Download - Imperatives and modals

Abstract Imperatives may be interpreted with many subvarieties of directiveforce, for example as orders, invitations, or pieces of advice. I argue that therange of meanings that imperatives can convey should be identified with thevariety of interpretations that are possible for non-dynamic root modals (what Icall ‘priority modals’), including deontic, bouletic, and teleological readings.This paper presents an analysis of the relationship between imperatives andpriority modals in discourse which asserts that, just as declaratives contribute tothe Common Ground and thus provide information relevant to the interpre-tation of epistemic modals in subsequent discourse, imperatives contribute toanother component of the discourse context, the addressee’s To-Do List, whichserves as a contextual resource for the interpretation of priority modals. Thisanalysis predicts that the interpretation of imperatives and modals in discourseis constrained in surprising ways; these predictions are borne out.

Keywords Imperatives � Modality

1 Overview

1.1 Clause types and modals

Complete the analogy Imperatives are to deontic modals as declaratives are towhat? The answer, of course, is epistemic modals. In this paper, I will arguethat this analogy is a very strict one. That is, I claim that we should analyze therelationship between imperatives and deontic modals in a way parallel to how

P. Portner (&)Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University, Washington,DC 20057, USAe-mail: [email protected]

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Nat Lang Semantics (2007) 15:351–383DOI 10.1007/s11050-007-9022-y

Imperatives and modals

Paul Portner

Published online: 13 November 2007� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

we currently think about the relationship between declaratives and epistemicmodals.

I don’t believe there’s much controversy concerning the relationship betweendeclaratives and epistemic modals (though people may prefer to express it interms of different terminologies or frameworks of dynamic semantics). If adeclarative is used to make an assertion, as it canonically is, and this assertion isaccepted in the conversation, the proposition it expresses becomes part of theCommon Ground. What’s in the Common Ground must be used—counted asfactual—in the interpretation of a subsequent epistemic modal. For example(I use A and B to label speakers in a conversation):

(1) A: The floor is all wet.B: It must be raining outside then.

In this example, A’s utterance causes the proposition that the floor is wet tobecome part of the Common Ground. After this, this proposition is amongthe facts which determine the truth conditions of B’s sentence. (There are ofcourse debates in the literature about precisely which propositions are rele-vant to the interpretation of an epistemic modal, but I think all experts onthis topic would agree that propositions in the Common Ground are amongthem.)

If the analogy is correct, our uncontroversial analysis of (1) implies thatthere is something parallel to the Common Ground to mediate the rela-tionship between imperatives and deontic modals. The concept of a To-DoList will do the job.1 According to Portner (2004) the To-Do List of anagent a is a set of properties, and the participants in the conversationmutually assume that a will try to bring it about that he or she has each ofthese properties. Typically the properties correspond to actions (e.g., [kwkx.x goes to the store in w]), and so if we are willing to be a bit imprecise, wecan say that the To-Do List represents the actions that a is committed totaking.2 The argument, then, is that the relationship between imperatives anddeontic modals should be explained as follows: imperatives contribute to aTo-Do List, in particular the To-Do List of the addressee. To-Do Lists are

1 The notion of To-Do List is similar to those of ‘sphere of permissibility’ (Lewis 1979) and ‘planset’ (Han 1998). However, these have not been worked out in terms of the type of ordering semanticsproposed for To-Do Lists (see Sect. 2 below).2 A To-Do List may also have properties like [kwkx. x is happy in w] or even [kwkx. there is worldpeace in w]. Which actions one needs to undertake to make these properties true of oneself is lessclear than in the case of [kwkx. x goes to the store in w], but nevertheless one can be publiclycommitted to trying. Because of properties like these, the name ‘‘To-Do List’’ is a bit inaccurate; itwould be more accurate to call it the ‘‘To-Make-True-of-Me List’’, as pointed out to me by CraigeRoberts (p.c.). But ‘‘To-Do List’’ is more evocative of its pragmatic function.

Note that I’m not taking a stand on whether actions are properties; they may only correspond toproperties. As far as I can tell, properties do the work we need in making sense of the notion of aTo-Do List, and so for purposes of this paper I don’t need to worry about a formal reconstructionof actions separate from properties. See Segerberg (1990) and Lascarides and Asher (2003) forapproaches to imperatives which make crucial use of actions.

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one of the contextual resources which contribute to the interpretation of adeontic modal. An example parallel to (1) is the following:

(2) A: Go present this proposal to our bankers today!B: I should take the 7 a.m. flight to New York then.

If this way of looking at imperatives is correct, we may be able to betterunderstand them by making some imperatives interact in discourse with modalsand then thinking about these modals in terms of a sophisticated theory ofmodality. As we will see in detail in Sect. 3.1, in terms of the theory of modality ofKratzer (1981) we can say that To-Do Lists help determine the ordering sourcefor the interpretation of a class of modals which includes deontic modals. Fornow, we may think of this relationship as follows: at any point in a conversation,there is a contextually salient deontic conversational background O such that, foreach property P on the addressee a’s To-Do List and each w compatible with theCommon Ground, P ðaÞ is in OðwÞ. Moreover, O is very likely to be used in theinterpretation of any deontic modal in the local stretch of discourse.

This link between the To-Do List and interpretation of deontic modalsis analogous to the relationship between the Common Ground and theinterpretation of epistemic modals, but there is an interesting difference.The Common Ground helps determine the modal base—not the orderingsource—for epistemic modals. (Actually, the Common Ground helps determinethe modal base for non-epistemic modals too, as we’ll see in Sect. 3.4.) Thisleads to the picture in Table 1. Such a view of the relationship betweendiscourse semantics and modal semantics is attractive in that it gives grammar afoothold in the conception of the ordering source. That is, whereas Kratzerthinks of the ordering source (like the modal base) as something which bringsinformation from outside of grammar into semantics, we can think of it as atleast sometimes created by grammatical means. Speakers have an explicit wayto affect the ordering source for a deontic modal: they just have to utter animperative.3

If the relationships suggested in Table 1 are correct, we have a canonicalmechanism for building up the modal base (declaratives) and a canonicalmechanism for building up the ordering source for deontic modals (impera-tives); it would provide a nice symmetry if we could find a grammaticalmechanism for helping to determine the ordering source for epistemic modals as

Table 1 Data sources for modal interpretation

Modal base Ordering source

Deontic modal Common Ground + other contextualinformation

To-Do Lists + other contextualinformation

Epistemic modal Common Ground + other contextualinformation

Contextual information(+other?)

