes a clear difference between truth at a world and the effect of an imperative. Intuitively, it captures the effect that imperatives somehow ‘change the world’. Yet, it faces some serious problems. The first problem is a technicality. As it stands, the update eliminates all information from the context set except that the imperative is complied with. This is clearly not what we want: like any other utterance, imperatives may trigger belief revision in particular contexts, but normally they do not remove mutual joint belief. Clearly, the change of the world has to be restricted somehow. One way to do this might be in terms of a pointwise minimality restriction such that each world is related to the closest possible world at which the imperative is complied with. The closest possible world could be understood along the lines of what Stalnaker (1968) proposes for counterfactuals (except that, for imperatives, the closest world would have to be epistemically possible). Unfortunately, this would most likely not retain in the information state all (epistemically) possible ways of complying with

27 Their approach is couched in the framework of SDRT (Segmented Discourse Representation Theory), a dynamic variant of DRT (Kamp and Reyle, 1993) that models the construction of discourse representations by taking into account the effect of rhetorical relations. Linguistic expressions are interpreted as building up discourse representations that are conceived of as relations between sets of world-assignment pairs constituting pre- and post-belief states. In the following, I will abstract away from discourse referents and will treat the belief states as sets of worlds. See Asher and Lascarides (2003b) for details. 28

The concept of an action term is taken from Segerberg (1990), who proposes it in order to interpret imperatives in a static framework. The goal is to ensure the non-propositional behavior of imperatives with respect to truth values and disjunction introduction (Ross’ paradox, see Section 2.1.2).

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A Few Recent Approaches to Imperatives

49

the imperative, but would leave us with the most plausible/stereotypical/easiest... ways the imperative could be complied with. In general, it seems far from trivial to spell out the appropriate restriction on the change of world. But even if some satisfactory condition of minimal change is added to overcome this technical problem, I remain sceptical whether the change in information about the addressee is indeed what should be associated with an imperative. First, despite the fact that sequences like (17) are acceptable, speaker and addressee still know that, immediately after the imperative is uttered and accepted, they are talking to each other, the addressee has not left, and the addressee is therefore not yet at the traffic lights. Switching back to the actual situation (e.g. by the use of here) does not require belief revision. Relatedly, Asher and Lascarides’s model runs into problems in connection with imperatives that are understood and accepted, but only under the proviso that the addressee will manage to comply with the imperative. Consider an example that contains an adverbial that explicitly locates the action called for by the imperative in the future as in (18). If the addressee promises (successfully) to comply with the imperative, both participants may epistemically discard all other options. Yet, they may also be aware of the possibility of highly unlikely intervening factors. Asher and Lascarides’s approach does not seem to be applicable in such environments which have a higher threshold for what counts as knowledge. It is also not completely clear to me how the effect of the imperative could be weakened in the case of a reply as in (18b). Intuitively, the imperative issued by the speaker is still the same, but its effect on the context set is at best equivalent to the weaker one in (19). (18)

Come tomorrow for lunch! a. Okay! b. Okay, I’ll try to do so.

(19)

Try to come tomorrow for lunch.

Answers like (18b) seem very natural, but are hard to integrate in a theory that assumes that imperatives are either complied with or rejected. If we look more closely at declarative sequences related to (17), new light can be shed on the puzzle that speaker and addressee know that the imperative—even if accepted—has not yet been complied with, while declaratives drawing on the poststate of complying are acceptable. (20) is as acceptable as (17), yet the imperative is replaced by a (modalized) declarative. (20)

You have to go to the traffic lights. There’s a roundabout to your right.

Reference to a background that has been introduced in a modal context is well known from cases of modal subordination (Roberts, 1989), where subsequent modals can be interpreted with respect to a non-actual context.29 But (17) is different 29

(i)

The phenomenon of modal subordination was discovered for epistemic contexts like (i). A thief might break in. There would be a car waiting for him outside.

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from those in that the second, declarative sentence does not involve modalization. Now, Paul Portner (p.c.) points out that the respective sequences do not even require modalization of the first clause. Therefore, he suggests to subsume them under the phenomenon of deictic recentering. (21)

There’s a traffic light at the corner, and then there’s a roundabout to your right.

The sequence in (21) can also be understood as the roundabout occurring in a situation temporally and locally shifted away from the corner with the traffic light, progression following the imagined pathway of the addressee. To sum up, although modals and imperatives may help deictic recentering, the effect obviously does not depend on their presence. Therefore, the possibility of sequences like (17) does not depend on the presence of an imperative and thus does not provide evidence for the kind of imperative effect Asher and Lascarides propose. While their specific proposal as to what is the impact of the imperative strikes me as highly problematic, I agree with Asher and Lascarides (2003a) on a more foundational issue: imperatives are like declaratives in that both clause types modify the context set. Yet, the particular update potential they assign to imperatives predicts straightforwardly that declaratives and imperatives modify the context set in different ways. In contrast, I will argue that the modification can always be spelled out in terms of eliminating worlds from the context set (hence, no inherently dynamic theory is required), but that imperatives differ regarding the grounds for refuting such an update (this being the real reason for the feeling that ‘imperatives change the world’).

2.2.4 Imperatives as Updating To-Do Lists Finally, I want to discuss the approach that has been developed by Paul Portner in Portner (2005, 2007) and in joint papers with Raffaella Zanuttini, Miok Pak, and Simon Mauck. On the one hand, their approach is close to what I myself will propose in that it assumes that imperatives denote core semantic objects that are associated with default processes that explain their interaction with the context settings. On the other hand, it contrasts with my proposal, as it employs a non-propositional semantics. In the following, I will focus on the two single-authored papers by Portner and show that they invoke two different conceptions of the semantics-pragmatics interface. In both papers, Portner relies on a split representationalist conception of the context (see Section 2.1.1). In addition to the common ground (the set of propositions that constitute mutual joint belief) and the question set (the set of questions, i.e.

Subtle differences between epistemic modals on the one hand, and deontic modals and imperatives on the other hand, are discussed in Chapter 6; these concern in particular the necessity of anaphoric elements like then.

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sets of propositions that the participants in the conversation mutually agree to try to answer), there is a To-Do List function (TDL) that assigns to each participant a To-Do List (a set of properties). At each point in the conversation, an agent’s To-Do List reflects what she is committed to doing in order to be judged rational and cooperative. This is ensured by the assumption that common ground and To-Do List interact closely: a To-Do List induces a (strict) partial order on the set of worlds compatible with the common ground (cf. (22a)); this ordering serves as the input to a conversational principle that allows an evaluation of the agent’s behavior (the agent’s commitment, cf. (22b)). (22)

a.

b.

Partial orderingof worlds
Now, each clause type has a particular effect on these contextual settings. According to Portner (2005) this is mediated by the fact that they correspond to different logical types: declaratives denote propositions (i.e., are of type s, t), interrogatives denote sets of propositions, and imperatives denote properties (i.e., are of type s, et). Portner (2005) argues that this allows us to predict their effect on the contextual settings by a discourse principle that amounts to adding each of them to the storage site that hosts elements of the respective type. For imperatives, this is not sufficient to explain why they are added to the To-Do List of the addressee rather than someone else’s To-Do List. Therefore, Portner adds a domain restriction to the property denoted by the imperative: imperatives denote properties that hold either of the addressee or of nobody at all. An imperative like Leave! is interpreted as in (23).31 (23)

λwλx : x = c A .x leaves in w.

Portner’s (2005) theory constitutes a clear-cut case of a static theory of imperatives in which a purely semantic object (a property) regulates its effect on the discourse. As stressed by Portner himself, this constitutes a way of extending a Stalnakerian view of the semantics-pragmatics interface to non-assertive objects (in particular,

< is a strict partial order (irreflexive, transitive). Note that Portner uses < for the inverse relation of what Lewis (1973) and Kratzer (1991b) use it for; for Portner, u
31 Portner adopts Heim and Kratzer’s (1998) convention of indicating presuppositions on argument variables between a colon and the dot that precedes the value term.

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To-Do List and question set-related ones). As such, the approach is highly interesting, but the implementation is not unproblematic. In particular, if the update effect on the context is mediated by the semantic type it remains unclear why other (arguably) property-expressing objects (e.g. to be the addressee and to leave, friend of mine,. . . ) fail to behave like the corresponding imperatives.32 And, indeed, this part of the account is given up in the newer version (Portner, 2007). An imperative like Leave! still denotes the property in (23). But additionally, Portner (2007) adopts an update principle for imperatives that contains two parts: it specifies an effect on the addressee’s To-Do List, and an effect on the common ground, cf. (24).33,34 C + φimp = , where: TDL’(addressee) ∪ {φimp }; CG’ results from CG by adding the proposition ‘it is ordered/recommended/. . . that the addressee do φ’

(24)

Note that this rule is not part of the semantic interpretation of the imperative, and it is not triggered by the semantic interpretation, either (rather, the static semantic interpretation of the imperative is one of the parameters referred to in the update rule). The rule itself is triggered directly by the form type of the imperative. Therefore, strictly speaking, Portner (2007) cannot be considered a semantic analysis of clause types (or imperatives in particular): imperatives denote (addressee restricted) properties and come with an additional Gebrauchsbedingung (condition of use, 32 This particular problem has already been pointed out by Bierwisch (1980) in connection with a proposal by Hausser (1980), who also assumes that imperatives denote properties and from this tries to derive their discourse behavior. 33 Portner’s (2007) formulation contains an additional parameter h for modal flavors (cf. Kratzer, 1978), which regulates whether an imperative is used as a C OMMAND, a R ECOMMENDATION or a W ISH. The parameter also induces a definedness condition on the update with an imperative. These details can be ignored for the moment. 34

For simple imperatives, the rule in (24) renders superfluous the restriction that its semantic meaning carries the addressee presupposition. But it seems that this assumption is still crucial to capture that even grammatical third person subjects as in (ia) or (iia) presuppose that the imperative subject is (one of) the addressees. (i)

a. b.

JOHN stand HERE and MARY stand THERE! (Portner, 2005, (16c)) λwλx : x = c A .John ∈ x & John stands there & Mary ∈ x & Mary stands there. (Portner, 2005, (17c))

(ii)

a. b.

Everyone sit down! λwλx : x = c A .(∀y ∈ x)[y sits down in w.]

(Portner, 2005, (16b)) (Portner, 2005, (17b))

For (ia), the interaction with the To-Do List update is straightforward (although, as far as I can tell, ‘John ∈ x’ and ‘Mary ∈ x’ should be part of the domain restriction, not the at issue meaning). But it is unclear how the To-Do List update works for (iia) (and in particular, corresponding examples with non-universal quantifiers like for example somebody). Are there To-Do Lists of plural addressees, and if so, how do they interact with the To-Do Lists for the individuals the plural addressees are composed of? In Section 3.2.4, I provide an alternative solution to the addressee-restrictedness of imperatives.

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A Few Recent Approaches to Imperatives

53

cf. Bierwisch, 1980) that accounts for their effect on the contextual settings. But this pragmatic twist in the encoding of the imperative clause type35 is not a crucial feature of the analysis: thanks to the assumptions Portner makes about contextual representations it is easy to translate Portner’s (2007) combination of a static semantic object and an additional pragmatic meaning component into a genuinely semantic yet dynamic theory of imperatives. To make his account of imperatives semantic, we only have to assume (ignoring the modal parameters) that an imperative like Leave! denotes a function from an input context to the maximally similar output context s.t. (i) TDL’(c A ) = TDL(c A ) ∪ {λwλx : x = c A .x leaves in w}, and (ii) CG’ results from CG by adding the proposition ‘it is ordered/recommended/. . . that the addressee leave’. This amendment is straightforward and gives us the corresponding semantic encoding of the imperative clause type. Portner (2007) improves over Portner (2005) in that he spells out explicit machinery to explain how the status of the To-Do Lists influences what is mutual joint belief and how imperatives influence the interpretation of subsequent descriptive modals. He assumes that To-Do Lists are flavored according to whether properties come in as O RDERs, as R ECOMMENDATIONs, or as W ISHes, and points out that they verify subsequent modal sentences of the same flavor (assume that Noah is the addressee):36,37

35

‘Pragmatic’ in the sense of Section 1.1.3, i.e. that the pairing of the imperative form-type and the canonical function of O RDERING is not mediated (exclusively) by the imperative’s semantic meaning. This contrasts with the question posed in Section 2.1.3 which regards the nature of the semantic denotation of the imperative and whether it makes reference to speech acts, i.e. inherently pragmatic objects.

36

Portner claims that this is similar for I NVITATIONs and A DVICE , which come with an addresseebouletic and teleological flavor respectively. Consider (i) (i)

a. b.

Have a piece of fruit! I NVITATION , his (19a) Noah should have a piece of fruit, given that it would make him happy. bouletic; his (19b)

Intuitively, it does not seem right to say that this makes true that according to what the addressee wants, it is best that he takes a piece of fruit (as would be predicted if deontic and bouletic modality worked on a par). In the Kratzer-style framework Portner is employing, an addressee-bouletic modal expresses what follows given the circumstances if additionally as many as possible of the addressee’s wishes come true. At least for invitations it seems incorrect to add imperatives (applied to the addressee) to these wishes of the addressee (in Kratzer’s account, the addressee bouletic ordering source), in the same sense as the content of an order is added to the set of propositions that specify ‘what is commanded’. Imperatives simply do not change the wishes of the addressee. For more details on Kratzer’s modal framework and its relevance to imperatives of all flavors, see Chapters 3 and 4. Recent work on anankastic conditionals and teleological modality (e.g. von Fintel and Iatridou, 2005) suggests that the relation may be more complicated even in the case of A DVICE. 37 Roughly, the effect is achieved by ruling out worlds from the context set at which standard Kratzerian parameters (modal base and ordering source) do not assign sets of propositions that verify the corresponding necessity. For details on standard Kratzer semantics, see Section 3.1; for this particular application to imperatives, cf. Portner (2007).

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Sit down right now! O RDER; his (18) Noah should sit down right now, given that he’s been ordered to do so. deontic

This meets one of the challenges I mentioned for split representationalism: Portner (2007) offers an explanation for how the status of the non-epistemic storage sites is represented in the storage site reserved for epistemic matters. Still the account remains problematic on three other aspects that regard the appropriate interaction of To-Do Lists with the context of communication. First, To-Do Lists serve to record what has been agreed on as properties the addressee should strive to realize in order to count as rational and cooperative. This is ensured by the Agent’s commitment (cf. (22b)), which draws on the partial ordering induced by the relevant To-Do List. It is not absolutely clear to me what  is meant by the requirement that the ‘actions [of the agent] in any worlds w ∈ CG 1  tend to make it more likely that there is no w2 ∈ CG such that. . . ’. Making the agent’s commitment precise would require making explicit what notion of causation is assumed, and what probability distribution is referred to. But no matter how the two concepts are made precise, any straightforward reading seems to imply that with respect to her To-Do List, the agent is committed to a metalinguistic task: convince your interlocutor(s) that you cannot obtain more of your To-Do List properties than what you are currently aiming at. Intuitively, there are two ways in which the CG can be influenced by an agent who wants to meet her agent’s commitment with respect to a To-Do List property like Leave the room right now!: (i) she leaves the room; then her actual world cannot be outranked by another world w2 because of the To-Do List property of leaving the room; (ii) she convinces her interlocutors that leaving the room right now is impossible: then, worlds where she leaves the room right now are eliminated from the context set, therefore, the property becomes irrelevant for the partial ordering; consequently, at least this property cannot be the one that makes another world in the context set strictly better. Clearly, option (ii) may not be what the speaker had had in mind, but still, it seems a rational way to deal with an unwanted imperative you have once made the mistake to accept. Unfortunately, the agent’s commitment fails to block a third line of behavior which, contrary to predictions, is intuitively not judged as rational or cooperative action. Assume again that an imperative like (26) is issued and accepted (i.e., added to the addressee’s To-Do List). (26)

Leave this room within the next 30 seconds!

Assume that nothing else is on the addressee’s To-Do List at that moment. Then it is agreed that the addressee counts as rational if she acts in a way such that in any world w1 in CG (i.e. given what we all know) her actions make it more likely that it is not the case that both (i) she does not have the property of leaving within  the next 30 seconds in w1 and (ii) there is a world w2 in CG in which she has that property. This follows immediately from the requirement to make it more likely that there is no better world, and the fact that in case of a one-item To-Do List, the only way for w2 to be better than w1 is that the agent has that property in w2 but

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not in w1 . Now, given that the negated requirement is conjunctive, it is sufficient to ensure that one of them fails. So, if the addressee does not leave the room within the next thirty seconds and this becomes publicly known to all the interlocutors, all  worlds where she has the imperative property are eliminated from CG for nonlinguistic reasons and the addressee is deemed rational and cooperative according to the agent’s commitment.38 It may well be possible to make precise the concepts involved in the agent’s commitment and to rule out the inertia strategy of complying with it; however, both aspects strike me as not entirely trivial. A second problem with Portner’s To-Do Lists involves their incapacity to make any sensible predictions for properties which the addressee cannot influence: (27)

a. b. c.

Have fun at the party! Please, be rich! Please don’t have broken another vase.

on one’s way to a blind date

Properties that, according to mutual joint belief, cannot be actively influenced by the addressee (e.g. (27a)), and properties that are already settled (e.g. (27b), (27c)) do not lead to a distinction of worlds according to whether the addressee strives to have them or not. Therefore, their presence in a To-Do List is predicted to only have the metalinguistic effect that the agent is commited to make it mutual joint belief that (s)he either cannot have them or has them already. Intuitively, this is not what is expressed by the imperatives in (27). Third, the neat split between clause types and modification of particular storage sites breaks down when we consider declarative sentences that are used in a nonassertoric fashion: (28)

a. b. c.

You must clean the table. I hereby order you to clean the table. I want you to clean this table immediately!

used as an order

Intuitively, if my friend Natalie informs me about my duties as a housekeeper by an utterance of (29), the question of whether I am a rational and cooperative agent should take into account all three properties mentioned, not just the one that came in as an imperative. (29)

You must water the flowers and feed the cats. And please empty the mailbox.

