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Special sentence types Conclusion

المؤلف:  PAUL R. KROEGER

المصدر:  Analyzing Grammar An Introduction

الجزء والصفحة:  P214-C11

2026-01-21

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Special sentence types Conclusion

Our strategy for describing the structure of the special sentence patterns has been to start with a more “basic” pattern, i.e. one which is not special in any of the ways we have been discussing. We take positive, declarative, pragmatically neutral clauses as the basic form, then describe the ways in which imperative, interrogative, or negative sentences differ from these. Some of the features that are frequently relevant include verb morphology, special clitics or particles, word order, and into nation. Content questions always involve the use of a special question word, and may or may not require any additional marking.

The formal properties of imperative and interrogative clauses are clearly related to the nature of the speech acts which they typically express. This is especially clear in the case of imperatives: when one person gives a direct command to another, the speech situation itself makes the specification of tense and actor/subject redundant. However, function alone cannot provide a complete account of linguistic form. Our grammatical description of these constructions will include some features that seem arbitrary and others that seem to be functionally motivated, all working together as part of a single coherent system.