3 I thank Chris Barker (p.c.) for bringing this consequence of the proposal into focus for me.

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well. Though this is not the topic of the present paper, I speculate thatevidentials serve this function. To see why, consider Kratzer’s (1981) discussionof the following example:

(3) Das mu� die B€urgermeister-Wei�-Stra�e sein.this must the B€urgermeister-Wei�-Stra�e be‘This must be the B€urgermeister-Wei�-Stra�e.’

The use of ‘must’ here signals that the ordering source is not empty (sinceotherwise the sentence would be stronger than the corresponding one withoutthe modal). The ordering source in question contains information which is heldas less reliable by the speaker, for example ‘‘the route description of a friend, atourist guide, or my own vague memories from years ago’’ (Kratzer 1981: 57).From this description, it seems that it’s the source of information, i.e., theevidential category, which renders such conversational backgrounds less thanfully reliable, and so as appropriate for the ordering source rather than themodal base. At a more abstract level, just as we use deontic modals to combineinformation about what is the case (modal base) with information about what ispreferable (ordering source), we use epistemic modals to combine informationwe’re committed to (modal base) with information that we consider more orless likely (ordering source), and evidentials encode information that helps usjudge in which category a particular proposition fits.

1.2 Varieties of modal meaning

There are many ways to classify modals, but in the literature we commonly findone or both of the following: (A) a two-way distinction between epistemic androot modals, or (B) a three-way distinction among epistemic, deontic, anddynamic modals. I give examples in (4) and a summary of the classifications inTable 2:

(4) (a) It must be raining.(b) (i) John must be sent to prison. (The law says so.)

(ii) Mary should try this brand of chocolate. (She loves dark chocolate.)(iii) Susan should quit her day job. (It’s the only way she’ll realize her

dream of becoming a successful yoga teacher.)(c) Dogs can swim.

Table 2 Terminology for categories of modals

Classification A: Epistemic | Root

Classification B: Epistemic | Deontic | Dynamic

My termsn

Epistemic | Priority | DynamicDeontic Bouletic Teleological

Examples in (4): (a) (b)(i) (b)(ii) (b)(iii) (c)

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Both of these systems of terminology are imperfect for my purposes. Theepistemic/root distinction groups together all non-epistemic modals, and this isnot useful because dynamic modals have no interesting relation to imperatives.The epistemic/deontic/dynamic classification groups modals in the right way,since the deontic group is precisely the one which I want to talk about (the onewith an interesting relation to imperatives), but the term ‘‘deontic’’ is unfor-tunate, because the term is used not only for (4b) as a whole, but also for thesubclass of modals relating to laws, rules, morality and the like, as in (4b)(i).This makes it difficult to talk about the subclasses of expressions which fall intothe ‘‘deontic’’ class, broadly construed. In particular, when we say ‘‘deonticmodals’’, do we mean all of (4b) or just (4b)(i)? Thus, I need a new term. I willcall the entire class of non-dynamic root modals PRIORITY MODALS, covering thesame cases as the ‘‘deontic’’ category of the three-way classfication B. The ideabehind the term ‘‘priority’’ is that some choice is given priority over another. AsI will use the terms, priority modality can be divided into deontic, bouletic,teleological, and perhaps other subtypes.

1.3 Varieties of imperative meaning

Our primary data for exploring the relationship between imperatives andmodals consists in the varieties of meaning displayed by imperatives, forexample orders, invitations, and suggestions:

(5) Sit down right now! (order)

(6) Have a piece of fruit! (invitation)

(7) Talk to your advisor more often! (suggestion/advice)

I don’t want to spend time trying to define terms like order, invitation, andsuggestion. As Davies (1986: 34) says:

While it is often convenient to use labels, like these, it is perhaps worthpointing out that we should not expect to find complete agreement as tohow they should be applied, what precisely is to be called a plea, what anexhortation, and so on. The brief survey which follows is sufficient toshow that among linguists and philosophers the same terms have beenused in very different ways.

Nor do I think that there’s any good way to say what their common ‘‘directive’’meaning is other than the theory presented below in Sect. 3. Rather, I want totalk about the meaning of specific examples with the goal of answering threequestions:

1. What gives rise to the variation in meaning among imperatives?2. What is the correct way to make precise their meanings?3. How does the theory of imperatives relate to that of modality?

One might think that we should simply assign imperatives a general directiveinterpretation, and allow the subvarieties to emerge from pragmatic reasoning


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of the communicative-intentional sort. That is, the speaker counts on theaddressee to be able to determine his/her intention in uttering an imperative,and this will involve figuring out what subvariety of directive force must beintended. While this type of Gricean reasoning certainly plays a role, it cannotbe the whole story. A key piece of evidence for this point concerns the ‘‘psychoboss’’. You’re being sent out of town to a meeting, and your boss says:

(8) Be there at least two hours early.

By itself, (8) can be taken as an order, and if your boss is that kind, you mightwell understand it that way. Next the boss says:

(9) Then, have a bite to eat.

If (8) was taken as an order, (9) is bizarre. You have to take it as an order too,and your boss must be crazy to order you around at that level of detail. Ofcourse it makes sense to interpret (9) as a suggestion, but then you have tointerpret (8) as a suggestion too. Why can’t (8) be understood as an order and(9) as a suggestion? You might think it’s just socially impossible to switch frombeing the ordering-boss to being the suggesting-boss so abruptly, but a parallelsequence with overt operators wouldn’t be odd in the same way as (8)–(9):

(10) a. You are ordered to be there at least two hours early.b. Then, I suggest you have a bite to eat.

I am going to propose an extension of the model of discourse semantics forimperatives given by Portner (2004) and a slight modification of the theory ofmodals of Kratzer (1981) which accounts for these facts. The analysis empha-sizes the connections between the semantics of imperatives and the semantics ofmodals.

1.4 Other topics

At the end of the paper, I will briefly discuss two quite disparate topicsconcerning imperatives in other languages:

1. Modal particles in Badiotto imperatives4

Non-negative imperative sentences in Badiotto must contain one of fourparticles. I will discuss the pragmatic contribution of two of them:

4 Badiotto is a Romance variety spoken in the val Badia, Italy. Study of this variety was undertakeninitially by Raffaella Zanuttini and Cecilia Poletto (Poletto and Zanuttini 2003), and later in col-laboration with the author. The descriptions of the pragmatic contexts in which ma and mo can beused are based on interviews with speakers from several towns within the valley, and represent ouranalysis of what all uses of these particles (within this particular dialect) share. There are two otherparticles which may be used in imperatives, but their interpretations appear to vary more than thoseof ma and mo among the various parts of the valley, and are not discussed here.