But the prediction of the theory is that CG says that in order to comply with Natalie’s W ISHes/O RDERs (depending on the flavor of the necessity modal), it is necessary that I water the flowers and feed the cats. But I prove to be a rational agent depending on whether I strive to empty the mailbox or not. As far as I can see, this is not what we want. Whether an obligation came in via a performatively used modal or via an imperative does not seem to be of any relevance for the development of

38

Pace Portner (2005) who claims that the predictions are correct for inert addressees.

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the conversation. Relatedly, utterances of declarative sentences as in (28) show the same effect upon subsequent descriptive modals as imperatives do. Portner himself acknowledges the existence of performative modals, but does not seem to consider the issue problematic. Rather, he argues, modeling imperatives in terms of To-Do Lists provides an account of what performative modals achieve in addition to their assertive meaning component (cf. Portner, 2007:363f). It is not entirely clear to me how this is to work, though. As soon as we allow for performatively used modals, explicit performatives, etc. to modify To-Do Lists, we lose the correspondence between clause types and effects on the discourse. Hence, we need an independent theory for what goes into To-Do Lists, and what goes into the common ground. In addition, for the agent’s commitment to be realistic, it may also be necessary to let general requirements present in CG interact with the orderings induced by the To-Do Lists instead of getting taken into account as background facts only.39 An attempt to solve this problem would be to take into account together with the content of his To-Do List all deontic, teleological and bouletic information stored in the common ground when it comes to evaluating an agent’s rationality and cooperativity. But this would be too strong: for example, the participants in a conversation may well know that an agent is liable to pay taxes for a second income obtained in another country, yet agree that it is more rational to try to avoid doing so. Therefore, only liabilities endorsed by the participants in the conversation should be taken into account. But as soon as we have such a CG-internal distinction between liabilities that should be followed and those that should or need not be followed, the need for separate storage sites like To-Do Lists vanishes. The task becomes to ensure that imperatives always introduce liabilities that are endorsed by the participants. In view of these worries about the status and function of To-Do Lists, I want to propose an alternative account of imperatives that involves similar ingredients to Portner’s proposal but obviates the problems resulting from the split representationalist framework. I will also draw on the intimate connection to descriptive modal verbs, the possibility of different modal flavors, as well as the conduct-guiding effect of (some) imperatives.

2.3 Modalized Propositions: Idea and Motivation In the previous sections, I established imperatives as a particular sentence-level form type that is associated with the prototypcial function of an O RDER. Concomitantly, without any detectable notion of indirectness, utterances of imperatives can be associated with a wide range of functions that cannot easily be reduced to a uniform pragmatic core. I argued that the relation to the prototypical function (O RDER) and the wide functional potential are best accounted for semantically: imperatives

39 Problems for the appropriate interaction of facts about modal states of affairs (i.e., what the law is like) and orderings are well known from the literature on conditionals, cf. Frank (1996), Saebø (2001), von Fintel and Iatridou (2005).

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57

denote an underspecified object that gets associated with O RDER per default, but can, in interaction with particular contextual constellations, naturally be used for a wide range of other functions as well. None of the existing proposals discussed above fully meets the challenge: they tend to either build too much of a particular O RDER-like discourse effect into the imperative, or fail to satisfactorily account for an imperative’s interaction with the contextual settings. To arrive at what I consider a more satisfactory alternative, I give up on one of the mission statements in recent work on imperatives, namely, that imperatives do not have truth values. Instead, I argue that imperatives express propositions (and hence, have truth values), but come with an additional presuppositional meaning component that makes them unfit for assertive use and shields the truth value from being conversationally accessible. This approach can be spelled out in a static framework40 and does not involve any import of pragmatic (i.e. speech act-like) objects into the realm of semantic denotata. I will take my point of departure from the above-mentioned similarity between imperatives and performative modal verbs. The conviction that their relation to modality is revealing for an understanding of imperatives is shared with Han (t.a.) and Portner (2007). Yet, I strengthen this to the point of saying that at the level of at-issue content, imperatives are equivalent to modalized declaratives. This allows me to spell out the interaction between the imperative clause type and the context in terms of a uniform representationalist conception of the contextual settings, which avoids many of the problems discussed in connection with the management and status of additional non-epistemic storage sites (see Sections 2.1.1, 2.2.2, and 2.2.4). I will first argue that performative and descriptive modal verbs should not be distinguished in their semantics; if this is correct, we need a suitable account for performative effects as obtained from propositional semantic objects; once we have an understanding of how this works, the very same factors can be built into the analysis of imperatives (see Section 2.3.1).41 Before I spell out the analysis in detail (see Chapters 3 and 4), I will introduce some general assumptions about speech acts and contextual representations (see Section 2.3.2) and point out a few independent advantages of a propositional treatment of imperatives (see Section 2.3.3).

40 Unless presuppositions in general are considered a dynamic phenomenon independently, an issue I will not take a stance on in this book. In any case, there is nothing specific to the imperative that would require a dynamic treatment. 41 In a footnote, Portner (1997) also suggests that his truth-conditional analysis of imperatives would have to be supplemented along such lines: ‘. . . assigning truth conditions to an imperative might lead one to expect that it could be judged true or false. I believe that the solution to why it cannot be requires a better understanding of the relation between semantics and pragmatics, in particular speech act theory, than we currently have. The same issue arises for indicatives used as performatives, sentences which I would assume to have their normal truth conditions.’ (p. 207, fn. 23). In Portner (2005, 2007), he abandons this strategy and proposes a non-truth conditional analysis for imperatives and, tentatively, performative modal verbs (must).

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2.3.1 Performative and Descriptive Modal Verbs Modal verbs like must/should/have to/. . . and can/may/. . . can either be used to describe the way the world is with respect to all kinds of possibilities and necessities (descriptive usages or descriptive modal verbs), or to change the way the world is in such respects (performative usages or performative modal verbs). The followups in the sentences in (30) disambiguate in favor of a descriptive reading. The sentences are understood as describing what the world is like with respect to what is permitted or commanded. The change on the context they evoke is that of an A SSERTION. (30)

a. b.

You should do the shopping today (as far as I know). Peter may come tomorrow. (The hostess said it was no problem.)

In contrast, (31) can easily be used to bring about an obligation for the addressee to call the speaker, or render it permissible for the addressee to come at 11. In particular, as implied by any standard definition of the speech act types O RDER and P ERMIT, this means that the corresponding modal state of affairs had not obtained before the utterance. (31)

a. b.

You must call me! Okay, you may come at 11. (Are you satisfied now?)

Like imperatives, performative modal verbs seem to lack a truth value: (32)

a. b.

A: You must empty out the trash! B: #No, that’s not true. A. You may take a cookie now. B: #No, that’s not true.

Ninan (2005) claims that deontic English must is always interpreted preformatively when occurring in unembedded position42 and individuates further characteristics of performative modal verbs. In particular, they are infelicitous if the speaker expresses that he does not believe the action will take place (cf. (33)). (33)

Sam must go to confession (#but he is not going to).

his (4)

Again, imperatives behave exactly like performative modal verbs: (34)

Go to confession (#but I know you won’t go).

In view of these similarities in contextual effects and in restrictions, I want to put forth the following hypothesis:

42 Below, I will argue that this is too strong and that one can find instances of descriptive deontic must in main clauses as well.

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59

Hypothesis 2.1 Imperative Semantics (preliminary version) An imperative of the form ‘(S UBJECT ) φ!’ denotes the same object as ‘S UBJECT/you P ERFORMATIVE -M ODAL φ’. This, of course, leaves it open whether it is a performative modal verb of necessity (like performative should) or of possibility (like performative may), or if the quantificational force is underspecified. In the following, I will argue that (in the absence of particular anti-exhaustifiers, see Section 5.3) imperatives are semantically like performative you should-sentences.43 For most speech act types that are observed with imperatives, the imperative could indeed be replaced by an utterance containing a performative modal verb that expresses necessity: (35)

Close the door! ≈ You must/should close the door!

But for a few speech act types that occur with imperatives, a paraphrase containing a performative possibility modal seems more natural. In Section 1.2, I have dubbed this the problem of quantificational inhomogeneity (QIP). Consider in particular P ERMISSIONs/I NVITATIONs (cf. (36a)), C ONCESSIONs (cf. (36b)), and inexhaustive advice (for example-imperatives, cf. (36c)). (36)

a. b. c.

Have another cookie! ? ≈ You may have another cookie. P ERMISSION /I NVITATION Well, then go to that damn party! ??? ≈ You may go to that party then. C ONCESSION Take the A-train, for example. ≈ You can take the A-train, for example. for example-A DVICE

Despite the paraphrases, I don’t think that this should be taken as evidence in favor of ambiguity in quantificational force. Even if clearly weaker than corresponding you must- or you should-sentences, the imperatives feel slightly stronger than the you can- or you may-sentences. In Section 5.1, I will argue that the similarity to possbility modals should better be treated at the level of pragmatics (this view is shared with Wilson and Sperber, 1988; Portner, 2007, 2010).44 For other speech act types, the parallel between the imperative and the corresponding performative you should-declarative is intuitive. I therefore propose to strengthen Hypothesis 2.1 to claiming that imperatives are like performative you should-sentences.45

43

Cf. Grosz (2008b) for a proponent of the underspecification hypothesis with respect to the quantificational force of the modal operator in imperatives.

44

The only exceptions are for example-imperatives which I take to reveal that the semantics assigned in Chapter 3 must not be considered primitive but results from an underlying atomic semantics and an obligatory operation of exhaustification.

45

Note that this is a special version of the you should-reduction discussed by Hamblin (1987); see Section 2.1.2. It is more specific in that I have made explicit that we are dealing with performative you should. Hypothesis 2.2 is meant to take into account only the at-issue content.

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Hypothesis 2.2 Imperative Semantics (final version) An imperative of the form ‘(S UBJECT ) φ!’ denotes the same object as ‘S UBJECT/you should φ’ with performative should. As it stands, we have just reduced one open problem to another, namely: what is the semantics of performative modal verbs? In the literature, we find two strategies. One type of approach interprets performative modal verbs just like descriptive modal verbs. Such an account needs to explain why the corresponding propositions can be self-verifying. The other strategy is to interpret performative modal verbs differently from their descriptive homonyms. This allows one to semantically identify performative modal verbs with the (non-assertive) change they evoke on the contextual settings (e.g. van Rooy, 2000). The generally accepted strategy in the analysis of natural language expressions is to minimize ambiguity. Therefore, a uniform semantics for descriptive and performative modal verbs constitutes the null hypothesis. One of the main arguments against a uniform semantics for descriptive and performative modal verbs consists in their seemingly different behaviour with respect to disjunction (cf. Kamp, 1973; van Rooy, 2000). Apparently, deontic may gives rise to the so-called free choice effect for disjunctions under its performative reading (cf. (37a)), but not under its descriptive reading (cf. (37b)). While (37a) is understood as the conjunction of the two modalized coordinands (either of the disjuncts is an option), (37b) is not (one of the disjuncts is an option, but we don’t know which). (37)

a. b.

You can ask Cécile or you can email to Patrick. → You can ask Cécile. And you can email to Patrick. FC You can ask Cécile or you can email to Patrick, I forgot which. → You can ask Cécile. And you can email to Patrick. no FC

But free choice effects are neither unique to performative usages, nor do they pertain to all of them. Consider epistemic might in (38a) and deontic can in (38b)46 for free choice readings with descriptive modals: (38)

a. b.

She might be in Boston or she might be in New York. descriptive ≈ She might be in Boston, and she might be in NY. FC I checked the rules for paying your ticket. You can pay online or you can pay at the police station. descriptive ≈ You can pay online and you can pay at the police station. FC

For lack of free choice with performative modals see an example with deontic may from Kamp (1978): (39)

46

You may go to Shoal Creek, or you may go to Shingle Creek, but stay away from the dangerous one. → You may go to Shoal Creek, and you may go to Shingle Creek. no FC

Example from Paul Portner (p.c.).

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Consequently, the behavior of free choice disjunction does not provide evidence in favor of a non-uniform approach. The second argument against a uniform treatment rests on the observation that performative modal verbs are confined to main clauses. Therefore, so the story goes, one should conclude that they differ from descriptive modal verbs in that they fail to enter the recursive meaning component.47 The argument is hard to assess, though, as it seems to already presuppose a non-uniform treatment of performative and descriptive modal verbs. Under a semantically uniform treatment, the effect of inducing a change in what is permissible would have to be explained in terms of the interplay of a proposition with particular contextual constellations. But then, we would not expect the very same proposition to enter such an interaction if it occurred in an embedded position. In that sense, the phenomenon is similar to the occurrence of embedded declaratives: it is generally assumed that they encode propositions just like their matrix counterparts. Yet, (40a) (if uttered sincerely and to a perceptive and believing addressee) will change mutual joint belief to include the assumption that it is raining. In contrast, no such change is induced by (40b). Here, an update that it is raining is blocked by the contribution of the matrix clause: the embedded clause itself does not achieve the same effect as the main clause in (40a) would. (40)

a. b.

It is raining. I don’t think that it is raining.

Moreover, if descriptive and performative modal verbs were semantically distinct, one might expect the occurrence of lexical items that come with only one of the two readings.48 At first glance, the deontic version of the English modal must exemplifies an item that has only a performative interpretation when occurring in a main clause (cf. Ninan, 2005; Portner, 2009). Upon closer investigation, this claim has to be challenged on an empirical basis. But even if it were correct it is not quite what we are looking for: Ninan himself points out that deontic must is read descriptively in embedded clauses (e.g. (41)). Moreover, there is also epistemic must which is read descriptively both in main and in embedded clauses (cf. (42)). (41)

John thinks you must close the door.

(42)

a. b.

You must be in your thirties. John thinks that you must be in your thirties.

So, even if main clause deontic must was only ever used performatively, must would not pass as performative modal verb that lacks a descriptive homonym. But deontic must’s putative restriction to performativity in main clauses seems to be a mere 47

‘a truth conditional analysis of imperatives gives rise to the expectation that command and permission sentences can be iterated, or embedded into one another, which in fact seems impossible.’ (van Rooy, 2000:121) 48 That prediction may not arise if the connection were analysed as an instance of regular polysemy. Unfortunately, to this point, I am not aware of a non-uniform treatment that works out the link between descriptive and performative reading.

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tendency anyway.49 In particular, according to-phrases help to trigger descriptive readings of deontic must in main clauses. (43)

According to RFC2182 section 5 you must have at least 3 nameservers, and no more than 7. Having 2 nameservers is also ok by me.50

So, must not only fails to provide evidence in favor of the non-uniform account, it even makes a non-uniform account look quite unattractive. A non-uniform account would have to posit that there is a performative deontic modal must which tends to occur in the absence of overt modification in main clauses, and a descriptive deontic modal must which occurs in combination with modifiers and in embedded position (in addition to descriptive epistemic must). Even if I won’t be able to spell out the details for English must, the uniform account fleshed out in the following promises a far more natural treatment. The idea would be that the parameter settings obligatory for imperatives constitute the default for must, but can be overwritten in embedding constructions or by explicit according to-modifiers. In the absence of convincing arguments in favor of two different interpretations, I assume that the distinction between performative and descriptive modal verbs is pragmatic. There is no semantic distinction between may or have to as occurring in A SSERTIONs and in P ERMISSIONs/O RDERs. Leaving aside complications with epistemic modals (cf. von Fintel and Gillies, 2007, for an overview), the semantics for descriptive modal verbs is generally taken to be propositional: that is, it outputs a proposition when all arguments (but the world argument) are filled. In cases of performative modal verbs, the proposition expressed by the clause can be used for commanding or permitting. It is the task of pragmatics to explain how this happens. Hypothesis 2.3 Performative and Descriptive Modal Verbs Modal verbs can be used performatively and descriptively and always denote the same sort of semantic object, namely (the curried version of) a function from a series of arguments to a proposition. Hypothesis 2.3 in combination with Hypothesis 2.2 yields what Hamblin (1987) labelled the you should-reduction. Hypothesis 2.4 you should-reduction A imperative ‘(S UBJECT ) φ!’ expresses the same proposition as ‘S UBJECT / you should φ’.

49

Counter-examples to Ninan’s generalization were first pointed out to me by Jonathan Shaheen (p.c.) and Craige Roberts (p.c.). 50 www.intodns.com/cpaneldnscluster.com. I am indebted to Lisa Matthewson (p.c.) for pointing out that this sequence may still feel contradictory, partly because of the also. Yet, it becomes acceptable if the second sentences is replaced with But having 2 nameservers is ok as far as I am concerned. This modified example can still be used to make the same point.

