- 4 -
Sentences and Purposes

Stop!

We started out with the most obscure of all English sentence types, the exclamative. There are three other generally recognized sentence types, as represented by the following sentences:
(1) Eat your spinach! [IMPERATIVE]
(2) I'd like you to eat your spinach. [DECLARATIVE]
(3) Will you eat your spinach? [INTERROGATIVE]

Despite the exclamation point, sentence (1) is an imperative sentence, a type generally used to express commands or requests. As we'll discuss below, its distinguishing feature is the presence of a verb in the imperative mood.

Sentence (2) is a declarative sentence, the type generally used to make statements and assertions. As we'll see later, its distinguishing feature is the presence of a subject, the thing the statement is about, and a complete predicate, what is said about the subject. Most English sentences are of this type, and we'll be spending most of our time on them.

Sentence (3) is an interrogative sentence, the type generally used to ask questions. As we'll see later, its distinguishing feature is the INVERSION movement which has moved will in front of you. If we were making a statement rather than asking a question, we would say:

(4) You will eat your spinach.

We have described these sentence types in terms of how they are "generally" used. That seems a bit fuzzy, but it is necessary. As we have seen with exclamations, the purpose of a sentence and the sentence type are not always the same. Sentences (2), (3) and (4) may really be commands, for example. My own household is rather mealy-mouthed, so that the declarative sentence (2) was always our characteristic way of telling the kids to do something; when we have taken in foster children or others, they have had to learn that sentences like that are meant as more than a mere expression of preference. Most kids, on the other hand, have no trouble recognizing sentence (3) as a request or even command, though they may pretend otherwise, and sentence (4) sounds like a threat.

Imperative Sentences. In reviewing imperative sentence types, we are starting with a relatively simple form. In length, at least, the very simplest English sentences are one-word imperative sentences, commands in which the only word needed indicates what the speaker wants:


	(5)  Scram!
	(6)  Stop!
	(7)  Jump!
The words in sentences (5) through (7) are verbs, actions that the speaker wishes to see performed . Verbs in this form are the basic requirement of the imperative sentence type. One apparent exception would be the use of a non-action word like quiet, as in sentence (8), but we will treat these as incomplete forms of sentences with be as in (9). Be does not describe an action, but it is a verb, although an incorrigibly eccentric one:
(8) Quiet!
(9) Be quiet!
One argument for treating sentence (4) in this way is that the special imperative forms please and Let us, which are generally followed by other imperatives, can only be followed by the form in (9). (Unacceptable expressions are conventionally marked with an asterick.)
(10) (a) *Please quiet
(b) Please be quiet
(11) (a) *Let's quiet
(b) Let's be quiet

Exercise 1: One Word Expressions

Which of the following one-word expressions do you believe is an imperative sentence as opposed to a mere interjection or something else?
1.01 Bathe!
1.02 Blimey!
1.03 Darn!
1.04 Halt!
1.05 Help!
1.06 Hi!
1.07 Leave!
1.08 Martha!
1.09 Neat!
1.10 Walk!

We have already seen that imperative sentences can be longer than one word. The imperative verb or verbs can be followed by an complement (or object), though this can be optional even with verbs that normally require an object:
(12) Kill the spider!
(13) Kill!
It used to be customary to regard such sentences as having you as an "implied subject," the person or persons being asked to perform the action. It seems simpler to say that imperative sentences don't have to specify the subject. They can optionally do so, however, and it need not be just you:
(14) You boys be quiet!
(15) Someone go downstairs and close the door.
(16) Frankie, sit down!
With or without subjects, imperative sentences can also have various kinds of words in front of them which modify their verb:
(12) Always brush your teeth carefully.

Exercise 2: Imperative Subjects

Imperative sentences don't have to specify who or what is supposed to perform the requested action, but they can do so. Who is specified or implied in the following sentences?
2.01 Shut the door!
2.02 Any of you who know Spanish raise your hands.
2.03 Walk this way.
2.04 Let me entertain you.
2.05 Somebody shut him up.
2.06 Never give up, never give up the ship.
2.07 Everyone listen up!
2.08 Don't be frightened, little one.
2.09 Take it off.
2.10 Do it anyway.

Moving On. What makes the imperative sentence imperative is the verb and the form it takes. The verb form used in an imperative sentence is said to represent the imperative mood, and in some languages that mood is indicated by distinctive inflections, changes in the verb's form, often by adding special endings. In English, however, this mood is expressed with the bare base form of the verb, a non-finite (untensed) form like be, go, or brush, the form we use when we talk about verbs as to be, to go, or to brush.. This form is used for many other purposes in English as well, so that recognizing it is not always as easy as one might think. Verbs and their forms are pretty important in English (and most languages), so it is probably time to stop and discuss them.

How Much of This Will be on the Test?
We have now listed the main sentence types of English, exclamative, imperative, declarative, and interrogative, though we have yet to discuss the last two at any length. You should be able to recognize at least the first two by this point. Discussing the imperative form in this section has introduced a number of other terms, like mood and base form of the verb. These will come up again, but if you are puzzled by their use here, look them up in the Glossary.