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(11) Imperatives with ma express advice, invitation, or permission.You need to eat well, so you can grow up to be big and strong:M�ange-l ma!eat-it ma

(12) Imperatives with mo express an order.We can’t let the food go to waste. You have to finish it, even if youdon’t want to:M�ange-l mo!eat-it mo

2. Embedded imperatives in KoreanKorean allows embedded imperatives, and the theory outlined here will helpus better understand their relationship to the verbs that embed them. Anexample (Miok Pak, p.c.):

(13) Inho-ka Sooni-ekey cip-ey ka-la-ko malha-ess-ta.Inho-NOM Sooni-to home-to go-IMP-COMP say-PAST-DEC‘Inho said to Sooni to go home.’

Also possible are many other matrix verbs, including ceyanhata (‘propose’),ceysihata (‘suggest’), myenglyenghata (‘order’), yokwuhata (‘request’), andcwungkohata (‘advise’).

2 Background on imperative semantics

The Common Ground is a set of propositions representing the information thatis mutually presupposed by participants in a conversation (Stalnaker 1974,1978). The canonical function of declaratives is to add the proposition theydenote to the Common Ground. Parallel to this, others have proposed thatinterrogatives contribute to another discourse component, what Ginzburg callsthe ‘Question Under Discussion Stack’ (Ginzburg 1995a, 1995b; Roberts 1996).Along the lines of Lewis (1979), Han (1998), Potts (2003) and Roberts (2004),Portner (2004) proposes that imperatives are interpreted as contributing to athird discourse component, the TO-DO LIST.

(14) Pragmatic function of imperatives (preliminary version)a. The To-Do List function T assigns to each participant a in the

conversation a set of properties TðaÞ.b. The canonical discourse function of an imperative clause /imp is to

add ½½/imp�� to TðaddresseeÞ. Where C is a context of the formhCG;Q;Ti:

Cþ /imp ¼ hCG;Q;T½addressee=ðTðaddresseeÞ [ f½½/imp��gÞ�i


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Portner (2004) fits this analysis of the meaning of imperatives into a broaderview of the nature of clause typing. Specifically, he argues that the relationbetween /imp and T ðaddresseeÞ does not need to be written down anywhere isthe grammar because it follows from two facts:

1. T ðaÞ is a set of properties, for any participant a. Imperatives denote prop-erties. Therefore the natural way to use /imp to update C is to add it to somea’s T ðaÞ.

2. As a result of the semantics of imperative subjects,5 /imp expresses a propertywhich can only be true of the addressee:

(15) ½½Sit down!��¼ ½kwkx : x ¼ addresseeC: x sits down in w�

Therefore, it would not be sensible to add ½½/imp�� to T ðaÞ for any a other thanthe addressee.

For purposes of this paper, it does not matter whether the fact that animperative is added to the addressee’s To-Do List follows from general prin-ciples, as argued by Portner (2004), or is stated explicitly in the form of (14b).

The To-Do List functions to impose an ordering on the worlds compatiblewith the Common Ground, and this ordering determines what actions an agentis committed to taking (Portner 2004):

(16) Partial ordering of worlds:For any w1;w2 2 \CG and any participant i;w1 <i w2 iff for someP 2 TðiÞ;Pðw2ÞðiÞ ¼ 1 and Pðw1ÞðiÞ ¼ 0, and for all Q 2 TðiÞ; ifQðw1ÞðiÞ ¼ 1; then Qðw2ÞðiÞ ¼ 1.

(17) Agent’s commitment:For any participant i, the participants in the conversation mutuallyagree to deem i’s actions rational and cooperative to the extent thatthose actions in any world w1 2 \CG tend to make it more likely thatthere is no w2 2 \CG such that w1 <i w2.

This analysis is closely related to that of Lewis (1979). In particular, theCommon Ground corresponds to Lewis’ sphere of accessibility and the worldsranked as ‘‘best’’ by the To-Do List correspond to his sphere of permissibility.The theories differ in that the To-Do List does not simply define a set of worlds,like the sphere of permissibility, but rather an ordering. See Portner (2004, toappear) for arguments that an ordering semantics is superior.

5 On the properties of imperative subjects, see for example Schmerling (1975), Platzack andRosengren (1994), Potsdam (1996), Han (1998), Zanuttini (2004).

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The Common Ground and To-Do List are both formally and intuitivelyparallel to the modal base and ordering source, respectively, in Kratzer’ssemantics for modals. In Kratzer (1981), the modal base delimits the set ofpossible worlds which are relevant to the interpretation of a modal, while theordering source orders them according to some standard (e.g., laws, desires,etc.). This is just what the Common Ground and To-Do Lists do at the public,mutually presupposed discourse level. The set of worlds compatible with theCommon Ground are those which will be treated as candidates for realitywithin the interaction, and the To-Do List of each individual will rank thoseworlds according to how successful that individual is in bringing about what heor she is committed to bringing about. One way of seeing the point of this paperis as saying that this parallel between sentence-level modal semantics anddiscourse-level clause-type semantics is a deep one, and not an accidentaltechnical similarity.

3 The relationship between imperatives and modals

The idea that imperatives should have something to do with the interpretationof deontic modals is extremely intuitive. Without any concern for formal the-ories of discourse, one could accept the following description of language use:In some cases, the utterance of an imperative imposes an obligation on theaddressee, and once one has accepted P as an obligation of a, one will have tojudge mustðP ðaÞÞ true (provided that must has the relevant reading, of course,i.e., ‘‘in view of a’s obligations’’). That is, any contextual parameters whichdetermine the truth conditions for sentences with must will have to be adjustedso as to guarantee mustðP ðaÞÞ’s truth. In this section we’ll work towardsa formal model of this relationship between imperatives and modals. InSects. 3.1–3.4, we’ll develop a better understanding of the range of empiricalfacts that need to be explained; then in Sect. 3.5, I will sketch a precise theory.

3.2 Imperative subtypes

The variety of subtypes of imperative clauses parallels the range of interpre-tations of modal verbs, in particular, priority modals. Because the meanings ofmodals and imperatives can be subclassified indefinitely, all that one can do toargue that this parallel is general is to show many motivational examples. Hereare a few; more will appear throughout the rest of the paper:

(18) Sit down right now! (order)Noah should sit down right now, given that he’s been ordered to do so.(deontic)

(19)a. Have a piece of fruit! (invitation)b. Noah should have a piece of fruit, given that it would make him happy.

(bouletic)


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(20)a. Talk to your advisor more often! (suggestion)b. Noah should talk to his advisor more often, given that he wants to

finish his degree. (teleological)

Note that the (b) sentences have uses which don’t just report something Noahshould do, but which in fact create an obligation/invitation/suggestion. That is,the (b) sentences can be used in ways which are rather similar to the (a) sen-tences. These ‘‘performative’’ uses of modals are discussed in Sect. 3.3, but forthe present they are not relevant. Our goal in this section is to compare thesemantics of modal sentences as analyzed within possible worlds semantics withthe pragmatic function of imperatives. On its own, possible worlds semanticsjust delivers truth conditions. Thus, for the time being, it is important to readthe modal sentences only as assertions which could be judged true or false.