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But in contrast to modal verbs, imperatives can only be used performatively. I suggest that they carry an additional meaning component that confines them to usage in contexts where a corresponding modalized declarative would be used performatively. In order to establish the content of that additional meaning component, we only have to understand what contextual factors give rise to performative usages of modal verbs. In particular, why is it that a modalized proposition can be self-verifying? I think that a crucial property shared by the respective utterance contexts is that the participants in the conversation agree that the speaker cannot be mistaken about the modality in question. This can be either because it is up to the speaker herself to order, to command, to permit, etc., or because the speaker is considered an expert on the issue under discussion (e.g. when asked for advice). The specific nature of the speaker’s privileged position will be discussed in more detail in Section 4.2, together with further contextual properties that prove relevant for the performative effect. By giving rise to non-assertoric speech acts, the described constellations are also responsible for the unacceptability of follow-ups like that’s not true, you won’t do it or I don’t want you to do it, although the details are more complicated than what is generally assumed (see Section 4.3 for a tentative characterization). Now, modal verbs can very well occur in contexts that do not meet the characteristics we will single out as decisive for performative effects. In that case, they are used descriptively. If in contrast imperatives can never be used descriptively, we can take this to mean that they can never occur in contexts that do not meet these characteristics (that is, in contexts that would give rise to a descriptive effect of the modalized proposition). Technically, I will argue that the imperative carries as presuppositions the properties a context has to have in order to allow for a performative interpretation of a modal verb. Therefore, with imperatives, instead of descriptive usages we obtain presupposition failures. To sum up, the core of my proposal for imperatives consists of the following assumptions: • Performatively and descriptively used modal verbs correspond to the same semantic object, and (after argument saturation) yield propositions. • Modal verbs give rise to performative effects if particular contextual constellations hold. • Imperatives (i) denote the same propositional object as sentences of the form You should φ, that is, they are of type <s,t>, and (ii) they come with an additional presuppositional meaning component that constrains them to usage in contexts in which a modalized declarative of the form You must/should φ would achieve a non-assertoric, performative effect; that is, imperatives cannot be felicitously interpreted in a context where the corresponding declarative would achieve a descriptive reading.51

51 Modulo differences that might be caused by the fact that presuppositions can trigger accomodation.

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So far, we have only dealt with the most straightforward cases of performative modal verbs. O RDERs or P ERMISSIONs are such that the very state of obligations that is described by the proposition changes the moment the sentence is uttered. Yet, no such change is required by the conditions I imposed on contexts for performative use. This is in line with the observations by Ninan (2005) and Portner (2009) that the unacceptability of follow-ups like you won’t do it, which they argue to be indicative of performativity, carries over to speech act types like A DVICE where there is no change in what is optimal/possible. Again, imperatives behave in an entirely parallel manner; in (44), while both B and B’ express that taking the A-train is the best means to get to Harlem, neither of them induces any change in what is optimal with respect to A’s goal of getting to Harlem: (44)

A: How do I get to Harlem? B: To get to Harlem, you should take the A-train. B’: To get to Harlem, take the A-train.

Therefore, cases like C OMMANDs and P ERMISSIONs, where we see an actual change in what is necessary/permissible, are not the only ones in which modalized propositions are used in a not merely descriptive way. Portner (2009) explicitly draws the distinction between modal verbs that are used for A SSERTIONs (that is, merely descriptively), and modal verbs that are used for another speech act instead or on top of an A SSERTION. As an advocate of a non-uniform account, Portner is interested in defining a (lexical) class of modal verbs, and not a class of usages of modal verbs: I refer to a modal as ‘performative’ if, by virtue of its conventional meaning, it causes the utterance of a declarative sentence to perform a speech act in addition to, or instead of, the act of assertion which is normally associated with declarative clauses. (Portner, 2009:136)

On my semantically uniform understanding, the definitions have to be adapted as follows: ‘descriptive’ means ‘used in an assertion (or a question) about the state of modal affairs’, whereas ‘performative’ means ‘used for a non-assertoric speech act’ (confining attention to direct speech acts).52 In Section 3.1, I will introduce Kratzer’s semantics for modality in possible worlds semantics. In her account, modal verbs are context-dependent; for example, it is a covert contextual parameter that specifies whether must is to be read deontically or epistemically. I will show how this context dependence can be used to predict the entire range of speech act types found with imperatives (functional inhomogeneity problem, FIP, cf. Issue 1.2), how the contextual constellation influences which speech act type is realized by a particular utterance (the problem of assigning speech acts to utterances, ASA, cf. Issue 1.4), and why the presuppositional meaning component together with default assumptions about utterance contexts provides a solution to the problem of clause type encoding (CTE, cf. Issue 1.1).

52 Consequently, for Portner, the only modal verb that qualifies as performative (in his sense) is must, if Ninan were right in assuming that all its main clause appearances were non-assertive. In contrast, for me, most deontic modal verbs can be both descriptive and performative.

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2.3.2 Updates and Speech Acts At this point, I want to briefly reflect on the conception of the interface between semantic object and speech act type that emerges from the assumptions spelled out in Section 2.3.1. The underlying effect of an imperative is obtained from a proposition that updates the common ground. Therefore, one might be tempted to call it an assertoric treatment. But the terminology is misleading. I agree that it is an assertoric treatment in Stalnaker’s (1978) more technical sense of assertion. But I would like to follow Gazdar (1981) and assume that no A SSERTION (that is, no speech act of asserting) has to be intended, executed, and recognized, in order for performatively used modals (or imperatives, in my case) to obtain the effect of an O RDER, a C OMMAND , a P ERMISSION, etc. (contra, for example Bach and Harnish, 1979). Nevertheless, I assume that such a recognition of a primary speech act is crucial for what is generally called an indirect speech act. A typical example is an A SSERTION of I am cold that additionally works as an O RDER to close the window (see Section 1.1.3). But as I argued above, this happens exactly because the assertive act is intended, executed, and recognized. In terms of speech act types as descriptive categories of context transitions, the changes corresponding to imperative utterances meet the categories of C OMMAND or of P ERMISSION, of W ISH, etc., but (not necessarily) that of A SSERTION.53 As I am not assuming that there is a separate speech act-related layer in the linguistic object, their semantic interpretations as such have to determine the respective speech act types in interaction with the contextual settings. To allow for this, I introduce a pre-speech act theoretic notion of adding a semantic object to the context of the conversation. Depending on the logical type of the object, if successful, this results in adding it to CG (for propositions) or in partitioning the context set (for interrogatives, which can be construed as indexdependent propositions, cf. Groenendijk and Stokhof, 1984).54 I assume that this process corresponds to an update function J that specifies how semantic objects are integrated in the course of the conversation if accepted. J can be sketched as follows55 : (45)

J is a function from objects of type s, t or s, st and an input context c to a maximally similar output context c, s.t.

53

I don’t want to take a stance as to whether there are speech acts that can be executed with imperatives, yet would also meet all the criteria of an A SSERTION (A DVICE being an example in question). If this is so, a speech act theory should label a transition by the strongest label(s) such that the corresponding speech act(s) is/are intentionally executed and recognized as such. 54

Note that adding a linguistic object to CG already satisfies some of the transitional characteristics of an A SSERTION. At the same time, it can already be a stronger effect: in Section 1.4 I have described a successful A SSERTION as requiring only that it becomes mutual joint belief that the speaker believes the proposition asserted, not that the proposition itself becomes mutual joint belief. 55 For a technical representation of what it means for an information state to be partitioned, cf. Groenendijk and Roelofsen (2009).

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a.

b.

 if all presuppositions of p(or q) are satisfied, and if (CG(c)∪{ p}) = ∅ for p ∈ Dst , then c = c modulo CG(c ) = CG(c) ∪ { p}(or CG(c ) is partitioned by q ∈ D<s, st> ) otherwise, try to accommodate presuppositions (Stalnaker, 2002) and apply J to p/q and c as resulting from accommodation.

As it stands, J takes care of declaratives, imperatives, and interrogatives.56 Leaving it deliberately vague, I add the following pragmatic principle. (46)

A cooperative addressee will always act on the presumption that the context has changed from c to J (c E )(c) unless he has good reasons not to.

To get back to the notion of speech act types, we can spell out the following requirement on a theory of speech acts: (47)

A theory of speech acts assigns a speech act type to each triple such that J (c E )(c) = c , where c E is the linguistic object expressed in an intermediate context c, which is maximally equivalent to c with cT < cT < cT .

The properties of pre-, post- and intermediate contexts allow us to determine the type of speech act that is taking place. Crucially, in contrast to most approaches that focus only on the propositional information that is expressed by the sentences under consideration, I will also take into account that the worlds in the context set have to reflect what are taken to be future courses of the ongoing conversation. In particular, the participants will often hold it possible that the other person may say something and thereby execute a particular speech act. At the same time, the occurrence of other speech acts may be excluded by mututal joint belief. For example, if I am talking to my boss, it may be the case that we both exclude that I will tell him to proof-read my manuscript, while we consider possible that I will ask him to do so, or that he tells me to proof-read his manuscript. These meta-linguistic facts will play a role in the derivation of the self-verifying effect to be observed with many performative utterances. The rest of the book is devoted mostly to spelling out the details for standard main clause imperatives, as well as for imperatives occurring in non-canonical constructions and with non-canonical readings. Chapter 5 takes special care of imperatives that seem associated with possibility readings. Before I go into that, I will provide some independent motivation for my analysis in terms of modalized propositions (see Sections 2.3.3.1, 2.3.3.2, and 2.3.3.3). It turns out that equating imperatives and declaratives at the level of logical type makes not only the traditionally dreaded prediction that imperatives have truth values, but also provides straightforward explanations for a couple of phenomena to be observed with imperatives.

56 If further clause types (e.g. exclamatives) correspond to further logical types, the account has to be enriched (but see Portner and Zanuttini, 1999, and Roguska, 2005, for two recent approaches that both assign uniform logical types to interrogatives and exclamatives).

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2.3.3 Imperatives and Declaratives on a Par A good deal of the literature on imperatives takes as its starting point that imperatives and declaratives are fundamentally different, and that therefore a treatment that assimilates them to each other has to be considered an unfavorable stopgap. In this section, I will present a couple of phenomena that provide independent evidence in favor of the analysis I am proposing.

2.3.3.1 Imperatives as Semantic Answers The first argument in favor of a propositional semantics for imperatives comes from the theory of logical types. It is largely taken as favorable that the major clause types of declaratives, interrogatives and imperatives should correspond to distinct semantic types respectively. For example, according to Hausser (1980) and Portner (2005, 2007), declaratives correspond to propositions <s,t>, interrogatives correspond to sets of propositions <s,<st,t>> (or index-dependent propositions <s,st>), and imperatives correspond to properties <s,et> (see Section 2.2.4 for discussion). If we take a look at the literature on interrogatives, what is generally considered fruitful in order to understand them is their relation to answers (Hamblin, 1958), or more specifically true answers (Karttunen, 1977; Groenendijk and Stokhof, 1984). This makes the type of interrogatives dependent on the type of declaratives. But upon closer inspection, pairs of questions and answers as constituted by interrogatives and declaratives (cf. (48)) are paralleled by cases in which imperatives answer questions (cf. (49)). (48)

a. b.

(49)

a. b.

Q: Is it raining? A: Yes, it is raining. Q: Who came to the party? A: Verena, Magda and Hong came to the party. Q: What shall I do tonight? A: Go to the movies. Q: How do I get to Mannheim? A: Take the train.

It is quite clear that (49) are not just instances of constituent answers like the ones in (50). This can be shown by cases involving overt subjects (51a) and negation (51b), as well as by examples from languages that mark imperatives unambiguously, e.g. German as in (52). (50)

A: What will you do? B: Call him, (what else).

(51)

a. b.

Q: Which of us shall go to this reception? A: YOU go to the reception. Q: Should I go to the reception? A: Don’t go.

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a.

b.

Q: Was soll ich machen? what should I do ‘What should I do?’ A: Ruf deine Schwester an! call.I MP S G your sister VP RT ‘Call your sister!’

One might be tempted to argue that these are just instances of the pragmatic resolutions of questions. But this is a position there is little evidence for. Groenendijk and Stokhof (1984:222–226) distinguish semantically and pragmatically resolving answers as follows. For them, an interrogative q like Who came? denotes a relation on the set of possible worlds, cf. (53a). Therefore, it induces a partition on any information state S (set of possible worlds), written S/q, cf. (53b). (53)

a. b.

λw.λv.[λx.came(x)(w) = λx.came(x)(v)]. S/q := {[w]q | w ∈ S}, where [w]q = {v ∈ S | q(w)(v)}

Their notion of a semantic answer is given in (54): (54)

A proposition p is a semantic answer to an interrogative q iff p ∈ W/q (where W is the set of all possible worlds).

Pragmatic answers depend on an information state J ⊆ W and are defined as answers given by a proposition in that particular information state: (55)

a. b.

An information state S offers an answer for an interrogative q iff S/q = {S}. A proposition p gives an answer to an interrogative q in an information state S iff S ∩ p offers an answer.

Semantic and pragmatic answers to interrogatives differ in whether they depend on particular information states. For a pragmatic answer that is not also a semantic answer, it should be possible to find an information state with respect to which it does not answer the interrogative. For example, (56b) does not constitute a semantic answer to (56a) (that is, (56b) ∈ W /(56a)), but it gives an answer to this interrogative in an information state S ⊂ W that already entails that John won’t come to the party if it is raining. If no such relation is presupposed (or can be accommodated), the sequence in (56) results in infelicity. In such a case, the answer sounds incoherent and can be rejected along the lines of That’s not what I was asking you./So what?/. . . . In contrast, it is impossible to set up an information state that allows such a rejection for a semantic answer like (56c). (56)

a. b. c.

Will John come to the party? It’s raining. No, he won’t.

Going back to the imperative answers, we find that they behave like semantic answers. Independently of the context of the conversation, they give an answer to

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the interrogative. Rejections by That’s not what I was asking you/So what?/. . . are invariably infelicitous. If we do not want to assume that the corresponding interrogatives are ambiguous between a declarative related and an imperative related reading, the most straightforward explanation treats the corresponding imperatives and declaratives as expressing the same semantic object (i.e., the same proposition). In contrast to this obvious parallelism between declaratives and imperatives, other interrogatives can never semantically resolve questions. Interrogatives can pragmatically resolve a pending question when used as rhetorical questions (cf. (57)), and can provide the addressee with a strategy to resolve a pending question when used as information questions (cf. (58)). (57)

Q: Who came to the party? A: Who could possibly have wanted to go there?

(58)

Q: Who is the murderer? A: Who left the house last?

Considering the ability to semantically resolve questions, imperatives and declaratives pattern together and behave differently from interrogatives. Relatedly, we can compare the ability of particular objects to give rise to a stable or unstable state of the discourse. Krifka (2001) remarks that A SSERTIONs (as performed by uttering declaratives) lead to stable information states, while Q UESTIONs (as performed by uttering interrogatives) lead to an unstable state that requires resolution (by answering the question).57 Imperatives are claimed to likewise lead to an unstable discourse context, but this time to one that has to be resolved by action. Yet, this is not always correct: uttering an imperative can also maintain a stable discourse state (e.g. when used as a W ISH), or resolve an instable discourse state (e.g. when answering a Q UESTION ). In that sense, imperatives are again a lot like declaratives. 2.3.3.2 Insincere Imperatives Another respect in which imperatives pattern with declaratives is insincerity proper. It has often been argued that lying with an imperative would amount to commanding an action one does not want the addressee to realize. This could for example be useful in a scenario where the speaker already knows that the addressee will do the exact opposite of what he is told to do (cf. Hamblin, 1987). Apart from such rather marginal cases, I would like to point out that, after all, imperatives also allow for much simpler cases of insincerity proper, namely for trying to make the addressee believe something that is known to the speaker to be incorrect. Consider the exchange in (59).

57 Note that this is similar to the distinction between inquisitive and non-inquisitive semantic denotata as drawn in inquisitive semantics, cf. Groenendijk and Roelofsen (2009).

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A. How do I get to Harlem? S: To go to Harlem, take the B train. S’: To go to Harlem, it is best to take the B train.

By now we all know that going to Harlem requires taking the A-train. Let’s assume that participant S does as well. Nevertheless, for whatever reason she utters the imperative in S. This utterance has to be considered just as much of a lie as an alternative declarative utterance S’. The analysis of imperatives as expressing what is necessary/best to achieve a goal (and thus giving information proper) allows for a straightforward explanation of the phenomenon. In contrast to imperatives and declaratives, interrogatives can’t be used insincerely in a similar way. We could construe scenarios where the speaker does not want the addressee to answer the question. But this is closer to Hamblin’s (1987) scenario for improperly used imperatives and has little in common with the insincerity involved in an information exchange like (59). 2.3.3.3 Imperatives and Rhetorical Questions Last but not least, I would like to draw attention to a phenomenon that might at first glance look threatening to the individuation of imperatives as clause types. The main criterion for constituting a form type in a clause type system of a language is incompatibility with the formation of other clause types (cf. Sadock and Zwicky, 1985). It has often been argued that imperative clause types (taken to be marked by the imperativized verb in many languages) are incompatible with question formation. A straightforward argument for German would be that the imperative in (60a) cannot be paired with a wh-question as in (60b). (60)

a.

b.

deine Schwester an! Ruf VP RT call.I MP S G your sister ‘Call your sister!’ ∗ Wen ruf an? who call.I MP S G VP RT

But a first investigation of the data suggests that this grammaticality judgment only pertains to a use of (60b) as an information-seeking question.58 Apparently, wh-questions with German imperativized verbs are fully acceptable as rhetorical questions. Consider the following contexts: (61)

(speaking to a child who is carrying around a flower pot he should actually be able to put into the right place):

58 The data was first tested informally on 10 native speakers of German. Only one of them disagreed with my judgment. Kaufmann and Poschmann (2011) discuss an experimental survey that confirms this contrast.

2.3

Modalized Propositions: Idea and Motivation

a.

(62)

71

Na komm, den du weißt es doch. Wo stell DP RT come.I MP S G, you know it DP RT . Where put.I MP S G the Blumentopf hin? flower-pot VP RT ‘Come on, you know it. Where do you have to put the flower pot?’

(There are a few books one could read for the exam. The professor would be able to tell from the answers which book a student had studied. The authors are Mayer, Müller, and Schmidt. Schmidt’s book contains a couple of mistakes, but he has just written an article together with the professor the addressee wants to take the exam with; Müller’s book is quite good, but a bit expensive. Mayer’s book is actually quite good, but the addressee’s professor is known to hate him. After elaborating on all this, the speaker asks the addressee:) auf keinen Fall? a. Also was lies case so what read.I MP S G in no ‘So whose book is it that you really shouldn’t read?’

In the informal survey, nine out of ten informants answered straightforwardly that it was the book by Mayer that shouldn’t be read for the exam. None of them minded the imperative, not even when asked about salient grammatical features. Does this force us to conclude that German does not have imperatives? I would not say so. The lesson to be learnt is rather that imperativized verbs need not automatically and independently of all other factors determine the clause type to be imperative. Semantically, the interpretation of the imperative morphology contributes to a modalized proposition that is not in itself incompatible with question formation (cf. Reis and Rosengren, 1992) for independent syntactic arguments that the Vorfeld-position in imperatives should not be assumed to be marked as [-wh]).59 In this respect, it behaves exactly like its modal verb counterpart should. (63)

a.

b.

