Revisiting the Syntax of English Imperative from a Minimalist Perspective

Abstract

This paper tackles the syntax of English imperatives. It revisits the syntactic structuring of English imperatives from a minimalistic perspective. It investigates what the most appropriate positioning for the imperative verb in English is and what really stirs the structuring of imperative in English. To tackle this topic, this paper implements a descriptive, analytic, qualitative, minimalist-based method. In accordance with minimalism, this paper gives priority to the imperative feature. It comes up with a new projection proposed to be within CP, labeling it 'Imperative Phrase'. The head of this projection is assumed to have an inherently valued and interpreted [Imperative]. This feature, as this paper postulates, is what urges the syntactic derivation of the whole imperative construction.