In terms of the system of modal interpretation proposed by Kratzer (1981),the deontic interpretation of (18b), the bouletic interpretation of (19b), and theteleological interpretation of (20b) are due to the choice of ordering source. Allthree have realistic (circumstantial) modal bases, but the ordering source of(18b) is a set of requirements, that of (19b) is a set of desires, and that of (20b) isa set of goals. The ordering source ranks the worlds compatible with the modalbase, and (simplifying somewhat) the sentences with should are true iff theprejacent is true in all of the best-ranked worlds among those compatible withthe modal base. This explains the variety of flavors of modal interpretation forthe (b) sentences.

Given the parallel between the meanings of imperatives and the subtypes ofpriority modals, I would like to suggest that To-Do Lists also come in a varietyof flavors in the same way that ordering sources do. We can think of this interms of each participant in a conversation having multiple To-Do Lists or (as Iprefer) in terms of To-Do Lists being organized into sections. Speakingroughly, (18a) goes onto a part of the addressee’s To-Do List which representsorders, (19a) goes onto a part which represents desires,6 and (20a) goes onto apart which represents goals. An utterance of (18a) is an attempt by the speakerto get the property of sitting down right now added to the addressee’s ‘‘deonticTo-Do List’’ similarly for (19a) (‘‘bouletic To-Do List’’) and (20a) (‘‘teleologicalTo-Do List’’).

There is some evidence in English for the grammatical reality of distinctcategories of imperative interpretation. It has been noted by Potsdam (1996)

6 Wilson and Sperber (1988) suggest that permission imperatives are simply imperatives repre-senting something the addressee desires. More recently, Schwager (2005a) has made more or less thissame proposal in terms of a modal semantics for imperatives. This idea seems right to me. I will notdiscuss permission sentences in this paper, since they are such a difficult topic as to require 40 pageson their own. I speculate, though, that the difference between invitations, discussed here, andpermissions is whether it is presupposed that the speaker has the authority to prohibit the act inquestion.

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that English imperatives with an overt you subject signal the authority of thespeaker over the addressee7:

(21)a. Pass the salt!b. You pass the salt!

(22)a. Don’t move!b. Don’t you move!

There is a clear difference between the (a) and (b) sentences here. The semanticeffect of you can be described in terms of the present theory by proposing thatyou is only possible with a particular subvariety or subpart of a To-Do List,namely a deontic one representing the properties which are on the addressee’sTo-Do List on the authority of the speaker. Better evidence, based on data fromBadiotto, that subvarieties of To-Do Lists can be grammatically marked will bepresented in Sect. 4.1 below.

While I want to emphasize the similarities between imperatives (e.g., (18a))and modal sentences (e.g., (18b)), note that I am not saying that their semanticsis the same. The parallel is in the fact that (18a) and (18b) both have to do with‘‘the rules’’. The difference is that the modal (18b) says that sitting down followsfrom the rules, while (18a) is used to make it one of the rules. But the two thingsare connected. If, as I will argue below, the deontic To-Do List is a subset of thedeontic ordering source used subsequently in the same unit of discourse, asuccessful utterance of (18a) will lead to the truth of (18b), provided that theimperative is consistent with everything else in the ordering source and modalbase.8

3.2 Imperatives and modals in discourse

We saw in Sect. 1.3, examples (8)–(9), that a pair of imperatives in discoursevery strongly tends to get a single subvariety of imperative meaning. In light ofthe parallelism between the semantics of imperatives and that of prioritymodals, we can now see that this phenomenon is more general, and applies to

7 Example (21b) is odd without the right kind of annoyed or angry intonation. It’s important not toallow a pause between you and what follows, since this would give rise to a vocative interpretationof you.8 There is a long history of relating different subtypes of imperatives to notions like the speaker’sdesires, goals, and so forth; see Davies (1986) for an overview. More recently, Han (1999) andSchwager (2007) connect this intuition to the ordering source. Han says that imperatives contributeto the ordering source, while Schwager claims that subtypes of imperatives are distinguished by thetype of ordering source they employ. Both of their ideas are similar to those presented here.However, their approaches differ in that they claim that imperatives contain a modal operator,whereas I draw the link more abstractly, through the notion of To-Do List and its connection toordering sources of overt modals; I will argue against their approach in Sect. 3.3 below.


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modals as well. A sequence of priority modal sentences shows a similarrestriction to a sequence of imperatives. For example:

(23)a. You should give more of your income to the poor.b. And you should try this single malt scotch.

(23a) by itself is naturally read with a deontic (moral) interpretation, while (23b)by itself is naturally read as an invitation in view of your desire for pleasure; butin sequence, the two must get the same kind of interpretation. In particular, thelatter is interpreted in terms of the same kind of modality as the former, leadinga rather odd implication that one is morally required to try the scotch.

A sequence with an imperative followed by a modal, or a modal followed byan imperative, is similar as well. Both sentences in the following examples haveordering interpretations, even though the (b) sentences would naturally beinterpreted as suggestions if they weren’t produced in combination with the (a)sentences. This leads to some degree of strangeness for the (b) examples.

(24)a. You must be there at least two hours early.b. Then have a bite to eat in that cute little place on the corner.

(25)a. Be there at least two hours early.b. Then you must have a bite to eat in that cute little place on the corner.

The following ones are interpreted as advice (‘‘in view of your desire to grad-uate’’), as makes sense given the content of the (a) examples, even though the(b) examples are strange on this interpretation:

(26)a. You should talk to your advisor more often.b. And read some comic books.

(27)a. Talk to your advisor more more often.b. And you should read some comic books.

The pattern here is that once a particular subvariety of meaning is selected for animperative, it has a strong tendency to carry over onto subsequent imperativesand priority modals, and once a particular subvariety of interpretation is selectedfor a priority modal, it carries over onto subsequent priority modals andimperatives. That there is a tendency of this kind should not be surprising. Itaccords with the intuition that if we’re reasoning or planning in terms of aparticular kind of priority (to lead a moral life, to enjoy lunch, to escape graduateschool with a Ph.D., or whatever), we should focus on that particular priorityuntil we’re done with it. The priority itself is a topic, in some very loose sense.