Wo sollst du den Blumentopf hinstellen? where should you the flower-pot put ‘Where should you put the flower pot?’ Wo stell den Blumentopf hin? where put.I MP S G the flower-pot VP RT ? roughly: ‘(Come on, you know this:) where is it that you should put the flower pot?’

59 The data I am concerned with in this section should not be confused with the wh-imperatives Reis and Rosengren (1992) consider. They are concerned with imperative clauses that contain a wh-item in preverbal position which has been moved there out of an embedded interrogative.

(i)

mir [ ti hat Maria ti gesehen.]] [ Weni sag who tell.I MP S G me has Maria seen ‘Tell me who Mary saw.’

In cases like (i), the matrix clause is unambiguously typed as an imperative.

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In Section 4.2.2 I claim that the imperativized verb triggers the presupposition that the speaker is an (epistemic) authority on the issue in question (see Section 2.3.1 above for an informal introduction of the idea). Consequently, the speaker cannot possibly lack information about the matter. Therefore, if the presuppositions induced by the imperativized verb are met for (63b), the speaker has perfect knowledge about where the addressee is to put the flower pot, and this also constitutes mutual joint belief. But this is just the prototypical constellation for an interrogative to be used as a rhetorical question (cf. Truckenbrodt, 2004, for an overview of question types). In contrast to that, the overt necessity modal sollst ‘should’ in (63a) lacks an authority presupposition. Consequently, it can easily be used in contexts where the speaker lacks knowledge about the desired positioning of the flower pot. But note that, if (63a) is used as an information-seeking question, it requires that the source of the obligation is either different from the speaker, or that the obligation is speaker based, but that he has in the meantime forgotten about it. As soon as we try to interpret should with respect to the speaker’s interests and assume that he himself is perfectly aware of these, we are constrained to the same rhetorical interpretation as for (63b). So far, I haven’t had the opportunity to test further languages for the possibility of forming rhetorical questions with imperativized verbs.60 Yet, I am confident that data like that discussed in this section will shed light on the question of how (if at all) clause types are marked in syntax.

60 Marina Stoyanova (p.c.) points out that the same phenomenon seems to be available in Bulgarian. But in contrast to questions formed with declarative verbs, the wh-phrases have to remain in situ in these cases. Whatever syntactic mechanism is responsible for that restriction may have interesting connections with the encoding of speaker authority.

Chapter 3

Imperatives as Graded Modals

In this chapter, I will work out the idea developed and motivated in Section 2.3 that imperatives express modalized propositions. To carry out the program of assimilating imperatives to modal verbs, I rely on a version of Kratzer’s semantics for modality in possible worlds semantics, which will be introduced in Section 3.1.1 This framework constitutes the standard approach to modality in linguistic semantics; its merits and faults are therefore well known. Apart from these opportunistic considerations, the framework promises to be particularly useful because it is explicitly designed to explain the interaction of modal elements with the utterance context. In view of the large variety of functions we found with imperatives that seemed to have little of a uniform semantic and hardly a uniform speech act-theoretic core, this makes the framework highly attractive for our enterprise. In Chapter 3, the framework will be applied to derive the propositional at-issue content of imperatives from the underlying syntactic structure. The resulting at-issue content will be enriched by an additional presuppositional meaning component in Chapter 4 to account for the behavior of imperatives at the semantics-pragmatics interface.

3.1 Modality in Possible Worlds Semantics In this section, I will give an introduction to Kratzer’s treatment of modality, which can be skipped by anyone already familiar with the framework. Section 3.1.1 discusses the basic idea of context dependence, Section 3.1.2 introduces the distinction between personal and impersonal modality as well as tests to distinguish between the two. Finally, Section 3.1.3 presents the refined version of the basic framework, which is needed to deal with different strengths of modal expressions as well as inconsistent backgrounds and practical inferencing in cases of conflict. The propositional analysis of imperatives I would like to propose requires the refined notion, i.e. graded modality.

1

Cf. Kratzer (1977, 1978, 1981, 1991b). For influential antecedents cf. Lewis (1973), van Fraassen (1973).

M. Kaufmann, Interpreting Imperatives, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 88, C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012 DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-2269-9_3, 

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3.1.1 Simple Modality The basic idea of the framework goes back to Kratzer (1978). Modal elements like müssen ‘must’, können ‘can’, notwendigerweise ‘necessarily’ etc., display a wide range of meanings. (1)

a.

b.

Cécile kann in Berlin sein. Cécile may in Berlin be ‘Cécile may be in Berlin.’ Melli kann Rad fahren. Melli can bike ride ‘Melli can ride a bike.’

While the first sentence expresses the possibility that a friend of mine is in Berlin at the moment, the second ascribes a certain ability to another friend of mine. We can get rid of the apparent ambiguity of a modal verb like können by assuming that the meaning of modal elements depends on two parameters. One of them is called modal force and is specified to either necessity or possibility in the lexical entry. The other parameter is called modal base.2 It comes in as a (mostly covert) argument of the modal verb3 and is a function that assigns to a particular world all (relevant) propositions describing the relevant background for a particular modal flavor. Their intersection constitutes the set of worlds with respect to which necessity (entailment) and possibility (compatibility) are computed. Its value (e.g. what the law says for a deontic background, what we know for an epistemic background, etc.) is supplied by the utterance context. Technically, the modal base is a function from worlds into sets of propositions (type <s,<st,t>>). More generally, such functions are called conversational backgrounds. Modal verbs combine with a modal base and a proposition to give a proposition (they are of type <<s,<st,t>>,<st,st>>). The entries for the English modal verbs must and can can then be given as in (2). (2)

a. b.

mustc = λ f λpλw.(∀v ∈ ∩ f (w))[v ∈ p] canc = λ f λpλw.(∃v ∈ ∩ f (w))[v ∈ p]

Under very general assumptions about the syntax of the construction (cf. Heim and von Fintel, 2007), we can apply this to a simple example.4 The modal base is introduced by a covert pronoun f whose interpretation depends on the utterance context

2

It does the work of the accessibility relation in modal logic (cf. Kripke, 1963).

3

This is a standard assumption of more recent applications (e.g. Heim and von Fintel, 2007; von Fintel and Iatridou, 2005; von Stechow, 2004), but it deviates from the original formulation. Kratzer (1978) treats the modal base as a parameter to the interpretation function, not as an argument of the modal verb.

4 When more details are needed in the following, I rely on a feature-based version of generative grammar (the basic idea goes back to Chomsky, 1995; Sternefeld, 2006 for an introduction). My application to temporal and aspectual phenomena follows von Stechow (2002a, 2003).

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c, in particular, the assignment cG it determines (see Section 1.4). To obtain the circumstantial reading for the modal verb, we assume that the pronoun refers to the conversational background with respect to the relevant circumstances, cf. (3):5 (3)

a. b.

Verena can go to Mannheim. XP X

VP

X MB

c.

Verena go to Mannheim can f can(f)(Verena go to Mannheim)c (w) = 1 iff (∃w ∈ ∩ f (w))[Verena goes to Mannheim in w  ], where f (= cG (f)) = what the relevant circumstances are. For a scenario that verifies the sentence, assume for example that f (w) = { p, ¬ p → q}, where p = Verena’s car is repaired, q = Verena stays in Frankfurt.

I follow Kratzer (1986) in distinguishing the following types of conversational backgrounds (recently, they are sometimes called modal flavors): a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i.

epistemic: what I know, what we know, what Ede knows, . . . circumstantial: the relevant facts, . . . dispositional6 : Joost’s dispositions, the program code of Emacs,. . . physical: the laws of nature, . . . deontic: what the law says, God’s will, . . . doxastic: what I believe, what people say, what Rick believes, . . . teleological: our tasks, . . . buletic: what I want, what Marina wants, . . . stereotypical: the normal course of events, . . .

Conversational backgrounds correspond to the accessibility relations of modal logic7 and can consequently be distinguished according to the algebraic properties

5

To improve readability, the value the variable assignment function cG assigns to a free variable will often be written as the italicized counterpart of the variable in the object language. E.g., fc = cG (f) = f . 6 The treatment of dispositional modality along the lines of the other modal flavors is controversial. Consider e.g. Thomason (2003) for problems. 7 For any f : W → P (P (W )), there is an accessibility relation R ⊆ W × W , such that for any f u, v ∈ W , < u, v >∈ R f iff v ∈ ∩ f (u), and vice versa. Conversational backgrounds are more fine-grained though; each accessibility relation can be described by infinitely many conversational backgrounds.

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of relations (for a detailed study of accessibility relations and modal operators, cf. van Benthem, 1984a). A special case is the empty conversational background: j. The empty conversational background is the function cbemp :W → P(P(W )), such that for all w ∈ W : cbemp (w)= ∅. This function will be useful for technical purposes (see Chapter 4).

3.1.2 Personal and Impersonal Conversational Backgrounds Recent treatments within Kratzer’s framework sometimes take into account a distinction between personal and impersonal modal bases, giving rise to a distinction of personal vs. impersonal modality (for discussion, cf. von Stechow, 2004; Hacquard, 2000; Nauze, 2008; Portner, 2009). To a large extent, the relevant semantic considerations go hand in hand with the syntactic question of whether modal verbs are control or raising verbs, or rather, which ones belong to which class (cf. Brennan, 1993; Bhatt, 1999; Wurmbrand, 1999). I will mostly focus on the better studied syntactic side of the distinction. Depending on their modal base, modals like must and can sometimes behave like raising constructions (cf. (4a)) (e.g. on an epistemic reading), and sometimes like control constructions (cf. (4b)) (e.g. on a dispositional reading). For deontic cases, matters are still under dispute.8 (4)

a.

S NP the weatheri

XP X

VP

X MB ti be nice can f17

8

Brennan (1993) argues that with deontic modals, the subject can either be the bearer of the obligation (ought to do, e.g. (ia)), but it need not be so (ought to be, e.g. (ib)). She assumes this distinction to correspond to the one of control vs. raising. (i)

a. b.

You must register or else you’ll get kicked out. Thesis paper must be acid-free.

Bhatt (1999) and Wurmbrand (1999) argue that all deontic modals are raising constructions. Nevertheless, they don’t prove convincingly that no deontic modals are control constructions (cf. Portner, 2009).

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b.

77

S XP

NP Eric

X

VP

X MB play the guitar can f18 In the following, I will revisit a few arguments to distinguish control and raising constructions. First, German raising constructions are known to (marginally) allow for topicalization of the VP together with the subject (cf. (5a)), but control constructions do not (cf. (5b)); cf. Haider (1995). (5)

a.

b.

Ein Außenseiter gewonnen hat hier noch nie. an outsider won.PART has here still never ‘It has never been the case so far that an outsider has won here.’ ∗ Ein Außenseiter zu gewinnen verlangte hier noch nie. an outsider to win.I NF requested here still never ‘It has never been the case so far that an outsider has requested to win here.’

Können ‘can’ can now be shown to pattern with (5a) on an epistemic reading, while patterning with (5b) on its dispositional reading. (6)

a.

b.

Ein Außenseiter gewinnen kann hier wohl nicht. an outsider win.I NF can here DP RT not ‘It is impossible that an outsider wins here.’ ∗ Eric Gitarre spielen kann nicht. E. guitar play.I NF can not

Second, quantifiers in the subject position of raising verbs allow for either wide or narrow scope constructions, whereas quantifiers in the subject position of control constructions only allow for wide scope construal. (7)

a. b.

A dog seems to be in the garden. R1: ∃ > SEEM; R2: SEEM > ∃ A dog tries to be in the garden. ∃ > TRY; ∗ TRY > ∃

ambiguous unambiguous

Again, epistemically-read modals pattern with raising verbs in allowing for wide or narrow scope construal of quantifiers in subject position, while dispositionally read modals do not allow for narrow scope construals and thus pattern with control verbs:9 9 Epistemic vs. dispositional are the preferred readings for the given cases. My discussion is confined to these two interpretations as favored by the choice of the lexical material respectively.

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a. b.

A dog may be in the garden. R1: ∃ > MAY; R2: MAY > ∃ A dog can play the saxophone. ∃ > CAN; ∗ CAN > ∃

ambiguous unambiguous

Maybe the difference is to be seen most clearly with cases that yield contradictory readings under wide scope construal for the quantifier. While the epistemic interpretation of the modal allows both for a contradictory wide scope construal and a sensible narrow scope construal, the dispositional interpretation of the modal only allows for a contradictory reading. (9)

Keiner kann schwimmen und alle können schwimmen. no-one can swim and everyone can swim epistemic.NS: ‘In view of what we know, it is possible that no one swims and, in view of what we know, it is possible that all swim.’ epistemic.WS: # ‘In view of what we know, for no one is it possible that he swims and in view of what we know, for everyone is it possible that he swims.’ dispositional.WS: # ‘For no one is it possible that according to his dispositions he swims and for everyone is it possible that according to his dispositions he swims.’

So far, our semantics only accounts for the raising cases. In order to capture the control cases as well, we have to allow for lexical ambiguity of the modal verbs between proposition-embedding variants (as we have been looking at so far), and property-embedding variants. The control variant of can could look like (10). (10)

(preliminary) canc = λ f λPs,e,t λxλw.(∃w ∈ ∩ f (w))[w  ∈ P(x)]

For an example like (4b) we could assume f = what Eric’s abilities are. But intuitively this does not seem to extend to cases involving quantified subjects (e.g. (11a)). Nobody takes wide scope w.r.t. the possibility modal, and the conversational background seems to vary with the value picked for the subject as indicated in (11b). (11)

a. b.

Nobody can play the guitar. For no x: there is a world w [in which x has the same abilities as in the actual world] and x plays the guitar in w.

Ede Zimmermann (p.c.) argues that we can indeed show that conversational backgrounds have to somehow be accessible to quantification. Yet, (11a) is not sufficient to do so. Instead of my rendering in (11b), we could try to make do with f = what people’s abilities are. This makes (11a) come out as in (12): (12)

For no x: there is a world w [in which people have the same abilities as in the actual world] and x plays the guitar in w.

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In an email10 to Angelika Kratzer, Zimmermann provides a more convincing argument that conversational backgrounds be susceptible to quantification. Consider (13a) as describing the scenario in (13b): (13)

a.

b.

Genau zwei Kinder sollen gewinnen. exactly two children should win ‘Exactly two children should win.’ Assume a set of pairwise unrelated children all of whose parents are very ambitious with respect to their sons’ and daughters’ success in sports. Two of the children, namely Hans and Fritz, are good sprinters. Both Hans’s and Fritz’s parents want by all means that their son win the 100 m sprint. The other children are specialized in other disciplines, consequently their parents do not care so much about the 100 m sprint.

Intuitively, (13a) is true in the given scenario if sollen is understood deontically with respect to the wish of some of the parents. But this can’t be a group that includes Fritz’s and Hans’s parents, because at least their wishes are mutually inconsistent (Fritz’s parents want Fritz to win, and Hans’s parents want Hans to win). From this inconsistent background it does not follow that exactly two children win.11 Somehow, the wishes of the parents have to be considered separately. Hence, for these cases, conversational backgrounds have to be accessible to quantification. Now, the straightforward idea may be to capture this in terms of quantification into conversational backgrounds (i.e., Quantifierx [ . . . what x’s parents’ want . . . ]). This relies on a personal conversational background (‘λwλxe λpst .x’s parents want p in w’). But this is not the only possibility. The example in (13a) could also be dealt with in terms of existential quantification over modal bases of a particular (contextually salient) kind (here, some parents’ will). (14)

z)(w) & (∃2 ! x)[child(x)(w) & ∃ f ∃y∃z[child(z)(w) & parents(y,  f (w))[win(x)(w  )]]] f = y’s will & (∀w ∈

If for each of the x, z = x, we obtain the reading that is true in the scenario (13b). Therefore, it is hard to see whether we need an independent construal in terms of quantification into conversational backgrounds or if all apparent such cases should

10

Dating from December 11th, 2003. Under the analysis in terms of simple modality, the set of accessible worlds is empty, hence, the sentence is trivially true just like the (intuitively) false (i): 11

(i)

Exactly three children should win.

The revised version of Kratzer’s framework, graded modality (see Section 3.1.3), is designed to make correct predictions for inconsistent conversational backgrounds. Nevertheless, for the described joint (inconsistent) parental will, it predicts that in all accessible worlds someone wins (either Hans or Fritz). It does not predict that at all accessible worlds there are exactly two children who win. But this would be required by a paraphrase like ‘there are exactly two children such that in all worlds accessible according to the relevant parental will, these two children win’.

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be dealt with in terms of quantification over conversational backgrounds (here, existential closure would suffice). Two observations speak in favor of quantification into (and not just over) conversational backgrounds. First, one can quantify into overt indicators of modal bases as in (15). (15)

Genau zwei Kinder sollen ihren Eltern zufolge gewinnen. exactly two children shall their parents according-to win.I NF ‘Exactly two children shall win according to their parents.’

Second, the corresponding readings seem confined to those modals that have been proposed to be control verbs (at least on some of their occurrences). Variation of the conversational background dependent on the quantifier is possible for the deontically read sollen. In contrast, können in (16) is read epistemically (thanks to the perfect infinitive) and does not allow for the conversational background to vary with the subject. (16)

Genau zwei Kinder können gewonnen haben. exactly two children can won have ‘Exactly two children may have won.’

(16) requires one modal base f such that there are exactly two children x such that x has won is compatible with the worlds that verify what is known by the relevant attitude subject.12 I conclude that it is hard to come up with convincing arguments in favor of the existence of personal conversational backgrounds. Yet, I take the observations discussed in the last paragraph as evidence that there is a good chance we need both personal and impersonal conversational backgrounds. On their control verb construal, modal verbs can then be assumed to combine with personal conversational backgrounds. The corresponding entries for mustcontrol and cancontrol are given in (17). The personal variant of the dispositional conversational background is spelled out in (18). (17)

a. b.

