# Imperative vs. subjunctive



## sakvaka

Which languages have complete* imperative conjugation but lack the conjunctive? For example, Finnish has: _(menkäämi), mene, menköön, menkäämme, menkää, menkööt_. Also in Italian: _(vada), va', vada, andiamo, andate, vadano _. However, there is subjunctive in Italian, which replaces the missing forms of imperative.

In English, there is none. _(Let me go), go, may he go, let us go, go, may they go._

Thank you in advance!

________
* 1st person singular may be missing or arbitrary: it has no practical use in any language


----------



## XiaoRoel

En las lenguas romances, que conservan las segundas personas heredadas del latín y que son, diacrónicamente hablando el verdadero imperativo marcado como tal, sucede como ya sucedía en latín: el presente de subjuntivo (el rumano usa el presente de indicativo), y también el futuro I, con un cambio de entonación (con entonación yusiva), representada en la escritura por /¡/ (en español /¡-!/), se constituye en imperativo en todas sus personas (incluso la 1ª persona por artificio retórico), pudiéndose usar incluso las segundas personas en vez de las heredadas del imperativo presente latino. También en las lenguas romances es de notar el uso del infinitivo con la consiguiente entonación yusiva para los mandatos en plural.
Resumiendo, *lo fundamental* en la adscripción del presente de subjuntivo (y futuro e infinitivo), fenómeno ya existente en latín y que heredan las lenguas romances, es el *rasgo suprasegmental entonativo que polariza el valor optativo del presente de subjuntivo* (o los demás tiempos de que hablamos antes)* hacia la yusividad*.


----------



## sakvaka

Kiitos! En tosin tullut hullua hurskaammaksi, mutta asia taisi selvitä romaanisten kielten kannalta.


----------



## XiaoRoel

Siento no usar el inglés, pero mi nivel en esa lengua no me da para expresarme correctamente y menos en un tema complicado como éste. Si quieres te puedo responder en portugués, gallego, francés, italiano o latín. Si lees alguna de estas lenguas tendré mucho gusto en redactar los mensajes en esa lengua.
Reitero el tema, en la frase yusiva, sea la lengua que sea lo que da el valor es el rasgo entonativo, que no es el de la modalidad declarativa "normal".
_Klitos_ también a ti por tu comprensión.


----------



## sakvaka

Google Translate works well enough from Spanish. No problem!


----------



## Meyer Wolfsheim

sakvaka said:


> Which languages have complete* imperative conjugation but lack the conjunctive? For example, Finnish has: _(menkäämi), mene, menköön, menkäämme, menkää, menkööt_. Also in Italian: _(vada), va', vada, andiamo, andate, vadano _. However, there is subjunctive in Italian, which replaces the missing forms of imperative.
> 
> In English, there is none. _(Let me go), go, may he go, let us go, go, may they go._
> 
> Thank you in advance!
> 
> ________
> * 1st person singular may be missing or arbitrary: it has no practical use in any language


 
Actually in English there is a single subjunctive form in the present tense without a modal or auxiliary, restricted to certain preserved verbs.  

I insist that he *be *there on time.  

I ask that everyone *do* the homework.  

Singular third person subjects receiving a bare verb form without the -s third person singular marker.


----------



## Rallino

*in Turkish:*

Imperative:

Gideyim
git
gitsin*
gidelim*
gidin
gitsinler*

Subjunctive:

gideyim
gidesin
gitsin*
gidelim*
gidesiniz
gitsinler*


*The ones that are the same in both moods.


----------



## Angelo di fuoco

Meyer Wolfsheim said:


> Actually in English there is a single subjunctive form in the present tense without a modal or auxiliary, restricted to certain preserved verbs.
> 
> I insist that he *be *there on time.
> 
> I ask that everyone *do* the homework.
> 
> Singular third person subjects receiving a bare verb form without the -s third person singular marker.



Also in the past tense: if I / he-she-it _were_ instead of _was_. Dunno if there is something like a _consecutio temporum_ for subordinate clauses.