I give an account of these patterns in Sects. 3.4 and 3.5. This account is basedon the idea that the semantics of imperatives and that of priority modals arerelated; in particular, the ordering sources used to interpret priority modals arelinked to the To-Do Lists used to represent the meaning of imperatives. Mymain goals in this paper are to show that such a link exists and to understandwhat the semantic analysis of modals and imperatives must be like if we are to

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give a precise account of it. It’s not crucial to this paper what the exact status ofthe link itself is—whether it is the result of a principle of discourse semantics(like the management of the reference time through a discourse, perhaps) or of acommunicative strategy motivated by some general notion of orderliness(something like the conventions of film editing). However, I think that theevidence favors the perspective that it’s a semantic matter, since it’s clear thatthe pattern has to do with imperatives and modals in particular, not with justany sentences concerning what we are ordered to do, what furthers our desires,and so forth. This point is made clear by the fact that (10) is not odd. SeeSect. 3.5 for additional discussion.

3.3 Why imperatives aren’t modal sentences

Given the similarity between imperatives and priority modal sentences, whydon’t we just assume that imperatives contain covert modals (as in, for example,Han (1999) and Schwager (2005, 2007))? That is, why don’t we analyze (18a) assomething very similar to (18b)? The first challenge such an approach needs toget past is certainly familiar: Modal sentences like (18b) can be called ‘‘true’’ or‘‘false’’, while imperatives intuitively cannot. In terms of the proposal here, thisis because a modal sentence is proposed for addition to the Common Ground,while an imperative is proposed for addition to the addressee’s To-Do List.9

Thus, (18b) will be judged false if the rules fail to imply that he sits down. Ofcourse, (18b) has a use which imposes a requirement on Noah, a point which ismore clear in sentences with a second person subject.

(28) You should sit down right now.

We do need to analyze this ‘‘performative’’ use of (28), since it’s not immediatelycaptured by standard semantic analyses ofmodals.With such an analysis in place,we might then say that imperatives contain a modal which can only have aperformative use, whereas regular modals can have either a performative ora non-performative use. This seems to be the intuition behind Han’s andSchwager’s proposals.

The basic problem with this way of looking at things is that once we havecome to understand what the performative use accomplishes over and above thetruth-conditional semantics of the modal, we see that this additional meaning isjust what we need in order to analyze imperatives. The basic, truth-conditionalsemantics of the modal doesn’t contribute at all, and might as well be left out ofour analysis of imperatives. A revealing way of seeing this point comes from therecent work of Ninan (2005). He argues that puzzles concerning the interpre-tation of deontic must in root clauses show that it has a performative, imper-ative-like component of meaning in addition to its ordinary truth-conditional,modal meaning. This means that our ordinary semantics for modals is not

9 The idea that imperatives denote properties is also relevant here, since properties could not beadded to the Common Ground. But I don’t want to insist on this difference in type between modaldeclaratives and imperatives in this section, in order to focus on the more important arguments thatimperatives are not modal sentences.


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going to provide us with an analysis of the function of imperatives. Rather, it’sthe other way around: we need to study how imperatives work, and then thiscan help us understand the performative uses of modals.

Let us look at Ninan’s claims in a bit more detail. He provides two argu-ments that sentences with must have an imperative-like component of meaning.The first argument is based on data like the following (Ninan 2005, (4)–(6)):

(29)a. #Sam must go to confession, but he’s not going to.b. #You must go to confession, but you’re not going to.c. #I must go to confession, but I’m not going to.

Ninan claims that the sentences in (29) may be true, but they are never asser-table. They are not assertable because they actually impose the obligation thatthey report. One cannot felicitously utter a sentence with the intention toimpose an obligation if one knows that obligation will not be met. Thus (29b) isparallel to (30) (Ninan 2005, (11)):

(30) #Go to confession! You’re not going to go to confession.

Examples containing must in (29) contrast with those containing should in (31)(based on Ninan 2005, (1)–(3)).

(31)a. Sam should go to confession, but he’s not going to.b. You should go to confession, but you’re not going to.c. I should go to confession, but I’m not going to.

Must and should contrast because must imposes an obligation as part of itsconventional meaning, while should does not (though if the context is right, itmay do so via implicature). That is, in (29a) by saying Sam must go toconfession the speaker attempts to impose on Sam the obligation to goto confession, and this conflicts with he’s not going to. In contrast, while inisolation Sam should go to confession might be used to impose an obligation onSam via implicature, this implicature cannot arise in (31a) because it wouldconflict with but he’s not going to.

The second puzzle is based on the following data (Ninan 2005, (7) and (8))10:

10 Example (i) is OK and clearly has a deontic meaning.

(i) Sam must have gone to confession by the time I get back.

I believe that (33) can have a deontic meaning as well, if the context makes clear that a reading isintended on which the event time is in the future, along the lines of ‘‘by the time I get back’’. Ninan’sexplanation for the unacceptability of (33) involves the proposal that perfect have in modalsentences is uniformly interpreted as a past tense. However, in light of (i), this proposal is untenable.Instead, the perfect form has its aspectual meaning in this example, whatever that is (see Portner2003 for a recent discussion). The problem with (33) is that it is difficult to get a reading in which theevent time follows the speech time, and given this, the sentence is unacceptable because one cannotimpose an obligation concerning the past (just as Ninan says). In contrast, with the adverbial by thetime I get back, or in the right kind of context, it is possible for the event time to follow the speechtime, and thus the deontic reading is acceptable. There is a puzzle as to why it is extremely difficultto have the event time follow the speech time in the absence of an adverbial, but this turns out to bea general issue with the semantics of the perfect. See Portner (2003) for discussion.

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(32) Sam should/ought to have gone to confession. (Deontic readingavailable.)

(33) Sam must have gone to confession. (Epistemic reading mandatory,deontic reading unavailable.)

This pattern is explained because one cannot impose an obligation concerningthe past. If Sam went to confession, there’s no point in imposing the obligation,and if he didn’t, there’s still no point.

Moreover, Ninan argues that these properties of must only apply tounembedded occurrences. Embedded must contributes to the compositionalsemantics of the sentence it’s a part of by means of traditional modal truthconditions.11

(34) Since John must go to confession, he should find a church soon.

This shows that must has truth conditions, though they are obscured inunembedded contexts.