(18)

cancontr ol = λ f <s,<e,<st,t>>> λPλxλw.(∃w ∈ ∩ f (w)(x))[w ∈ P(x)] mustcontr ol = λ f <s,<e,<st,t>>> λPλxλw.(∀w ∈ ∩ f (w)(x))[w ∈ P(x)]

f dispo is a function from a world w and individual x into a set of propositions that describe the inner make-up of the individual x in w. (Their

12 To turn this point into a fully convincing argument, one would have to show that only quantifiers in subject positions can bind into the modal base. Relevant examples are generally hard to construct and mostly involve intervening attitude predicates which blur the picture. Moreover, a reportative reading for sollen also allows quantification into the modal base. To my knowledge, reportative modals have not been addressed in the discussion of control vs. raising structures. I will leave these issues to future research.

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intersection is the set of worlds in which x has the same dispositions and abilities as in w.) I will assume that control modals always occur with personal modal bases and raising modals always occur with impersonal modal bases.13 The literature provides two further tests to distinguish between control vs. raising constructions (cf. von Stechow, 2004). The third test regards selectional restrictions. In raising constructions, selectional restrictions only depend on the lower verb. In control constructions, both verbs impose selectional restrictions. Von Stechow uses the following unembedded examples to test for potential changes under embedding. The subjects in (19b) and (19d) obviously violate the lexical selectional restrictions of the predicate (admire/succeeds a prime number).14 (19)

a. b. c. d.

Fritz admires Leonardo. number admires Leonardo. This number succeeds a prime number. ∗ Leonardo succeeds a prime number. ∗ This

Epistemically-interpreted must proves to be a raising verb; the acceptability judgements do not differ from the unembedded cases. (20)

a. b. c. d.

Fritz must admire Leonardo. ∗ This number must admire Leonardo. This number must succeed a prime number. ∗ Leonardo must succeed a prime number.

13 Note that this has nothing to do with wide vs. narrow scope construal of quantifiers that occur with modals that behave as raising verbs. In (i), the negative quantifier keiner ‘no one’ is most naturally interpreted as having wide scope, yet the modal base is constituted by the social laws in Germany and thus impersonal:

(i)

Den Sozialgesetzen zufolge muss in Deutschland wirklich keiner verhungern. the social-laws according-to must in Germany really no-one starve ¬∃x[(according to the social law) [x starves]] ‘For no x is it the case that in all worlds that are compatible with the social law x starves.’

Are there truly mixed combinations? Raising modals with personal modal bases seem to be unexpected. This would require that a case comes out as a raising construction syntactically, but that a subject quantifier would be forced to take wide scope in order to also quantify into the modal base; syntactically, this would amount to a parasitic gap construction and should therefore maybe not be excluded a priori. So far, I know of no data that would require us to permit it. A control modal with an impersonal modal base could easily be formulated if there was evidence for it. But this does not seem to be needed, either. 14 Fortunately, we do not have to say anything about the true nature of selectional restrictions here. It is sufficient to observe the clear relative differences in acceptability. In the following, I depart from von Stechow’s (2004) original example involving be prime because even irrespective of the subject it does not square well with dispositional modality.

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Dispositional can is a control verb. It is not sufficient for a subject to comply with the selectional restrictions of the lower verb—those of the upper verb have to be met as well (can in the following has to be understood as ‘is able to’). The crucial example is of course (21c): although the subject does meet the restrictions of the embedded predicate succeed a prime number, the sentence is unacceptable due to the fact that dispositional can imposes selectional restrictions as well which are not met by the subject this number.15 (21)

a. b. c. d.

Fritz can admire Leonardo. number can admire Leonardo. ∗ This number can succeed a prime number. ∗ Leonardo can succeed a prime number. ∗ This

Fourth, they differ in how passivization affects the truth conditions. Raising verbs are insensitive to passivization of the main verb, but control verbs allow for it to cause a difference in truth value. Again, epistemic must proves to be a raising construction, since it does not change the truth conditions under passivization. If must is interpreted as in view of what we know, (22a) and (22b) do not differ in truth conditions. (22)

a. b.

Fritz must admire Leonardo. Leonardo must be admired by Fritz.

In contrast to that, a control verb like want does change the truth conditions. (23a) may well be true without (23b) being true as well. (23)

a. b.

Werther wants to marry Charlotte. Charlotte wants to be married by Werther.

The German buletic modal wollen also passes the test as a control construction: (24)

a.

b.

Werther will Charlotte heiraten. Werther wants Charlotte marry ‘Werther wants to marry Charlotte.’ Charlotte will von Werther geheiratet werden. Charlotte wants by Werther married get ‘Charlotte wants to be married by Werther.’

We have seen that VP-Topicalization, availability of narrow scope for subjects, invariance of truth conditions under passivization, and selectional restrictions allow us to distinguish raising vs. control constructions. I adopt the standard assumption 15 The evaluation of these examples pertains only to the dispositional reading of can; judgements differ for what I think constitutes a teleological interpretation. For example, the sentence in (21c) is perfectly acceptable in a context where we are talking about which numbers can go where in our display, or maybe in a sequence of numbers we are making for a quiz (imagine any number which succeeds a prime number in the display has to be odd, and this number is odd, so it can succeed a prime number). I am indepted to Lisa Matthewson (p.c.) for pointing this out.

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that the former come with impersonal conversational backgrounds while the latter come with personal conversational backgrounds. In Section 3.2.5 these distinctions will be applied to imperatives. Contrary to prima facie appearance this will reveal that they are best treated as propositional modal operators. The conversational backgrounds appearing with imperatives will thus all be impersonal.

3.1.3 Graded Modality Kratzer (1981) discusses three problems that cannot be solved by the version of her theory that I introduced in Section 3.1.1 under the name of simple modality.16 These are the problem of inconsistent backgrounds, the problem of graded necessity/possibility and of practical inferences with conflicting goals. As an example, I will discuss the first issue (for the others, the reader is referred to Kratzer, 1977, 1981). I will then introduce the modifications of the framework by which Kratzer (1981) proposes to take care of them. Simple modality as spelled out in the entries we have given for modal verbs in Section 3.1.1 runs into a serious problem whenever conversational backgrounds contain inconsistent information. Kratzer’s (1977) famous example deals with New Zealand law texts. The law in Auckland has it that a deer is responsible for any damage it causes, whereas in Wellington it is not. Moreover, murder is a crime in both places. Intuitively, (25a) is false, and (25b) is most likely considered true. (25)

a. b.

In view of what the law prescribes in New Zealand, it must be the case that murder is not a crime. In view of what the law prescribes in New Zealand, it can be the case that a deer is responsible for damage it has caused.

Our meaning rules predict the opposite, though. Assume that w is the world of the scenario described above, and the modal base is interpreted as f 1 : (26)

f 1 (w) = {Murder is a crime (= p), A deer is responsible for damage it causes. (= q), A deer is not responsible for damage it causes. (= ¬q)}

Then, ∩ f 1 (w) is empty. Therefore, must φ is true for any φ, and can φ is false for any φ; consequently, (25a) is trivially true (cf. (27a)), (25b) trivially false (cf. (27b)): (27)

a. b.

(25a)c = mustc (w)( f 1 )(¬ p) = 1 iff (∀w  ∈ W )[w ∈∅→ w  ∈¬ p] (25b)c = canc (w)( f 1 )(q) = 1 iff (∃w  ∈ W )[w ∈ ∅ & w ∈ q]

16 Historically, this is a simplification. Kratzer’s (1978) approach in terms of simple modality is enriched by a Lewisian system of spheres in order to allow for reasoning with inconsistent propositions. But it is only in the newer version that the contextual parameter as constituted by the conversational background is subdivided into a consistent (often realistic) and a potentially inconsistent part, which allows us to unify the problems concerning inconsistency and conflicts and to express graduality of modal notions.

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Obviously, these predictions do not match our intuitions regarding the truth and falsity of (25a) and (25b). Kratzer obviates this problem by distinguishing between a (necessarily consistent) body of information (the modal base) and a second conversational background (possibly inconsistent) that induces an ordering amongst the worlds that comply with the modal base (the ordering source). For example, epistemic modal bases can be combined with less reliable information (e.g. stereotypical, doxastic,. . . ) as their ordering sources. Likewise, circumstantial modal bases can come with deontic, teleological, or buletic ordering sources. Now, a modal verb17 combines with two conversational backgrounds: a modal base f , and an ordering source g. The ordering source serves to induce a pre-order on the set of possible worlds: For any possible world w, the conversational background g induces the ordering relation ≤g(w) : ∀v, z ∈ W : v ≤g(w) z iff { p | p ∈ g(w) & z ∈ p} ⊆ { p | p ∈ g(w) & v ∈ p}

(28)

This allows Kratzer (1981) to define the notions of human possibility and human necessity, which in turn are taken to be the semantic values of modal verbs like can and must. As we will only be concerned with finite ordering sources, her original entries can be simplified by drawing on Lewis’s (1973) limit assumption. It says that for a non-empty modal base there is always a non-empty set of worlds which are optimal according to the ordering source. The assumption is warranted whenever there is no infinite approximation.18 (29)

The limit assumption (Lewis 1973:19ff) (∀f, g, w)[∩ f (w) = ∅ → O( f, g, w) = ∅].

O( f, g, w) is defined as the set of worlds conforming to the modal base f at w (i.e., in f (w)) that are best according to the ordering source g at w. (30)

(without temporality:) O( f, g, w) := {v ∈ ∩ f (w) | ∀z ∈ ∩ f (w): if z ≤g(w) v then v ≤g(w) z}

This immediately allows us to spell out human necessity and human possibility as follows: 17 I will not go into the discussion of whether truly all modal verbs have to be analysed in this way. As mentioned above, there is good reason to assume that dispositional modal verbs should be analysed differently. 18

In particular, this means that I will not investigate cases like (ia). For those, see Kratzer (1991b) for a semantics for modal verbs without the limit assumption. (i)

a. b. c.

Assimilate the value of constant c to π . You must assimilate the value of constant c to π . If this line was longer than it actually is, . . .

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a. b.

85

A proposition p is a human necessity in a world w with respect to a modal base f and an ordering source g iff (∀w ∈ O( f, g, w))[ p(w )]. A proposition p is a human possibility in a world w with respect to a modal base f and an ordering source g iff ¬ p is not a human necessity in w with respect to f and g.

Must and may are assumed to respectively express human necessity and human possibility as just defined. The semantics of must and may relativized to the worlds in the modal base f that are optimal with respect to an ordering source g can then be given as in (32). (32)

a. b.

mustc = λ f λgλpλw.(∀v ∈ O( f, g, w))[v ∈ p] canc = λ f λgλpλw.(∃v ∈ O( f, g, w))[v ∈ p]

As desired, the revised framework obviates the problems mentioned for simple modality. For example, it makes correct predictions with respect to New Zealand’s laws, cf. (33), if the examples are interpreted with respect to a circumstantial modal base and a deontic ordering source. If we took together all laws holding in all of New Zealand, we’d end up with an inconsistency with respect to the responsibilities of a deer. So, the laws cannot in themselves be considered facts (which cannot be inconsistent), but have to be seen as ordering the set of worlds that verify the relevant facts (whatever they are). Consequently, the laws in New Zealand is taken as an ordering source g, which in the described scenario w is g(w) = {A deer is responsible for the damage it causes (r ), A deer is not responsible for the damage it causes (¬r ), Murder is a crime (m)}. f (w) is taken to be empty (thus, we order all the worlds in W according to New Zealand’s laws). The propositions in (25) (repeated in (33a) and (33b)) are now translated as follows: (33)

a.

b.

In view of what the law prescribes in New Zealand, it must be the case that murder is not a crime. (∀w  ∈ O( f, g, w))[¬m(w  )] In view of what the law prescribes in New Zealand, it can be the case that a deer is responsible for the damage it has caused. (∃w  ∈ O( f, g, w))[r (w )]

The propositions are best checked in a minimal model. The ordering source g(w) distinguishes the following four types of worlds in W :

(34)

world w0 w1 w2 w3

m 1 1 0 0

r 1 0 1 0

Both r and ¬r are elements of the ordering source, so the worlds closest to g(w) (according to ≤g(w) ), are simply those that make m true. Consequently,

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O( f, g, w) = {w0 , w1 }.19 It is easy to verify that (33a) comes out as false and (33b) comes out as true, which is as it should be. It is sometimes assumed that some modal verbs can still express simple necessity or possibility. This can either be captured by mapping the ordering source to the empty conversational background (then, at any world O( f, g, w) = f (w) as no   world in f (w) is g(w)-better than any other world in f (w)). Alternatively, the definitions in (2) could be kept in the lexicon rendering modals ambiguous between simple and graded modality. For the sake of explicitness, I resort to the first option. We are now ready to apply the framework to imperatives.

3.2 Imperatives at the Syntax-Semantics Interface While the framework of graded modality is standardly applied to all kinds of modal elements in natural languages, its potential relevance for the study of imperatives has been acknowledged only rather recently. To my knowledge, Han (1999) is the first to draw on the parallel between imperatives and deontic modal verbs. More recently, Portner (2007) develops an analysis of imperatives that is intended to explain their effect on the truth of subsequently uttered modalized propositions. Approaches along these lines are desirable in that they offer a natural way to account for the interpretational variety we find with imperatives (FIP). But Han’s and Portner’s accounts focus on the fact that imperatives are apparently without truth-values. In the following, I will develop a more radical approach that does not merely use the same technical parameters (ordering sources, both Han, 1999 and Portner, 2007; and modal bases, Han, 1999) but strictly assimilates imperative clauses to modalized propositions in their semantics. What I will defend is the truth-conditional equivalence of one reading of (35a) with (35b) (given that all presuppositions are satisfied, see Section 4.2): (35)

a. b.

You should open the door! Open the door!

To obtain the equivalence, I propose that imperatives contain a modal operator that is interpreted as human necessity with respect to a modal base f and an ordering source g (cf. (36)).20 The wide variety of functions/readings is then to be explained in terms of choices for f and g. The definitions for O( f, g, w) and ≤g(w) from Section 3.1.3 are repeated in (37): (36)

OPimp c = λ f λgλpλw.(∀w  ∈ O( f, g, w))[ p(w  )] (preliminary version)

This is because for either of w0 and w1 it is impossible to reach another world w that would be strictly better in that it verifies the same and at least one more of the propositions in the ordering source.

19

20 In Section 5.3 I will argue that this is the result of the interplay between possibility and exhaustification. For the moment, we may consider the denotation of the imperative operator as atomic.

3.2

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Imperatives at the Syntax-Semantics Interface

a. b.

87

O( f, g, w) :={v ∈∩ f (w)| ∀z ∈ ∩ f (w): if z ≤g(w) v then v ≤g(w) z} ∀v, z ∈ W : v ≤g(w) z iff { p | p ∈ g(w) & z ∈ p} ⊆ { p | p ∈ g(w) & v ∈ p}

An imperative φ! isinterpreted as a function that maps a world w to the truth-value 1 if the worlds f (w) that verify as much of g(w) as possible (the g(w)-best  in worlds in f (w)) are φ-worlds. This approach keeps the interpretational flexibility achieved by Han (1999) and Portner (2007). However, at first glance, it suffers a huge draw-back in that it assigns truth-values to imperatives. But this is also a strong point: in Chapter 2 I have argued that the assimilation of imperatives to graded modal verbs allows for a much more natural interaction between imperatives and information about the world as expressed by declaratives or as requested by interrogatives. We have seen that more or less undisputedly propositional objects can also behave as if they were without a truth-value, and I have argued that it is a function of particular contextual constellations whether truth-values of propositions are accessible in a conversation or not. In Section 2.3.3 I discussed three phenomena that provide evidence in favor of a propositional semantics for imperatives. In the following sections, I will largely disregard the presuppositional meaning component responsible for the particular non-assertoric behavior of imperatives, and I will focus on how to derive their at-issue meaning in a compositional way. In the following, I will therefore spell out some basic assumptions about the syntaxsemantics interface in imperatives (relying mainly on Wratil, 2005). Particular attention will be paid to the temporal-aspectual layer (see Section 3.2.2), to the status of the imperative subject (see Section 3.2.4), and to the question of whether imperative modality is personal or impersonal (see Section 3.2.5).

3.2.1 General Considerations on the Syntactic Make-Up of Imperatives In the syntactic literature it is assumed quite generally that imperatives contain a (sentence mood) operator that is responsible for the relevant interpretation of a proposition it combines with (cf. e.g. Rivero and Terzi, 1995; Han, 2000; Platzack and Rosengren, 1997).21 As sketched above, we could easily adopt such an operator and endow it with the meaning of a necessity modal, and indeed this is a shortcut I will repeatedly adopt for simple imperatives throughout this book. Nevertheless, imperatives seem to share with declaratives and interrogatives more options for parametrization than what is generally assumed (compare in particular the parametrization of imperatives with respect to their temporal-aspectual properties, see Section 3.2.2, and the possibility for imperativized verbs to occur in interrogatives, see Section 2.3.3.3). To be able to account for such phenomena, we need 21

But consider Wratil (2005), who argues convincingly that, for imperatives, there is no syntactic evidence for the presence of such an operator in the vast majority of non-Indo-European languages.