----------



## sakvaka

All languages so far have subjunctive.  I wonder if it's impossible to have just imperative (as in Finnish) or clearly distinctive forms.

But thank you!


----------



## sokol

sakvaka said:


> All languages so far have subjunctive.  I wonder if it's impossible to have just imperative (as in Finnish) or clearly distinctive forms.
> 
> But thank you!


Out of curiosity, what's the theory behind your original question?

I've never thought about whether there could be a grammatical link between both; but your original question *implicitly*, more or less, suggests that both might be linked grammatically, on a structural level, which would lead to suggesting that to have one but not the other would be the exception rather than the rule.

Because as I see it the opposite of imperative is not conjunctive or subjunctive (and careful, both of the latter have different nuances of meanings in different languages ) - there isn't really an "opposite" to it, or rather imperative is paired with indicative.
(And on the other hand subjunctive is paired with indicative, as well as is the case for conjunctive. But even though they're all paired with indicative they aren't really opposites of "each other".)

But probably you didn't intend to put it like that - if so then please say so, so that we avoid misunderstandings (by this implicit suggestion which I read into your original post ).


----------



## sakvaka

My theory is that some languages (eg. Italian) have the subjunctive and imperative closely related to one another: they borrow forms and share similarities. Also, I talked about the Finnish imperative some days ago with another forero, and he said that the corresponding form wouldn't be called imperative but conjunctive in English. Conjunctive doesn't exist in Finnish, so I got interested in the moods: are there other languages that do not recognize conjunctive but recognize imperative etc.

For example, all Germanic and Romance languages have some kind of a conjunctive (although they replace everything with auxiliary verbs nowadays). I'm not sure about Slavic languages, but Hungarian and Turkish have conjunctive. Doesn't this already confirm a rule (or at least a common piece of language history in Europe)?

I agree on the different usage of jussive, conjunctive, subjunctive, and imperative in different languages. I am currently trying to understand the Wikipedia articles about them.


----------



## sokol

Slavic languages indeed also have an equivalent for for conjunctive - the meaning is more similar to German _Konjunktiv_ than to Romance subjunctive, and Slavic "conjunctive" forms are not borrowed (nor specifically related) to Slavic imperative forms (the former is formed with _auxiliary_ plus *past participle *- in Slovene "_bi_ *delal*", the latter is not an analytic form - "delaj(te)!").*)
Same by the way is true for German - imperative "arbeite(t)!"), Konjunktiv "ich würde arbeiten", or "arbeite" (Konjunktiv I but in this case, as in many others, formally identical with present tense), and "arbeitete" (Konjunktiv II, rather unusual and mostly substituted by periphrastic formation).

_*) Similar in BCS (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian) and I'm sure in other (but probably not all) Slavic languages.
_
So the analogy of Romance languages doesn't work for other languages. 
Whether similarities in Romance languages between both moods go back to a common inflectional suffix however is another question - about which however I know next to nothing. 

And about "rules" you must be careful when you're talking (mostly) about Indo-European languages: if there is an ancient (genetic) relation between both imperative and conjunctive/subjunctive moods in Proto-Indoeuropean then this had been (or should have been ) the case for all modern IE languages (even if substituted by periphrastic moods in modern times).

So a similarity (or genetic relationship) on IE level - if we can establish such one - does not really say much about linguistic universals.


----------



## apmoy70

Modern Greek, forms complete indicative and imperative but has lost subjunctive (and optative). Subjunctive is formed analytically: generic subordinator «να-na» + indicative. Optative too: generic subordinator «ας-as» + indicative.


----------



## Encolpius

sakvaka said:


> Which languages have complete* imperative conjugation but lack the conjunctive? ....