Since it seems that must has an obligation-imposing function, in addition to atraditional truth-conditional semantics, as part of its conventional meaning, thenext question is what the nature of this obligation-imposing reading is. Ninanproposes tomodel it in terms of the notion of To-DoList (Portner 2004). Thus, heexplains (29a) as follows: uttering the sentence places the property of going toconfession on Sam’s To-Do List. But one cannot place a requirement on some-one’s To-Do List while at the same time asserting that it will not be met, andtherefore the sentence is anomalous. What’s important here is that the ordinary,truth-conditional semantics for the modal does not play a role in explaining thepatterns in (29) and (30). Rather, the independent imperative-like meaning does

11 The contrast between unembedded and embedded deontic must is probably related to the puzzlesconcerning the interpretation of epistemic must. There are arguments that epistemic must is anevidential and/or doesn’t contribute truth conditions (e.g., Halliday 1970; Lyons 1977; Drubig 2001;Bennett 2003); see von Fintel (2003) for general discussion and especially the point that thesearguments seem to fail in light of the fact that embedded occurrences of epistemic must clearly docontribute to truth conditions. I suspect that unembedded occurrences of deontic and epistemicmust are special in precisely the same way, adjusting for the differences between deontic andepistemic modals. The crucial questions are then: (a) in what way they are special, and (b) why onlyunembedded occurrences are special in this way. In light of my suggestion above that evidentialcategories can be used to determine the ordering source used for epistemic modality, we couldanswer (a) by saying that must in a root clause always performs a special speech act with the clause ittakes as argument. In a deontic example, this speech act is imperative-like, as proposed by Ninan. Inan epistemic example, the speech act would relate to evidentiality. A lot of work remains to be doneto turn this intuition into an analysis. See Lyons (1977), von Fintel (2003), Papafragou (2006),Swanson (2006), Portner (2007, to appear), among others, for more on the idea that epistemicmodals have a complex analysis at the level of speech acts.


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the job. We cannot get away without a method of representing what it means toimpose an obligation, with the To-Do List or some similar notion.12;13

The lesson of this section is that it is not helpful to analyze imperatives asmodal sentences which only have a performative use. A modal which only had aperformative use might as well not be called a modal at all. The performativeaspect of its meaning, modeled as the addition of its prejacent to the To-Do Listor in some other way, would explain everything that needs to be explainedabout its meaning. In addition there are no overt modals whose sole function isto update a To-Do List (even must has modal truth conditions as well, asdemonstrated by its use in embedded contexts). For these reasons, we’re betteroff simply saying that an imperative’s only role is to add to the To-Do List.

3.4 The relationship between To-Do Lists and conversational backgrounds

3.4.1 General discussion

Before we attempt to improve the formal model of imperative interpretation,there are a couple of questions that must be addressed:

1. How do the subtypes of To-Do Lists relate to one another? Are theyseparate, or are they extracted out of a unified To-Do List which combinesrequirements of various kinds?

12 Ninan discusses a problem which arises for his proposal with the following, his (22):

(i) The Pope must change his position on contraception.

How can I utter (i) if I’m in no position to impose an obligation on the Pope? His intuition is that inuttering (i), I impose (perhaps rhetorically) an obligation on myself, or on myself and myaddressee(s), to do something to get the Pope to change his position. It has the feeling of thebeginning of a manifesto or a rallying-cry. I think that Ninan’s idea concerning (i) becomes moreplausible if we relate it to (19a) or (20a). It seems that must shifts to a bouletic or teleologicalmeaning here, just as an imperative or a sentence with should can. To my mind, (i) is most plausiblyunderstood with a teleological meaning: in view of the goal of protecting women’s health in poorercountries..., or some such conversational background.13 Schwager (2007) sketches a modal analysis of imperatives which aims to deal with their performativecharacter. As mentioned above, she proposes that imperatives are modal sentences which only have aperformative use. In explainingwhy they only have a performative use, she places three requirements onthe conversational backgrounds used by the hypothesized imperativemodal. The first is that the speakerhas exhaustive knowledge about each of these conversational backgrounds. This point does not seemplausible, as it implies that the speaker has exhaustive knowledge of the addressee’s preferences, goals,and desires. The second and third are described in a single sentence each (p. 9 in online version):

Second, we require that the ordering source is preference related, in order to rule out orderingsources like what the speaker takes to be most plausible, etc.Third, the speaker has to affirm the ordering source in c as a good maxim for acting in the givenscenario.

While the second point is unproblematical, the third is both crucial and difficult to understand.What is‘‘a goodmaxim for acting in the given scenario’’? (I don’t think ‘maxim’meansGriceanmaxim here, butneither does the dictionary definition seem appropriate.) I suspect that if this notion is developed in amore precise way, it will amount to treating the ordering source as a To-Do List.

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2. What is the relationship between the subtypes of To-Do Lists and theconversational backgrounds that can function as ordering sources?

As for question #1, I think it makes more sense to have a unified To-Do Listand select out relevant subsets of it when necessary. At the heart of imperativesemantics is the definition of when an agent is behaving rationally and coop-eratively, relative to their commitments and the Common Ground. This is whatI attempt to formalize in (17). More concretely, by doing things this way we canmake clear why it’s odd to give conflicting imperatives even when they are ofdifferent subtypes (unless you have changed your mind, of course), as shown inexample (35). This pair of sentences cannot be coherently uttered by a singlespeaker; in contrast, the corresponding pair of modal sentences, (36), isperfectly fine (though (36) reports an unfortunate situation):

(35) Stay inside all day! (order)#Since you enjoy the nice weather, go out and play a little bit.(suggestion)

(36) In view of your obligations, you ought to stay inside all day.But in view of what you want, you ought to go out and playa little bit.14

I would explain (35) by saying that it results in an inconsistent To-Do List.However, one might also look at it as showing (once again) that it’s hard toshift from an ordering imperative to a suggesting imperative. That is, theargument here is only good to the extent that the second sentence in (35) canhave a suggestion reading in the context of the first sentence issuing an order.Though two imperatives uttered in sequence strongly prefer to get the samevariety of meaning, a change is of course possible if enough time intervenes:

(37) [Morning] Write up a report on your trip to New York! (order)[Time spent working; friendly chat over water cooler; etc.][Lunch time] Have a cookie! (suggestion)

Even imagining a situation in which the first sentence of (35) is uttered in themorning and the second in the afternoon, so that the first is an order and thesecond a suggestion, the pair can only be taken to imply that the speaker haschanged his or her mind. Otherwise, it is odd because the speaker has giveninconsistent imperatives, and the difference between an order and a suggestionseems not to reduce the sense of inconsistency.

14 The pattern with modal auxiliaries is interesting, somewhere in between imperatives and ought to:You should/must stay inside all day. . . : But in view of what you want, you ?should/*must go outand play a little bit. The fact that the examples with must are bad follows from Ninan’s (2005)analysis.


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3.4.2 Declarative—Common Ground—epistemic modal

A question parallel to #2 is what the relationship is between the CommonGround and an epistemic conversational background. As far as the dynamics ofconversation go, one is committed to treating everything in the CommonGround as part of the epistemic conversational background when evaluating anepistemic modal. Thus the following is odd:

(38) A: The book is not in the library.B: Yes. #Maybe it’s on the fourth floor of the library.