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to break down the non-lexical meaning components present in an imperative into smaller pieces that are combined in a compositional fashion. Cross-linguistically, imperatives tend to be morphologically meagre, even if sometimes involving syntactic peculiarities (cf. van der Wurff, 2007). For iconicity, it has frequently been argued that (i) this morphological poverty corresponds to a (for a clause) semantically ‘impoverished’ object that does not involve a predicational relation or at least does not express anchoring in world or time (e.g., a property, Hausser, 1980, Portner, 2005; an action, Segerberg, 1996, Mastop, 2005; or an unanchored proposition, Huntley, 198422 ), and (ii) that this semantic poverty is based on a syntactic structure that is also meagre in that it lacks functional projections like AgrSP (Platzack and Rosengren, 1997), or TP and MoodP (Wratil, 2005). According to these authors, the lack of overt tense, person, or mood marking as exhibited by a bare verb stem as used e.g. in English or German is due to the absence of the respective functional projections. More or less implicitly, they assume a principle of (roughly) ‘no oppositions—no marking’. Given these ubiquitous assumptions, the semantics I am assuming here may seem unexpectedly rich and therefore implausible. In this section, I will slightly refine (36) so as to constitute an object that can be built up compositionally by concatenating tense (P RESENT), modality (), person and number marking (2S G/2P L), and aspectuality (P FV). I think there are four good reasons why this is not nearly as implausible as it may look at first glance. First, not all imperativized verbs are morphologically meagre. It is well known at least since Rivero and Terzi (1995) that, cross-linguistically, imperatives can be divided into two classes—class I imperatives being as morphologically meagre as we know them from a lot of Indo-European languages, and class II imperatives allowing for person, number, tense and aspect marking just like any other verb form. To this we should add that the boundary is not even that sharp. Slavic languages, for example, do not allow for tense marking, but distinguish perfective vs. imperfective aspect in their imperatives as with any other finite verbal forms (cf. Polish, (38)), and even English allows for progressive imperatives (cf. (39)) (cf. Davies, 1986). (38)

a.

b.

(39)

Napisz list! write.I MP.P FV letter ‘Write a letter!’ Pisz list! write.I MP.I MPFV letter ‘Be engaged in letter writing!’

Be waiting at the gate when I come by.

Second, imperatives differ crucially from forms that are truly characterized by a very general semantic contribution. The most obvious candidate to compare imperatives

22

See Mastop (2005) for convincing criticism of Huntley’s (1984) proposal that imperatives are not anchored in temporal or logical space at all.

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to in that respect is the infinitive, which seems to provide no restrictions on the reference of the entities that saturate its argument slots (that is, the realis or irrealis nature of the world argument, temporal location of the time argument, as well as person or number of further arguments). Consequently, infinitives are often assumed to have the same denotation as the bare verb stem, that is, for example, for the German infinitive schlafen ‘sleep’ (marked by the ending -en), schlafenc = schlaf- c . While imperatives can only rarely be embedded and are restricted both in temporal reference and in person reference, infinitives (i) occur in a wide variety of grammatical contexts (e.g. (40)), and (ii) allow for a wide range of interpretations (triggered by intonation, non-linguistic context, etc.) when used as (underspecified and maybe elliptic) forms in communication (cf. (41)). With a particular kind of intonation, they can even be used as a substitute for imperatives (cf. (42)).23 The reverse does not hold: only stand-alone infinitivals can sometimes be replaced by imperatives: therefore, the grammatical environments in which infinitives can occur form a proper superset of the environments in which imperatives can be used.24 (40)

a. b.

Ich werde nicht schlafen. I will not sleep.I NF Er versprach zu schlafen. he promised to sleep.I NF

(41)

Aufgeben. give-up.I NF ‘Give up.’ (as an answer to any kind of question like ‘what shall I do?’/‘what will he do?’/‘what do you consider?’/. . . )

(42)

Aufstehen! stand-up.I NF ‘Stand up!’

Consequently, imperatives cannot be as general as infinitives are. But the latter show overt marking in a lot of languages. Third, it is sometimes argued that the apparent semantic specifications of imperatives can be derived (at least partly) from their directive meaning (e.g. Platzack and Rosengren, 1997). Then it should in principle be possible to overwrite these specifications at least in certain cases (e.g. W ISHes and (speaker-disinterested) A DVICE). But some of the restrictions are stable: e.g. German imperative verbs clearly require their subjects to involve reference to the addressee (see Section 3.2.4 for details) and specify whether the addressee is singular or plural. Moreover, certain modifications (e.g. in the temporal realm) require the corresponding aspects of reference to 23

In some languages this is obligatorily the case for negated imperatives; e.g. Italian. See Han (2000) for extensive discussion.

24

With the possible exception of imperatives embedded in reported speech, see Section 6.1. Moreover, infinitivals are less acceptable as replacements of less authoritative imperatives, e.g. those used for W ISHes or A DVICE. The details of this functional restriction have to be left for future research.

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be represented in the semantics to allow for a compositional account of the corresponding phenomena. For instance, the interval for which the imperative is issued has to be accessible in the structure if we want to account for temporal quantification (cf. (43)). (43)

a. b.

Kiss her before every meeting. Never show up alone!

It is not clear to me how the quantification could be computed if temporal reference were a mere side effect of directive meaning. Fourth, the semantic value I assign to the imperative combines precisely those feature settings that seem to constitute the unmarked option in general.25 It is known that, cross-linguistically, present is often not marked overtly; likewise, we know from the literature on conditionals (Kratzer, 1991b), and disjunctions (Geurts, 2005) that covert modal operators are normally interpreted as expressing necessity rather than possibility (cf. also Portner, 1997; Rullmann et al., 2008, for further empirical arguments). Furthermore, bare stems are used especially for singular imperatives, whereas plural is often morphologically marked. And again, singular is usually taken to be the unmarked option.26 The observation that imperatives contain the unmarked members of each of the oppositions they encode27 opens up several possibilities as to how this should fall out from the underlying syntactic structure. One idea would be to spell out a default mechanism operating on the syntax-semantics interface. I will, however, stick to more traditional assumptions and assume that the features, variables, and relations introduced by an imperative are directly represented in the syntactic structure. I assume von Stechow’s (2002a, 2003) version of a minimalist framework in terms of interpretable and uninterpretable features. Uninterpretability is marked as ∗ · ∗. An inflectional form of a lexical verb (base generated in VP) carries a bundle of uninterpretable features which require checking against the corresponding interpretable features. These are carried by the subject and by covert aspectual, temporal, modal or clause type-related elements sitting in the corresponding specifier positions of the functional projections AgrSP, AspP, MoodP, TP, and CP. Checking of these features may require movement to the respective head position.28 25 I am indebted to Lisa Matthewson (p.c.) for pointing out that at least in the languages of South and North America, this also seems to be true of the aspectual value perfective. 26

But cf. Sauerland (2003) for arguments that plural should be considered the unmarked option.

27

Paul Portner (p.c.) points out that person marking seems to violate this tendency. Imperatives are somehow tied to the second person, while the unmarked option is usually third person. I think that this may have to do with the fact that imperatives do not impose a syntactic, but rather a semantic requirement on their subjects (equivalence to/subset of the addressee). See Section 3.2.4 for details. 28 The order of the functional projections as well as the corresponding semantics for the temporal and aspectual elements follows von Stechow’s (2002a) assumptions for indicatives. In contrast to von Stechow, I follow Wratil (2005) and Sternefeld (2006) and assume the presence of an

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In particular, the morphological imperative in (44) comes with a feature bundle {∗pfv∗, ∗2p ∗, ∗sg ∗ / ∗ pl∗, ∗impmod∗, ∗pres∗, ∗imp∗}29 , the single members of which are checked respectively in AspP, AgrSP, MoodP, TP, and CP, triggering overt movement to AgrSP in English, and to CP for the German equivalent. The tree for a simple English imperative as in (44) might then look like (45). (44)

Call me!

(45) CP C

O PImp

C C

TP Tl

T

T

P RES Moodk

Mood

Asp j Asp V calli

tl

MoodP Mood

F1 F2 I MPMOD f

gt k

AgrSP AgrS

I MPPROm tj

AspP Asp

P FV ti

VP tm ti me

additional AgrSP, which, in my case, mediates the requirement on the imperative subject as spelled out in Section 3.2.4. Note that all the uninterpretable features are encoded on the imperativized verb, and the carriers of their interpretable counterparts are all covert (with the possible exception of the subject). Therefore, my investigations do not contribute any new insights into the order of the functional projections and could be adjusted to fit different assumptions (provided the types of the covert semantic elements are adjusted accordingly). In general, my analysis of imperatives as modalized propositions does not hinge on this particular choice of framework. It could be replaced by any other framework that accounts equally well for the compositional interaction of temporal and aspectual categories in general. 29 See Sect. 3.2.4 for the characterization of 2p’, which is slightly different from the ordinary second person feature.

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In German imperatives, the three features linked to the highest positions CP, TP, and MoodP are fixed to one particular value. Therefore, for simple German imperatives, it is unproblematic to follow Wratil (2005) and assume that TP is lacking and that CP and MoodP are fused into a sentence mood specific projection, hosting an imperative operator. But if we take this seriously, it forces us to assume that the morphological category ‘imperative’ is strictly constrained to the clause type ‘imperative’. In view of the data in Section 2.3.3 this may be an undesirable simplification. There, I pointed out that in some varieties of German, imperatives can appear in interrogatives that are used as rhetorical questions. Syntactically, rhetorical questions are mostly assumed to constitute standard interrogatives. The respective syntactic set-up would thus be incompatible with the marking as an imperative clause. For the conception of clause types I am advocating in this book, it does not matter how clause types are encoded syntactically. What is important is the denotation, not whether it is derived from elements that mark a clause type only jointly, or whether one of them is in itself sufficient to determine that particular clause type. As long as we are concerned only with the analysis of simple German imperatives, we can assume for convenience that their semantics is encoded by OPImp . But if we want to investigate phenomena like the formation of rhetorical questions containing imperativized verbs, the meaning that is characteristic of the imperative clause type needs to be split up along the lines of (45).30 For the discussion of simple imperatives, I will therefore rely on a syntactic structure like (46). Here, *imp* corresponds to what is contributed by {*imp*,*pres*,*impmod*} in (45).31

30 Syntactically, one also has to explain why imperativized verbs always undergo V-to-C movement in German and other Indo-European languages. But this need not be motivated by an element that determines the clause type. In particular, it would be sufficient to assume that the presence of the verb in C is required by the imperative morphology and that this configuration is compatible with whatever is involved in encoding an interrogative clause. In this regard it may also relevant to consider the data discussed by Reis and Rosengren (1992). They point out that the preverbal position in imperatives is not marked as [-wh] and therefore allows for extraction data as in (i):

(i)

mir [ hat Maria gestern ti getroffen?] Weni sag who tell.I MP S G me has Maria yesterday ti met ‘Tell me who Maria met yesterday.’

Note that, in contrast to my examples of rhetorical questions, sentences like (i) clearly belong to the imperative clause type. See Section 2.3.3 for details. For a more general investigation of syntactic clause type marking in German, cf. e.g. Lohnstein (2000). 31 I also deviate from Wratil (2005) in not adopting SplitCP, and introducing a projection AspP above VP. AspP is needed to link the lexical content of the VP to the temporal domain opened up by the imperative, which will be treated in the tense-aspect system developed by Klein (1994) and von Stechow (cf. von Stechow, 2002b).

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(46)

93

CP F1 F2 g OP I mp f

C∗imp∗

AspP P FV Asp∗ p f v∗

VP I MPPRO call me

While this may also be adequate for English and any other language that does not allow tense distinctions in the imperative, I don’t agree with Wratil (2005) that TP is universally absent in imperatives. I think that interesting arguments have been put forth that Dutch does indeed allow for a distinction of present vs. past tense in imperatives or imperative-like clauses (cf. Mastop 2005; Boogaart and Trnavac 2004; see Section 3.2.2 for detailed discussion). Even if the past forms may belong to a closely related clause type (as I suggested in Section 1.1.3), it is clearly desirable to derive their semantics compositionally from otherwise identical ingredients (cf. Schwager, t.a., for an analysis along these lines). We can now proceed to the question of how the elements should be interpreted. For the sake of transparency, each of them will first be treated in its own right, walking through the tree in a bottom-up fashion. In the following, I will first focus on the modal component as well as its interaction with tense and aspect (see Section 3.2.2). The proper treatment of the imperative subject will be suspended until Section 3.2.4. For the moment, I will just assume it to be an overt or covert second person pronoun that denotes the addressee.

3.2.2 Tense, Aspect, and Their Relation to Modality 3.2.2.1 Tense and Aspect in Simple Imperatives Before taking a closer look at the temporal and aspectual properties of imperatives, a word of warning may be in order: a satisfactory investigation of any of these issues, independently of the clause type it occurs in, merits a book in itself.32 Nevertheless, to understand the mechanics of modal expressions in natural language one has to take into account their temporal properties as well, and this strikes me as particularly important for the modal element occurring in imperatives. Issues related to temporality have often been taken as constitutive of imperative clauses (e.g. future orientation). Aspect is usually considered crucial in bringing together temporal and lexical information, and imperatives have been argued to impose all kinds of restrictions with respect to which predicates can undergo imperative formation (cf. e.g. Mastop, 2005). 32 More details on the temporal and aspectual properties of imperatives as well as possible parametrizations are given in Schwager (t.a.).

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I assume that VPs contain positions for all the verb’s arguments and denote intensional properties either of events (achievements, accomplishments and activities) or of temporal intervals (states).33 In the following, I will focus mainly on properties of events. They are allocated w.r.t. a temporal interval by an aspectualizer, which is a relation in intension between times and properties of events. The aspectual feature on the head of AspP has to be checked against the corresponding aspectual relation located in its specifier. Von Stechow distinguishes perfective (P FV) and imperfective (I MPFV) aspectual relations to relate properties of events to intervals. Their semantics is given in (47).34 (47)

a. b.

P FV c = λPλtλw.∃e[τ (e) ⊆ t & P(e)(w)] I MPFVc = λPλtλw.∃e[τ (e) ⊇ t & P(e)(w)]

For most languages, we find P FV in imperatives by default. For languages that also overtly mark imperfective imperatives, they are used with negation (cf. Segerberg, 1996) for discussion of aspect and negation in Polish), or require salience for a temporal instant within the interval they are predicated of. But such restrictions are not unique to imperatives. Rather, they are in line with more general constraints on the occurrence of imperfective aspect. Due to the presence of an aspectual relation, at least when the level of AspP is reached, the denotation equals a property of times. E.g., in case of a perfective imperative Leave!, the AspP denotes the property of intervals to contain an event of the addressee leaving (cf. (48)). (48)

[AspP P FV [VP you leave ] ]c = P FVc (you leavec ) = P FVc (λeλw.leave(c A )(e)(w)) = λtλw.∃e[τ (e) ⊆ t & leave(c A )(e)(w)]

The specifier of Mood∗impmod∗ contains the relation I MPMOD, which is interpreted roughly like the modal must. That is, it will come out roughly equivalent to the graded variant of the modal verb’s semantics as we have seen it in (32a), Section 3.1.3 (repeated here as (49)). (49)

mustc = λ f λgλpλw.(∀v ∈ O( f, g, w))[ p(v)]

As it stands, after having applied to the modal base f and the ordering source g, the modal is still inapplicable to the denotation of AspP, because it combines with a proposition, whereas AspP denotes a relation between times and worlds. At this 33

The classification follows Vendler (1957), who assumes that accomplishments and achievements contain a cumulation point but differ in that the former includes preparatory phases whereas the latter is punctual (build a house/die); activities do not contain a cumulation point but are not completely homogenous either (e.g. run). States are completely homogenous be 2m tall; I follow Katz (1995) in assuming that this is reflected in the fact that such predicates are properties of times and not of events. 34 Von Stechow assumes that temporal properties as denoted by statives are linked to the reference time by a special aspectual relation of interval inclusion. I resort to a simpler system and assume that AspP may be lacking (or be empty) if the VP denotation constitutes an appropriate argument to the next functor. For example, I assume that I MPMOD can combine directly with a stative VP.

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point we have to consider the issue of temporal information we have shunned so far. Taking a closer look at imperatives and tense, it becomes obvious that two different parameters have to be distinguished. On the one hand, imperatives are issued at some interval t1 : they express that something is necessary at time t1 . I will simply call this the evaluation time. On the other hand, they oblige/recommend/desire/. . . the addressee to have a certain property at a more or less well-defined interval t2 , which I will call the event frame. With respect to these two aspects of temporality, we should again compare imperatives to modal verbs (cf. Condoravdi, 2002; von Stechow, 2005). The first corresponds to what is expressed as temporal information on the modal verb itself. (50a) expresses the necessity for Verena to leave with respect to what is permissible at the utterance time cT , whereas (50b) expresses the same necessity with respect to what was permissible at a contextually given interval before cT . (50)

a. b.

Verena has to leave. Verena had to leave.

The distinction depends on the temporal information on the modal verb and is usually taken to be encoded in TP. The morphological information on the verb in T is checked against a temporal variable in SpecTP that carries the same feature. On the temporal variable, it is interpreted as a presupposition on the variable assignment.35 Imperatives talk about what is permissible (or optimal according to some other modal flavor) at the time of the context.36 Consequently, as in a declarative like (50a), the imperativized verb carries the feature ∗pres∗, and SpecTP has to host a variable with the presupposition pres. Simplifying a bit, we can assume that such a variable is required to be identical to the utterance time c T .37 (51)

tpres c = cT

As expected, imperatives behave like performatively used modal verbs: they, too, depend on present tense morphology ((50a) can be used performatively, while (50b) can only be used descriptively). Now, we only have to change the semantics of a modal operator to make it depend on this temporal parameter that determines when the modal accessibility is to be calculated, i.e. what is permissible/hoped for/. . . . Our conversational backgrounds are no longer functions from worlds to sets of propositions, but rather from worlds and times to sets of propositions (type s, i, st, t). We change the notion of optimal worlds O (cf. (30)) to a four-place relation, depending on a modal base, 35

This is in the spirit of a deictic theory of tense (cf. Partee, 1973; Heim, 1994). In order to capture relative or semantically vacuous tense in attitude reports and other intensional contexts, one can rely on feature deletion under binding of (temporal) variables, cf. von Stechow (2003). 36 But see Section 3.2.2 for a possible parametrization at this point. 37

To be precise, one would have to say that the feature pres restricts the interpretation of the variable to intervals that include the utterance time: (i)

t16 pres c is defined only if cG (t16 ) ⊇ cT . If defined, t16 pres c = cG (t16 ).

