Imperative Clauses in Generative Grammar

This volume contains ten articles exploring a wide range of issues in the analysis of the imperative clause from a generative perspective. The language data investigated in detail in the articles come from Dutch, English, German, (old) Scandinavian, Spanish, and South Slavic; there is further significant discussion of data from other Germanic and Romance languages. The phenomena addressed (in several cases in more than one article, leading to some lively debate about contentious issues) include the following: the nature and interpretation of imperative subjects; the properties of participial imperatives; clitic behavior; restrictions on topicalization; word order; null arguments; negative imperatives; and imperatives in embedded clauses. The volume has a substantial introduction, sketching the results of earlier generative work on the topic (most of it scattered across disparate outlets), the issues left open by this earlier work, and the contribution to further insight and understanding made by the book's articles.

Magdalena Schwager, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt, in Journal of Linguistics 44, 2008:
Interesting novel data and largely compelling arguments are presented in a highly perspicuous way. The introduction is one of the best overviews of the topic available. If I were to conclude with an imperative, it would definitely be a call to pay attention to this valuable collection.