However, one is not committed to supplying every proposition relevant to theinterpretation of an epistemic statement to the Common Ground:

(39) A: The book must be in the library.B: Why do you say that? I couldn’t find it there.A: I can’t say more, but trust me, it must be in the library.

I conclude that the Common Ground should be a subset of any epistemicconversational background.

3.4.3 Declarative—Common Ground—priority modal

The situation is parallel when we look at the relationship between theCommon Ground and the realistic (circumstantial) modal base used withpriority modals. Here are some examples involving a teleological reading ofshould:

(40) A: The book is not in the library.B: Yes. #You should look for it on the fourth floor of the library.

(41) A: You should look for the book on the fourth floor of the library.B: Why do you say that? I couldn’t find it there.A: I can’t say more, but trust me, you should look there.

3.4.4 Imperative—To-Do List—priority modal

Now we turn to the relationship between an imperative and the orderingsource for a priority modal. We’ll focus on a deontic case; the bouletic andteleological examples work similarly. There is a wide variety of deontic con-versational backgrounds modeling obligations in view of the law, tradition,morality, etc. Therefore, we expect that patterns like the ones we’ve beenlooking at should be unacceptable if the modal uses an ordering source whichmatches the interpretation given to the imperative, and acceptable with other

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kinds of ordering sources. Our first expectation is borne out; example (42) isbad as expected.15

(42) A: Pay your taxes!B: OK. #Should I pay my taxes?

(OK here is meant to indicate that B accepts what A said.) As we’ve seen inSect. 1.3, it is very difficult to switch to an ordering source for the modal whichdoes not match the interpretation of the imperative. That is, if the imperative isseen as representing the law, for example, the modal very strongly prefers areading based on what’s necessary in view of the law; if the imperative is seen asrepresenting what’s morally correct, the modal strongly prefers a parallelinterpretation. Because of this, examples (43) and (44) are nearly as bad as (42)even though the difference in kind between the To-Do List and the orderingsource is explicit and the contrast is overtly marked.

(43) A: Pay your taxes!B: OK. #But in view of my moral obligations, should I pay?

(44) A: Pay your taxes!B: OK. ?#But in view of my MORAL obligations, should I pay?

If the imperative has an explicit phrase indicating the subvariety of directiveforce it has, the sequence becomes more acceptable:

(45) A: Given that you’ll go to jail if you don’t, pay your taxes!B: OK. ?But in view of my MORAL obligations, should I pay?

It seems that the given that phrase in A’s utterance somehow indicates that thelife-span of the particular variety of directive force used by the imperative isrestricted to the sentence itself. For reasons of space, I don’t develop a theory ofphrases like those introduced by given that or in view of in this paper, but Ithink one should be able to get the right effect by treating them as localoperators on the modal parameters of interpretation, like if-clauses.16

If we don’t use a modal auxiliary but rather form our modal sentences withhave to or need to, the examples are generally better:

(46) A: Pay your taxes!B: OK. #Do I need to pay my taxes?

(47) A: Pay your taxes!B: OK. ?But in view of my moral obligations, do I need to pay?

15 If the individual to whom the obligations are relevant is changed, there are no restrictions:

(i) A: Pay your taxes!B: OK. Does everyone need to pay their taxes?

16 One might also try to explain this effect in terms of a hypothesized need for a symmetriccontrastive focus in this context: the imperative must contain something overt for MORAL to contrastwith, and this element must itself be focused.


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(48) A: Pay your taxes!B: OK. ?But in view of my MORAL obligations, do I need to pay?

It seems that modal auxiliaries are in some way more closely tied to the To-DoList than periphrastic expressions like have to and need to. I’m not sure what tomake of this contrast, but I would note that in general modal auxiliaries seem tobe more closely tied to discourse-level interpretive processes than periphrasticexpressions of modality. The discourse function of must, adding a property to theTo-Do List, is an extreme example of this pattern.17 In the rest of this paper, I willcontinue to focus on the relationship between imperatives and modal auxiliaries.

The pattern outlined above suggests the following generalization:

(49) Within a sequence of sentences in a conversation, the To-Do Liststrongly tends to be a subset of any deontic ordering source focusingon the same individual.

We can view this pattern as arising from two factors:

1. The To-Do List of a particular variety (e.g., my legal obligations) must be asubset of any deontic ordering source of the same variety. (This is parallel tothe relationship between the Common Ground and an epistemic/realisticmodal base.)

2. Within a sequence of sentences, it is difficult, and sometimes downrightimpossible, to employ a To-Do List of one variety and a deontic orderingsource of another variety. (This is simply a restatement of the observation inSect. 3.2 that within a sequence of sentences all of the imperatives andpriority modals strongly tend to have the same subvariety of meaning.)

The facts discussed in this section show that we need a way of talking aboutTo-Do Lists and ordering sources which allows us to state precise constraintson their natures and the relationships between them.

3.5 An extension of the model of imperative interpretation

In this section, we’ll develop a formal model of imperative interpretation which,in combination with a slighly adjusted version of the semantics for modalspresented by Kratzer (1981), provides an explanation of the facts discussed sofar. Here are some concepts we’ll use:

(50) A conversational background cb is a function from worlds to sets ofpropositions (Kratzer 1977, 1981).

(51) A To-Do List function T assigns a set of properties TðaÞ to anyparticipant in the conversation a.

17 The discourse orientation of modal auxiliaries is probably what descriptive linguists have in mindwhen they talk about the ‘‘subjectivity’’ of modals. See Palmer (2001) and Portner (to appear) for adiscussion of subjectivity in deontic modals.

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At a particular world, a conversational background gives us a set of proposi-tions. We’re going to need to select out subsets of these sets:

(52) A selection function f is a (possibly partial) function taking two arguments,a world w and a set of propositions S, and returning a subset of S.

(53) A parameterized selection function h is a (possibly partial) functiontaking n arguments (n > 2), namely n� 2 individuals, a world, and aset of propositions S, and returning a subset of S.

We can describe a selection function as deontic if it meets the followingdescription:

(54) For any world w and set of propositions S, if deonticðw;SÞ is defined,deonticðw;SÞ ¼ fp : p 2 S ^ p expresses an obligation in wg

Note that deonticðw; SÞmay be partial. We do not insist that it is able to select theobligations from any arbitrary set of propositions. Rather, in order to be usefulfor present purposes, it is sufficient that it be able to select the obligations fromthe kinds of sets that it encounters in the course of interpretation. In particular,deonticðw; SÞ must be defined when w is a world compatible with the CommonGround and S is the result of applying a conversational background to w.18

18 A reviewer asks a question related to the partiality of selection functions. He or she points outthat if ‘‘p expresses an obligation in w’’ is taken as a primitive predicate, we might think we couldgive the semantics for must p as follows: must p is true in w iff p expresses an obligation in w. Thiswould render our entire complex modal semantics unnecessary. However, my intention is not tosuggest that we have an understanding of a function that can determine (without any recourse tomodal semantics) whether an arbitrary proposition is an obligation in w or not. Rather, we cangrasp a function which selects, from the kind of sets cbðwÞ which arise in the course of semanticinterpretation, those members of cbðwÞ which are obligations in w.