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3 Imperatives as Graded Modals

an ordering source, and a time and a world of evaluation (cf. (52)). This allows to specify the semantics of must as in (53). (52)

(taking into account temporality) O( f, g, t, w) :={v ∈∩f (t, w)|∀z ∈∩f (t, w): if z ≤g(t,w) v then v ≤g(t,w) z}

(53)

mustc = λ f λgλpst λtλw.(∀v ∈ O( f, g, t, w))[v ∈ p]

After the modal has applied to the modal base, the ordering source, and its propositional complement, it applies to the temporal variable in TP that has to carry the temporal feature corresponding to the tense morphology of the modal verb. This last step specifies the temporal dependence of the modal accessibility relation (i.e., our conversational backgrounds). So far, I have not explained the technical details of how AspP and the modal element get combined. Also, we have not taken into consideration the event frame, which is supposed to narrow down the temporal possibilities of when to comply with the imperative. Usually, imperatives have to be acted on in the future; this is a crucial part of the analyses in e.g. Mastop (2005) or Portner (1997). In our ontology it would be natural to express this via assimilation to modals again. Modal verbs that combine with eventive38 prejacents are well known to express that the respective event can or must occur in the future. Condoravdi (2002) analyses this by saying that the modal expands its evaluation time forward, opening up an interval that extends potentially unrestrictedly into the future. If we interpret the modal element in the imperative analogously, we obtain something like (54): (54)

(preliminary) I MPMOD= λ f λgλPi,st λtλw.(∀w ∈ O( f, g, t, w))[P([t, _))(w  )]

Now the complement the imperative has to apply to is of the right type: P is a function from intervals into propositions and [t, _) denotes the interval that starts at t and extends unboundedly into the future. Applying this to a VP that is anchored by perfective aspect makes satisfactory predictions for plain imperatives. For example, (55a) gets interpreted as in (55b): (55)

38

a. b.

Call Melli! [t pr es [[ I MPMOD f g] P FV [VP I MPPRO call Melli]]]c = [ I MPMODc ( f )(g)(P FVc (λeλw.call-melli(c A )(e)(w))](cT ) = [ [λPλtλw.∀w ∈ O( f, g, t, w): P([t, _))(w )] (λtλw.∃e[τ (e) ⊆ t & call-melli(c A )(e)(w)])](cT ) = [λtλw.(∀w  ∈ O( f, g, t, w))[λtλw.∃e[τ (e) ⊆ t & call-melli(c A )(e)(w)]([t, _))(w  )]](cT ) =  λw.(∀w ∈ O( f, g, cT , w))[∃e[τ (e)⊆[cT , _) & call-melli(c A )(e)(w )]]

On the Vendlerian understanding, which is to be distinguished from Mastop’s (2005) use of the term.

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The result looks satisfactory. The fact that, on many occasions, not just any event of the addressee’s calling Melli in the future constitutes a good candidate to comply with (55a) (most likely, only calls located within the nearer future would do) is probably best taken care of by pragmatics. In other cases, such a temporal restriction is made explicit, e.g. (56). (56)

Call Melli tomorrow!

In this case, only events happening within tomorrow count. Obviously, the frame adverbial tomorrow restricts the relevant events to those that happen within tomorrow. One way of obtaining this under our current assumptions w.r.t. the aspectual relations and the I MPMOD is to assume that tomorrow adjoins to AspP and gets interpreted as a modifier of temporal properties (cf. (57a)).39 (57)

a. b. c. d.

tomorrowc = λPi,st λtλw.P(t∩ the-day-after-cT )(w) [AspP2 tomorrow [AspP1 P FV [VP I MPPRO call Melli]]] AspP1 c = λtλw[∃e[τ (e) ⊆ t & call-melli(c A )(e)(w)]] AspP2 c = λtλw[∃e[τ (e) ⊆ (t∩ the-day-after-cT ) & call-melli(c A )(e)(w)]]

While the account in terms of forward expansion works well for frame adverbials like tomorrow, it encounters serious difficulties with quantification, negation, and imperfective aspect. All three problems pertain to imperatives and modals alike. Here, though, I will focus on imperatives. First, consider quantification over events. Certain quantificational adverbials need to take into account a larger interval than what is given by the forwardexpanding modal. Consider (58). (58)

Don’t call Cécile more than three times while she is in Greece.

If we treat (58) how we analysed (56), we take into consideration only events of calling Cécile that happen from the utterance time on. Now, assume that (58) is issued at a time t  such that Cécile has already been in Greece for a week at t  and is to stay there for one more week. Intuitively, the total amount of calls you give her should be computed for the entire time, not just for the week starting from t  . That is, if you have already called her twice, you may only call her once more. And, if you have already called her more than 3 times, it would be natural to reject the imperative as something you cannot possibly comply with. But with the semantics in (54) we predict (59c), which only takes into account the week starting from t  .

39

My entry for tomorrow combines assumptions from von Stechow (2003) and Condoravdi (2002), to bring together von Stechow’s aspectual relations and Condoravdi’s semantics for the modal. My entry can be replaced by the simpler version in von Stechow as soon as (for independent reasons) the forward-expanding semantics is replaced by what I will call the event frame argument.

98

(59)

3 Imperatives as Graded Modals

a. b. c.

more than three timesc = λPε,st λtλw. |{e | P(e)(w)&τ (e) ⊆ t}| > 3 while Cécile is in Greecec = λPi,st λtλw.P(t∩ M AX (λt  .cecile-in-greece(t  )(w))) [t pr es [[I MPMOD f g ][not [[more than three times] [I MPPRO call Cécile]]][while she is in Greece]]] c = λw.(∀w ∈ O( f, g, cT , w))[[λtλw.¬ |{e |call-cecile(c A )(e)(w) & τ (e)⊆(t ∩ M AX (λt  .cecile-in-greece’(t  )(w)))}| >3]([cT , _))(w )] = λw.(∀w ∈ O( f, g, cT , w))[¬ |{e |call-cecile(c A )(e)(w ) & τ (e) ⊆ ([cT , _) ∩ MAX(λt  .cecile-in-greece(t  )(w  )))}| > 3]

The formula in (59c) counts only events within that part of Cécile’s contextually salient stay in Greece that follows the utterance time. Intuively, this is not what we want. In contrast, for indicatives, it seems mostly correct that adverbials that refer to intervals that properly include the utterance time are restricted to either the past or the future part by the temporal information. Consider (60) and related examples discussed in von Stechow (1995). (60)

Malte war heute dreimal hier. Malte was today three-times here ‘Today, Malte was here three times.’

Here, the quantification is restricted to that part of the utterance day that precedes the utterance time. Obviously, this is due to the past morphology on the verb. Intuitions are less clear with future reference. Yet, the German sentences in (61) still invite readings where the future information restricts the quantification to the part that follows the utterance time. (61)

a.

b.

Volker wird heute dreimal anrufen. Volker will today three-times call ‘(Counting from now on:) Volker will call three times today.’ Melli wird mich dreimal anrufen, während ich hier in der Küche Melli will me three-times call, while I here in the kitchen bin. am ‘(Counting from now on:) Melli will call me three times while I am here in the kitchen.’

I can hardly use (61a) to mean that Volker will have called three times by the end of the day.40 Likewise, I have a strong preference to conceive of all three calls in (61b) as happening in the future. Hence, the analysis in terms of intersection of a

40 In contrast, Paul Portner (p.c.) observes that this is exactly the reading obtained for the English sentence Volker will call three times today. Other speakers remark that the reading is possible, but that it would preferably be expressed by the use of will have called. At this point, I can only conclude that these English data require careful empirical testing.

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future interval and an adverbial modifier makes the correct predictions for German indicative futures. In contrast to that, for the imperative in (58), the preference to understand it such that the relevant calls happen in whatever part of the entire interval is very strong. Second, in the absence of an overt restrictor, the truth-conditions (i.e., the requirement imposed by the imperative) would come out too strong for negated imperatives. In particular, a sentence like (62a) gets assimilated to (62b). (62)

a. b.

Don’t turn off the stove! Never turn off the stove!

Clearly, this is again not what we want, and the problem is reminiscent of Partee’s (1973) observation that a (naive) operator theory of tense runs into problems with negation. (63)

I didn’t turn off the stove. a. = ‘there is a moment before the utterance time at which I did not turn off the stove.’ too weak! b. = ‘it is not the case that there is a moment before the utterance time at which I did turn off the stove.’ too strong!

Third, if there is a particular salient temporal instant at which the prejacent should be made true, imperatives can also occur in the imperfective aspect (cf. Davies, 1986). (64)

Be standing at the gate!

intended: when I get there

Crucially, if we rely on forward expansion without making explicit the contextual restriction, (64) would be interpreted as in (65), which requires that the entire future be contained within the addressee’s standing at the gate. (65)

λw.(∀w  ∈ O( f, g, cT , w))[∃e[τ (e) ⊇ [cT , _) & you-stand-at-the-gate(e)(w)]]

For the second two problems, the solution is quite obvious: we have to make explicit reference to the period in which the speaker intends that the event should happen. Typically, this will be a part of the future. Nevertheless, as for (58), this need not be the case. An overt frame-setting adverbial that properly includes the utterance time may require that we take into account part of the past, too. Consequently, I give up on forward expansion as introduced by the modal operator in (54). Instead, I assume that the imperative modal takes an additional temporal argument which stands for the interval at which the event has to happen—the event frame. While the event frame need not lie entirely in the future (cf. (58)), it must not lie entirely in the past either. This has to be guaranteed in order to predict the unacceptability of imperatives like (66): (66)

gestern an! Ruf call.I MP S G yesterday VP RT #‘Call yesterday!’

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To account for the unacceptability of such cases,41 I assume that (i) the event frame is presupposed to lie not entirely before the tense time (for unembedded imperatives, it may not entirely precede the utterance time, that is, it may not meet the presupposition past), and that (ii) the event frame may not be larger than an overt frame-setting adverbial that indicates when the imperative is to be fulfilled.42 The revised semantics for I MPMOD is given in (67a);43 the corresponding tree for the MoodP in a simple imperative like (55a) is given in (67b). (67)

a.

I MPMODc = λ f λgλt  λPi,st λtλw.(∀w ∈ O( f, g, t, w))[P(t  )(w  )], defined only if not t  < t (the event frame t  does not strictly precede the evaluation time t)

b.

MoodP AspP

F1 F2 t F3 I MPMOD f

P FV

VP

g I MPPRO call Melli

I take the result to be the correct at-issue meaning of the imperative. It is easy to see that the sequential application of the elements P RESENT and I MPMOD is equivalent to the semantics of OPImp (cf. (36)) as refined in order to take into account the twofold temporal dimension (cf. (68)).44 So far, the sole purpose of the feature ∗imp∗ is syntactic. It ensures that the imperativized verb move to C in languages like

41 It follows from standard assumptions in speech act theory that one cannot command things that should happen in the past. Thus, it may look as if (66) could be excluded on merely pragmatic grounds. Yet, imperatives can also be used as W ISHes and these can perfectly well target the past, see Section 4.1.3. 42

Without the second assumption, (66) should be acceptable in case the speaker has in mind an event frame spanning both yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I assume that this principle is in line with the more general behavior of covert contextual parameters. Yet, this assumption merits further study, which I have to leave for future research. 43 Throughout this book I am abstracting away of the need to bind into the presupposition. The necessity to bind variables across different dimensions of linguistic meaning is well known for presuppositions, cf. Karttunen and Peters (1979); for a dynamic implementation of binding across two different dimensions of meaning, cf. Nouwen (2007). For an implementation with respect to semantic presuppositions in terms of domain restrictions on argument variables, see Heim and Kratzer (1998); for an implementation compatible with the pragmatic conception of presuppositions, see van der Sandt (1992). 44 In the refined version (68) developed in this section, the interpretation of the imperative operator does not combine with a proposition any more, but rather with a temporal property.

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German (or lower positions in other languages). It would of course be nice to be able to assign a(n ideally) uniform meaning to V-to-C movement (cf. Lohnstein, 2000, for an attempt along these lines). Yet, this has to be the purpose of a more general study of clause types. The advantage of having the imperative-specific meaning encoded by I MPMOD is that the approach carries over immediately to languages that lack V-to-C-movement. (68)

(final version of the at-issue meaning component) OPImp c = λ f λgλt  λPi,st λw.(∀w  ∈ O( f, g, cT , w))[P(t  )(w  )]

For convenience, I will in the following resort to Wratil’s (2005) assumption that a complex CP/MoodP hosts OPImp and takes AspP as its complement (cf. (69b), which contributes exactly the same semantics as the more fine-grained (69a)). (69)

a.

CP TP T

P RES

T

ModP F1 F2 t Mod F3

∗impmod∗

g

AspP P FV Asp∗ p f v∗

I MPMOD f

VP I MPPRO call me

b.

CP(MoodP) F1 F2 t

C(Mood) C(Mood)∗imp∗

AspP

F3 g OPimp f

P FV Asp∗ p f v∗

VP I MPPRO call me

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The fact that the additional temporal parameter introduced for the event frame is not restricted to the interval starting with the utterance time cT helps make the correct predictions for (58).45 (70)

a. b. c.

more than three timesc = λPε,st λtλw. | {e |P(e)(w) & τ (e) ⊆ t} |> 3 while Cécile is in Greecec = λPλtλw.P(t ∩ M AX (λt  .cecile-in-greece(t  )(w)) [[OPImp f g t][[while Cecile is in Greece][not [more than three times [I MPPRO call Cecile ]]]]]c = λw.(∀w  ∈ O( f, g, cT , w))[|{e |call-cecile(c A )(e)(w ) & τ (e) ⊆ (t ∩ M AX (λt  .cecile-in-greece(t  )(w)))}| ≤ 3]

The formula in (70c) counts all events that lie within the intended event frame and within Cécile’s entire stay in Greece, instead of just those following the utterance time. This is as desired.

3.2.3 Temporal Oppositions in Imperatives In most languages under consideration so far, imperatives do not retain temporal oppositions familiar from declaratives and interrogatives. Consequently, the respective imperatives can be treated as in (69b), allowing for alternations between P FV and I MPFV as the aspectual relation. Recently, a couple of languages have been claimed to allow for distinctions in tense in their imperatives after all. They fall into two fundamentally different categories with respect to the tensing they exhibit. On the one hand, Dutch has been claimed to allow for pluperfect and past imperatives (cf. Proeme, 1991; Wolf, 2003; Mastop, 2005). Mastop argues that they are to be seen as true imperatives because they ‘share the same verb form (verb first, implicit second person subject) and have a closely related use’ (Mastop, 2005:71). (71)

Had je mond maar gehouden! had your mouth P RT hold.PP ‘You should have kept your mouth shut!’

45

Note that it is now crucial that the temporal restriction while Cécile is in Greece gets interpreted outside of negation (otherwise, the truth conditions get too weak). An alternative way to achieve this would be to interpret it as a presupposition on the event frame argument of the imperative operator. Ultimately, I would prefer that. But the problem is of course not restricted to imperative semantics. It arises likewise for cases like (i). (i)

Cécile didn’t call Ede more than three times while he was in Dublin.

With respect to the modalized case, note that Cécile’s stay in Greece is relativized to the respective worlds. But I think this is as it should be. The interval of her stay in the actual world does not have to be known exactly (maybe it has not even been fixed), and if it differs in a world w  then, for that world w  , we would be concerned with the interval she spends in Greece according to what is going on in w . I consider it a pragmatic effect that artificial shortening of Cécile’s stay is not normally considered a good way of complying with the imperative. The semantics does not exclude it.

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Reed dan ook niet zo hard. Je wist toch dat the politie drive.PAST P RT P RT not so fast. You know.PAST P RT that the police aan het conroleren was! on the check.I NF was ‘You shouldn’t have driven that fast. You knew the police were surveilling.’

Drawing on the interaction with various particles, he argues that these forms also give advice or point out an obligation—but for the time when the crucial decision was to be taken, not at the utterance time. Therefore, he considers them as truly performative (Mastop, 2005:74).46 I agree with Mastop (2005) that these examples indeed share a lot with imperatives, but nevertheless I would hesitate to classify them as imperatives as I chose to individuate them in Section 1.1.3. They exhibit a grammatical property (namely past tense marking) that restricts them from ever fulfilling the prototypical function of requesting or commanding that was taken to be distinctive for the imperative clause type. The speech act type is not a C OMMAND for a past interval in time (whatever that would be), but rather a R EPROACH that what was clearly to be known as advisable has not been complied with. I would therefore tentatively classify them as belonging to a different though closely related clause type of reproachatives. Nevertheless, my compositional build up for imperatives can straightforwardly account for the tight semantic relation between imperatives and reproachatives: we simply have to assume that the form types of both clause types involve the presence of I MPMOD.47 In order to capture their contribution, we have to allow for the tense time to be set to past and the event frame to be sensitive to this limit (e.g. not entirely precede the past reference time). This part is very similar to Mastop’s (2005) analysis. Moreover, the assumptions about the modal base (see Section 4.2) have to be adjusted to allow for the counterfactual meaning. A fullfledged analysis of Dutch past imperatives in the imperative framework proposed here is given in Schwager (t.a.). Other cases of tense in imperatives do not induce a different evaluation time, but involve grammaticalization of different restrictions on the event frame. This seems to be the case in some North American Indian languages. Mithun (1999:171f)

46

Wratil (2005) mentions a similar usage of irrealis-marked imperatives in Tsakhur, a (LezgiSamur) Dagestan language spoken in Azerbaijan: (i)

sa dawar ali-w-s-i buy-I MP-I RR a lamb ‘You should buy a lamb!’

47 Alternatively one could say that Dutch has a complex clause type that covers both imperatives and reproachatives and that these two subtypes are distinguished only by temporal marking. Given that, as far as semantics is concerned, clause type systems fulfill a purely heuristic purpose, I consider these issues a matter of taste.