Hungarian: we have complete imperative conjugation, we do not know the expression: copnjunctive, but the Hungarian imperative is used in clauses when conjunctive is used in other languages. 

e.g. the verb: számol (to count)
imperative, non-objective (there is a complete objective conjucation, too)
sg.: 
1. számoljak        
2. *számolj*
3. számoljon

pl.: 
1. számoljunk
2. számoljatok
3. számoljanak

clause: I want you to count. = *Azt akarom, hogy számolj. [I want that, that you count.]*


----------



## bibax

Czech has no subjunctive (or conjunctive), but conditional which is analytic:
viděl bych, viděl bys, viděl by, viděli bychom, viděli byste, viděli by (past participle + aorist of the verb to be) = I should see, you would see, ....

Imperative is derived from the present stem and doesn't exist for the 1st pers. sing. and the 3rd pers. plur. Imperative for the 3rd pers. sing. is rather archaic and used mostly in religious texts (Bible etc.), e.g. Budiž světlo! (= Fiat lux!).


----------



## phosphore

In Serbian we have neither subjunctive nor conjunctive (I am not sure what should be the difference between those two).

As to the imperative, we have, for example for the verb _raditi_ "to do":

singular
1. -
2. rádi (present tense: râdiš)
3. (neka râdi)

plural
1. rádimo (present tense: râdimo)
2. rádite (present tense: râdite)
3. (neka râde)

The forms for the 2.p.sg, 1.p.pl and 2.p.pl are syntetical, while the 3.p.sg and the 3.p.pl forms are constructed by means of _neka_ "let" (as in "let's do it") plus the present tense (indicative).


----------



## bibax

And why "neka radim" (1st pers. sing.) is missing?


----------



## phosphore

I don't know. 

The construction _neka_ plus the 1.p.sg does exist but I wouldn't consider it really imperative. There is another analytical form _da_ plus the present tense, for example again for the verb_ raditi_ "to do":

singular
1. -
2. da radiš
3. da radi

plural
1. da radimo
2. da radite
3. da rade

with a slightly different meaning from the regular imperative, but there again I wouldn't put the 1.p.sg even though the construction _da_ plus the 1.p.sg exists. There is even a construction_ ja_ "I" plus the 2.p.sg imperative but I don't really know how to convey its meaning either.

After some thinking, two first two "neka râdim" and "da râdim" (_neka_ and _da_ plus the 1.p.sg of the present tense) may be imperative in a certain way after all, at least in some contexts, but I am really not sure where this other construction "ja rádi" ("I" plus the 2.p.sg imperative) came from but that one is definitely not imperative (but rather past narrative).


----------



## Alxmrphi

> In Serbian we have neither subjunctive nor conjunctive (I am not sure  what should be the difference between those two).


Two words for the same thing 



> In grammar,  the *subjunctive mood* (abbreviated *sjv* or *sbjv*) is a verb mood typically used in dependent clauses to express a wish, emotion, possibility,  judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred. It is  sometimes referred to as the *conjunctive mood,* as it often  follows a conjunction. The details of  subjunctive use vary from language to language.


Wiki


----------



## phosphore

Alxmrphi said:


> Two words for the same thing
> 
> 
> Wiki


 
I thought so. Thank you.


----------



## Meyer Wolfsheim

At least in the european languages I've studied, the imperative and subjunctive are constructed very similarly, however it makes very much sense that they should be, because a command in itself is subjunctive.  You can ask someone to do whatever you want, but that doesn't mean they will.  

_Find me a car which *may* be..._

_Busca una casa que *sea*..._

In my mind the two are linked, but it's not as if the imperative is the opposite of the subjunctive.  

As for completing the paradigm of the imperative, I can't see how it can make any sense to have a form for the first person singular, how can one give oneself a command, how would that make any logical sense?  If I am giving to myself a command, I will simply use the second person.  

A third person imperative is more or less like an unstated wish or desire.  

The question remains however how do other non-european languages examine the two?


----------



## Angelo di fuoco

Meyer Wolfsheim said:


> As for completing the paradigm of the imperative, I can't see how it can make any sense to have a form for the first person singular, how can one give oneself a command, how would that make any logical sense?  If I am giving to myself a command, I will simply use the second person.



In older French the 1st pers. plur. imperative was also used if a single person wished to give oneself a command.


----------

