Upon the Imparative

Abstract

In this article, one of the controversial topics in Turkish grammar, the imperative was handled. There were studies on showing different viewpoints on the structure of the imperative and its inflection, and expressing these differences in various types in both written and oral way in the literature. These studies were searched and were categorized generally under two different viewpoints in the study. Some linguists claimed that the inflection of the imperative comprised of 1., 2. and 3. person singular and plural subjects by referencing historical resources of Turkish. However, the others asserted that the imperative only consisted of 2. and 3. person singular, and 2. and 3. person plural subjects, in other words it included four inflections by stating that 1. person singular and 1. plural subject’s additions were the optative. Therefore, they did not accept 1. person singular and 1. plural subjects as the imperatives. Firstly, the concept “the imperative” was defined, and then its structures and declension in the historical period were analysed in this study. In addition, the imperative’s controversial usage in today’s’ Turkish grammar were dealt and its similarities with the optative were questioned. Lastly, some suggestions for its usage were developed with a brief discussion about the study findings. The additions and inflections of the imperative were investigated in the historical period based on various resources in the study. Almost all these resources focused on the imperative from the six personal pronouns. The declension of the imperative was formed according to the six personal pronouns in all resources in Old Turkish, Old Anatolian Turkish, Ottoman Turkish and almost all Turkish dialects. Today, there are some linguists following this declension style and understanding. As these resources were transferred with written forms and they followed each other, there were very few different viewpoints on the usage of the imperative in those resources. Unlike this viewpoint, with the transformation of Turkish in Turkey, there occurred some differences in language word heritage and also in its natural transformation period. Therefore, most of the grammar books written in this period accepted the viewpoint that the imperative included the declensions of both 2. and 3. singular and plural subjects. These linguists did not include the declension of the imperative for 1. person singular and 1. plural pronouns by agreeing that an individual can not order him/herself. With a constant development process in languages, the grammar of Turkish language shows some structural and usage differences, too. One of these developments is the differences in the usage of the imperative. The distinct reason of this difference is the confusing usage of the imperative and the optative. Investigating this difference with Turkish language’s language logic, stress and intonation will be more plausible way of searching instead of thinking the effects of foreign languages over Turkish. This point was described with citations and the examples given in Turkish language’s teaching process. In sum, the findings reached from the resources about the inflection of the imperative were presented and some suggestions were developed with deep analyses in order to shed light on the controversial usage of the imperative in Turkish. In addition, the resources were narrowed not to widen the entire text in this study.