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explains that Cheyenne48 and Maidu49 possess a morphological distinction between imperatives for actions that are to be carried out immediately and imperatives for actions that are to be carried out later on (and, for Maidu in particular, in the absence of the speaker).50 (73)

a.

b.

méseestse eat.I MP 1 Eat!’ méseheo?o eat.I MP 2 Eat (later on)! Cheyenne; from Mithun (1999) (1999:172)

Wratil (2005) reports similar effects for Tubatulabal51 and Takelma52 . In contrast to past evaluation times as observed for Dutch, these contrasts with respect to the event frame don’t change the prototypical function of the respective clauses. Consequently, it is entirely unproblematic to call them imperatives. If various restrictions on the event frame are grammaticalized in a language, we can capture this by saying that the language has more than one relation I MPMOD that can co-occur with the clause type distinctive feature imp. Future imperatives or imperative-like clause types that shift the evaluation time to the future (in analogy to the Dutch past imperatives) have not been reported so far. English and German are also known to possess another construction which is often associated with temporality. Here, the imperativized verb consists of the auxiliary haben/have that, together with the perfect participle, yields the present perfect. (74)

Bitte hab nicht noch eine Vase zerbrochen! please have.I MP S G not P RT a vase broken ‘Please don’t have broken another vase!’53

The status of this construction as an imperative proper has been questioned on pragmatic grounds in particular. Therefore, I will discuss it in more detail in Section 4.1.3 in connection with the functional restrictions it imposes (cf. also Schwager, t.a.). I will argue that it should be considered as an instance of the imperative clause type and that the modification is more of an aspectual than a temporal nature (the time of evaluation still being present).

48 A North American Indian language belonging to the Algonquian family that is spoken in southeastern Montana and western Oklahoma. 49

A North American Indian language belonging to the family of Maiduan languages that is spoken in northeastern California. 50

Cf. also Shipley (1964) and Mastop (2005) for discussion of these data.

51

A North American Indian language spoken in southern California.

52

A North American Indian language that was spoken in western Oregon, but is now extinct.

53

English example taken from Culicover and Jackendoff (1997a).

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3.2.4 The Imperative Subject 3.2.4.1 The Data The marking of grammatical person is one of the morphological oppositions that appear to be cross-linguistically reduced in imperatives. Moreover, even in a language that retains it, its impact for the classification of a particular form type within that language’s clause type system is far from obvious (cf. Mauck and Zanuttini, 2005, also Section 1.1.3 above). Here, I will confine myself to languages like English and German that are usually considered to have only imperatives for the second person; that is, the external argument of the verb is normally understood as referring to the addressee. The first surprising observation is that these imperatives can occur without overt subjects even though both languages do not allow for covert subjects in other finite clauses. This exceptional behavior of imperatives is cross-linguistically well known and has given rise to a lot of speculations about the possible absence of a subject in imperatives in general (for syntactic arguments, cf. Platzack and Rosengren, 1997; for arguments in favor of its absence in semantics, cf. Mastop, 2005). The assumption that the interpretation of the subject position in imperatives is not constrained by grammar, but is rather determined pragmatically falls short of at least the following three observations that have repeatedly been stressed in the literature. First, in the absence of an overt subject, second person reference is obligatory (in contrast, truly unspecified positions such as for example unrealized argument positions of infinitives depend on the linguistic or extralinguistic context). Second, in the absence of an overt subject, reflexives are marked as second person. Third, in view of standard assumptions with respect to case and in particular θ -role assignment, the alternation between missing subjects and overt second person pronouns cannot be accounted for satisfactorily. Therefore, I assume that imperatives invariably contain a subject, but that many (though maybe not all) languages54 also have a covert pronoun which may be confined to appearance in imperatives (Potsdam, 1998; Wratil, 2005; Zanuttini, 2008). Wratil (2005) argues that from a syntactic point of view, it has to be different both from PRO (which could never alternate with overt pronouns) and pro (which, if available at all, would be expected to occur in indicatives as well), and calls it I MP PRO . I follow her in assuming that, syntactically, I MPPRO is restricted to the subject position of imperatives. For the semantics it is only relevant that it is a covert variant of the second person pronoun and comes in a singular and a plural variant.55 54 Pace Zhang (1990) and Mauck and Zanuttini (2005), who claim universality of covert imperative subjects. As far as I know, a counter-example is provided by Icelandic where imperativized verbs always co-occur with overt subjects. 55 Han (2000) argues that it is PRO in some languages, and pro in others. Zanuttini (2008) proposes an account for why it might be that some languages allow covert pronominal subjects only in imperatives (see discussion below). As far as I can tell, the semantic account of the subject restriction in imperatives that I propose in the following works independently of whether covert imperative subjects are taken to be pro, PRO, or a specialized element. For the sake of concreteness, I will stick to the assumption of a separate covert pronoun I MPPRO.

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a. b.

I MPPRO c = c A . I MPPRO pl = c A iff c A is a plural individual. Otherwise undefined.

For German (and similarly for analogous examples in English), any theory has to exclude examples like (76). The straightforward solution may seem to simply postulate second person features on the verb. (76)

a.

∗ Gib

b.

∗ Geh

Hans mir einen Kugelschreiber. give.I MP S G Hans me a ballpen es nach Hause. go.I MP S G it to home

But second person subjects can alternate with other types of noun phrases even in languages that are considered to only have second person imperatives.56 For German and English it is well-documented that imperatives can come with quantificational subjects that behave as if they were third person (cf. (77)).57 They can e.g. bind third person possessive pronouns or third person reflexives, cf. (78). (77)

a. b. c.

Everyone take out a pencil! Someone get me an aspirin! Nobody move!

(78)

a. b.

Someonei give me hisi credit card! Everyonei wash himselfi !

Potsdam (1998:his (6a)) Potsdam (1998:his (6d))

Unfortunately, there is no full agreement in the literature as to what other noun phrases are acceptable. I assume that the relevant set is given by what Zanuttini (2008) characterizes as the core variety of American English.58 56 The assumption that, syntactically, these are all subjects (as opposed to vocatives, for example), is argued for convincingly in the literature, e.g. Potsdam (1998). It should immediately become obvious from the occurrence of negative quantifiers as in (77c). With respect to referential DPs, imperative subjects can be distinguished from vocatives by the following criteria: (i) lack of an intonational break, (ii) the possibility of picking out subsets of plural addressees (whereas vocatives always have to refer to the maximal (plural) individual that counts as the addressee), (iii) in English, proper names can appear as imperative subjects only if there is a list of parallel imperative clauses (cf. (80)) while no such restriction exists for vocatives (Zanuttini, 2008). 57 Cf. Mauck and Zanuttini (2005) for a cross-linguistic overview. 58 Zanuttini (2008) departs from the previous literature in distinguishing between two types of speakers of American English. According to her there is a core of possible imperative subjects acceptable to all speakers and an extension of further constructions acceptable only to some. Here, I am trying to capture the grammar of those speaking the core variety. From the discussion in Zanuttini (2008) it does not become entirely clear if the examples in (79) belong to the core or not. According to her initial semantic characterization of the core variety they should: what is required is that the addressee(s) is/are asked to do something himself/herself/themselves. Only some speakers additionally accept cases in which the addressee(s) is/are asked to see to it that someone else brings about a certain state of affairs (p. 186). But on p. 192 she claims that proper names and bare nouns are the only acceptable non-pronominal and non-quantificational imperative subjects, and in footnote 17 she explicitly excludes definites and free relatives (‘indefinites’) as

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In English, definites (79a) and free relatives (79b) can also appear as imperative subjects.,59 (79)

a. b.

The man with the list come here! Potsdam (1998:205) Whoever helped me set up the computer please shut it down again!

Provided that a name refers to an item on a list of alternatives, proper names are acceptable as well (cf. Potsdam, 1998:205).60 (80)

a. b.

# Mary

stand by the door! Mary stand by the door, John scatter the files, and I’ll watch the front!

German allows only a small subset of what is possible in English. We find overt and covert elements referring to the second person (81a), and quantificational subjects (82), but neither proper names (83) nor definites (84a), nor wh-relative clauses (84b): (81)

a.

b.

(82)

a.

b.

die Tür zu! Mach make.I MP S G the door closed ‘Shut the door!’ Mach du die Tür zu! make.I MP S G you the door closed ‘You shut the door!’ mal jeder seinen Namen auf einen Zettel! Schreib name on a sheet write.I MP S G QP RT everyone his ‘Everyone write his name on a sheet!’ Bring mir mal wer ein Aspirin! bring.I MP S G me QP RT someone an aspirin ‘Someone bring me an aspirin!’

not being ‘readily accepted by all speakers of English’. Zanuttini does not disclose further details about her empirical investigations, and all speakers I consulted informally judged these examples less problematic than the ones Zanuttini had earlier excluded from the core variety. Therefore, I assume that examples as in (79) form part of the core variety after all (as suggested by Zanuttini’s earlier semantic characterization). 59

(i)

I will not discuss in detail the case of bare nouns, emphasized in Zanuttini (2008). Boys be the cops and girls be the robbers.

(her (25a))

These cases fall out automatically if we allow for a covert second person pronoun whose appearance is restricted to imperatives (see below). The subjects in (i) can then be treated like overt modified pronouns (e.g. you boys, cf. Lyons, 1999). Note that this is similar to Zanuttini’s assumption of a covert determiner that lacks person features and gets syntactically valued as second person. Lisa Matthewson (p.c.) points out correctly that this predicts that the sentence can only be used if the speaker her/himself is part of neither group, which is at odds with her intuitions, but, as I hope, in line with what speakers of Zanuttini’s core variety of American English should allow. 60 Note that (80a) becomes acceptable if the initial noun phrase is realized with the intonation typical for a vocative; this is not required for the noun phrases in (80b).

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a.

∗ Maria

b.

mach die Tür zu! Maria make.I MP S G the door closed ok as vocative; set off by intonation ∗ Maria mach die Tür zu, Hans schließ das Maria make.I MP S G the door closed, Hans close.I MP S G the die Post. Fenster, und ich hole window, and I fetch.1S G P RES I ND the mail

a.

∗ Derjenige

the-one b.

mit der Liste komm her! with the list come.I MP S G VP RT

∗ Wer

auch immer die Liste hat komm her! whoever the list has come.I MP S G VP RT

It has been claimed in the literature that even third person subjects in imperatives retain an important connection to the addressee: the domain of the quantificational element or the alternative set from which a definite expression is drawn has to be constituted by the people talked to (i.e., the elements/atomic parts of the plural addressee); see Davies (1986) for English, Platzack and Rosengren (1997) for German. Without change in meaning, (82a) and (82b) can be reformulated as (85a) and (85b) respectively: (85)

a.

b.

mal jeder von euch seinen Namen auf einen Schreib name on a write.I MP S G QP RT everyone of you his Zettel! sheet ‘Everyone of you put his name on a sheet.’ Bring mir mal wer von euch ein Aspirin! bring.I MP S G me QP RT someone of you an aspirin ‘Someone of you bring me an aspirin.’

But is this part of the grammar of imperatives or just a logical consequence of these imperatives being used in some sort of directive speech act? Schmerling (1982) shows convincingly that the phenomenon constitutes a grammatical property of the imperative. Other clause types can be used for similar directive purposes; nevertheless, they still lack the requirement that the domain of the quantifier be the set of addressees: (86)

a. b. c.

Somebody fix this typewriter! This typewriter is to be fixed. Somebody has to fix this typewriter!

All three sentences in (86) can be used to get my office mates to take care that the typewriter gets fixed somehow. But the imperative in (86a) crucially differs from the declaratives in (86b) and (86c). Both (86b) and (86c) can be complied with by calling an agency to send someone to fix the typewriter. In that case, none of my officemates does the work himself. This is not an option to comply with (86a). In this

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case it has to be one of the addressees that takes care of the machine. Consequently, the restriction that the subject of an imperative belong to the set of addressees (as observed e.g. in (85)) is not a by-product of the usage made of an imperative, but has to be encoded in its grammar. The resulting hypothesis that imperative subjects always stand in the subset relation to the set of addressees is known as Downing’s characterization (cf. Downing, 1969).61 Issue 3.1 Downing’s characterization of imperative noun phrases The subject of an imperative must stand in a subset relation to the addressee. Potsdam (1998) claims that Issue 3.1 does not hold for English. The examples he adduces to falsify the characterization fall into three classes. Only the first is fully acceptable to speakers of Zanuttini’s (2008) core variety, i.e. the one I am trying to capture here. First, Potsdam observes cases where imperative subjects constitute supersets of the set of persons spoken to. (87)

Come at 8!

intended: the addressee and her husband

But this is a general feature of second person (and thus ‘addressee-referring’) pronouns. It occurs independently of the imperative clause type. (88) exemplifies it for questions: (88)

Why didn’t you (guys) come to the party yesterday? intended: the addressee and her husband

Obviously, (one of) the hearer(s) together with a set of absent people she is contextually understood to form a group with can constitute the referent of the second person plural pronoun. Hence, data like (87) does not provide counter-evidence to Downing’s characterization. The second type of Potsdam’s (1998) problematic imperative subjects is constituted by addressee-referring expressions conjoined with a DP picking out a set that has an empty intersection with the former. Therefore, the subject in its entirety consists of the addressee and other persons that are not conceived of as part of the addressee. This differs from cases like (87) and (88). In (89), the second person pronoun is taken to refer to the person that is present and thus constitutes the addressee. In the cases discussed before, the second person pronoun referred to the group. (89)

a. b.

You and your men be on guard for anything suspicious. Potsdam (1998:207) You and them make a deal! I’m out of this. Potsdam (1998:207)

61 Note that ‘subset relation’ has to be understood loosely enough to encompass the quantificational cases, where one should rather say that the imperative subject quantifies over the set of addressees. See Section 3.2.4.3 for details.

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Interestingly, these are precisely the cases resulting in agreement conflicts resolved by hanging topic constructions (or, marginally, second person inflection) in German declarative clauses. Whatever process is used for the somewhat marginal second person inflection in these cases could be claimed to save Downing’s characterization even in the face of data like (89). (90)

ihr Du und deine Männer {∗ waren/?? wart/, wart} you and your men {were.3P L/were.2P L/, you.2P L were.2P L} gestern zu spät. yesterday too late. ‘You and your men were too late yesterday.’

An even clearer conflict with Issue 3.1 results where there is no overlap between subject and addressee (all examples taken from Potsdam, 1998:208). (91)

a. b.

Those children of yours keep out of my garden, or I’ll set the dog on them! You get the paper and pencil and the catalogue, and George write down the names, and I’ll do the work! Go call him, will you, and tell him we need him and what he’s supposed to do.62

Although Potsdam (1998) and Zanuttini (2008) do not address the issue, confusion with remains of the English subjunctive can be excluded for the first two classes. Consider an example like (92). (92)

Don’t you and {them, him, her} fight again!

Here, the negation is formed with don’t, which is clearly the negation pattern for imperatives (cf. (93)), not for subjunctives that are negated with not (cf. (94)). (93)

Don’t give me that cheap talk!

(94)

a. b.

Who suggested that he not act so silly? Potsdam (1998) John asks that we not cut down his bean stock just yet. Potsdam (1998)

Neither Potsdam (1998) nor Zanuttini (2008) offer negated examples for type three imperatives. Therefore, it is tempting to treat the corresponding clauses as subjunctives. One way to test this is to look at bare noun subjects. These are known to be unacceptable in subjunctive clauses. As subjects of directively used sentences, bare noun subjects also become unacceptable if the addressee is not an element of their extension, which can be ensured by an appropriate vocative (Ms. Heiser in (95b)). (95)

62

a. b.

Girls be the cops, boys be the robbers! Ms. Heiser, (*the) girls be the cops, (*the) boys be the robbers!

Potsdam attributes this example to Poutsma (1928) via Bolinger (1967:354). I inserted the direct argument the names to make it grammatical (thanks to Lisa Matthewson, p.c., for pointing out this independent problem with the original example).

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Potsdam’s (1998) first two classes pattern with other imperatives and can therefore not be dismissed as subjunctives. Yet, I have shown that, contrary to what he claims, the first class does not violate Downing’s characterization at all. The second class should probably be seen as an instance of a marginal repair strategy for particular mismatches for agreement features that can arise with conjunctions. Contrary to Potsdam, who assumes that imperative subjects underlie no restriction whatsoever, I will thus claim that Downing’s characterization holds true.63 For German, Downing’s characterization holds unproblematically. Any attempt to construct examples such that the subject is not a subset of the addressee, results in ungrammaticality.64 ∗ Diese

(96)

Kinder von dir bleibt mir aus dem Garten! these children of you stay.I MP 2P L me.B EN DAT out of.the garden

For German it is straightforward to assume that the subject of imperatives is realized as an overt second person pronoun, as the covert I MPPRO introduced above, or as a partitive with an overt or covert second person domain argument: 63 Echo questions constitute a completely different type of example that raises a problem for Downing’s characterization in English. Mastop (2005) argues that the possibility of exchanges like (i) constitutes evidence against a person restriction on imperative subjects.

(i)

A: Don’t kill yourself! B: Don’t kill myself???

This is an interesting problem, which looks like a peculiarity of English (e.g., the exchange in (i) cannot be translated to German with an imperative in the rhetorical question). Nevertheless, even in English, an imperative addressed to a third party or an imperative containing an overt subject cannot be echoed straightforwardly (cf. (ii)). Both facts cannot be accounted for if there is no restriction on imperative subjects at all: (ii)

a. b.

A (to B): Don’t kill yourself! C: # Don’t kill herself??? A: Don’t YOU kill yourself about it! B: # Don’t I kill myself about it???

Consequently, I think that the burden of explaining (i) should be put on the theory of echoquestions. An analysis along these lines is offered by Kaufmann and Poschmann (2011), who treat echo-questions as instances of reported speech (cf. Poschmann, 2010) and argue that the imperative cases obey exactly the restrictions observed for emb