For example, in a conversation about where we should park, the context might determine acbðwÞ which has among its members some of the parking regulations which apply to our car in thistown. Our understanding of the situation is sufficient to allow us to select out these regulations usingdeontic. The meaning of We must not park on the sidewalk would then involve this set, but forfamiliar reasons it cannot be reduced to checking whether p (i.e., We do not park on the sidewalk) isone of the propositions in the set. Indeed, it is unlikely that p is a member of cbðwÞ, since the town’sparking regulations probably don’t mention us in particular, and may only preclude sidewalkparking indirectly and in certain circumstances, through the interaction of a number of interrelateddefinitions, regulations, and exceptions. The meanings which we assign to modal expressions,involving logical relations like entailment and the interaction between modal base and orderingsource, are designed to squeeze the right consequences out of this set.

Thus, with regard to the issue raised by the reviewer, selection functions have the same status asconversational backgrounds within Kratzer’s theory. For example, in her system the conversationalbackground indicated by in view of what the law provides does not include every proposition whichexpresses a legal requirement. That would be too much to ask of a contextual parameter. Rather, itjust gives a set of laws. In fact, one could recast my proposal by replacing selection functions withconversational backgrounds of a special sort. Such a conversational background h would return aset of propositions and properties at each world w, and hðwÞ would be intersected with T ðaÞ orcbðwÞ.


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In this paper, the real work is going to be done by parameterized selectionfunctions. Here are some examples:

(55) For any individual x, world w, and set of propositions S:a. if it is defined, deonticxðw;SÞ ¼ fp : p 2 S ^ p expresses an

obligation of x in wgb. if it is defined, bouleticxðw;SÞ ¼ fp : p 2 S ^ p expresses a

desire of x in wgc. if it is defined, teleoxðw;SÞ ¼ fp : p 2 S ^ p expresses a goal

of x in wg

Selection functions will be used to interpret both modals and imperatives.Therefore, because I’m assuming that a To-Do List is a set of properties, not aset of propositions, we’ll need to allow selection functions to select from setsthat include properties or propositions:

(56) For any individual x, world w, and set of propositions or properties P:a. if it is defined, deonticxðw;PÞ ¼ fy 2 P : y expresses an obligation

of x in w _ yðxÞ expresses an obligation of x in wgb. if it is defined, bouleticxðw;PÞ ¼ fy 2 P : y expresses an desire

of x in w _ yðxÞ expresses an desire of x in wgc. if it is defined, teleoxðw;PÞ ¼ fy 2 P : y expresses an goal

of x in w _ yðxÞ expresses an goal of x in wg

When it is used to interpret an imperative, the individual argument of aparameterized selection function is always the addressee. I will refer toparameterized selection functions, for example deonticx, as ‘‘selection func-tions’’ too. I typically use h as a meta-logical variable over selection functions.Thus, depending on context, h could refer to a simple selection function (e.g.,deontic), a parameterized selection function (deonticx), or a selection functionformed from a parameterized selection function and its individual argument(deonticaddressee).

Of course, in the end we will need to define many more finely grainedselection functions than deonticx, bouleticx, and teleologicalx; for example, thediscussion of overt you subjects of imperatives suggests that we need to rec-ognize a subvariety of deontic selection function which picks out those prop-ositions which are on the addressee’s To-Do List by virtue of the authority ofthe speaker (approximately, ‘‘orders’’). But because my goal in this paper is todevelop a framework for imperative semantics that lets us understand variationin imperative meaning and the relationship between imperatives and modals indiscourse, and not to develop a comprehensive classification of imperativemeanings, I will not spend time trying to describe particular selection functionsin a precise way. Rather, I’ll frame this discussion mostly in terms of generalcategories like deontic, bouletic, and telelogical. (Section 4.1 examines preciselywhich selection functions we need to understand grammatically marked sub-types of imperatives in Badiotto.)

With these resources in mind, we are now ready to improve upon ourformalization of the pragmatic function of imperatives. Intuitively, an

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imperative updates T ðaddresseeÞ, and the property expressed by the imperativeis selected by hðw; T ðaddresseeÞÞ for the salient selection function h. This updatepotential is defined in (57):

(57) Pragmatic function of imperativesThe canonical discourse function of an imperative clause /imp is as follows.Where C is a context of the form hCG;Q;T; hi:

a. Cþ /imp is defined only if haddresseeðw;TðaddresseeÞÞ is defined, forevery w 2

TCG.

b. Provided that it is defined, Cþ /imp ¼ hCG0;Q;T 0; hi, where:(i) T 0 is just like T except that T 0ðaddresseeÞ ¼

TðaddresseeÞ [ f½½/imp��g; and(ii) CG0 ¼ CG [ ffw 2 \CG : for any set of properties S, if

haddresseeðw;SÞ is defined, ½½/imp�� 2 haddresseeðw;SÞgg.

A brief aside concerning the precise way in which (57) has been formulated:point (57b)(ii) defines the part of the conversational update which ensures thatthe property expressed by the imperative is selected by the selection function. Itaccomplishes this by restricting

TCG to worlds such that haddresseeðw; SÞ selects

½½/imp��. An alternative approach would be to change the selection function hdirectly, updating h to h0 where h0 is defined as being just like h except thath0addressee selects ½½/imp��. Suppose that we have a selection function h appropriatefor defining orders, and as a result /imp is used to give an order. These twoapproaches differ fundamentally in the status they assign to the fact that ½½/imp��is subsequently an obligation (of the ‘‘order’’ subtype). The approach in (57)views it as a fact about the world; this is why I can make sure that ½½/imp�� isselected by restricting the set of relevant worlds: these are worlds in which ½½/imp��is in fact an obligation of the right sort. The alternative approach views it as afact about language, in particular the structures we build up in the discoursemodel. On this latter approach, the selection function doesn’t identify inde-pendently existing obligations; rather, the fact that it selects a property is whatmakes that property an obligation.

Some analogies might be useful. When I use language to give an order, is thislike:

1. The fact that a person has a given name—a social fact which can be broughtabout by a speech act (We name this baby ‘‘Benjamin.’’)?

–or–2. The fact that a discourse referent exists and is accessible—a language fact

which is true because of the properties of the discourse model?

I believe that the first option is correct. In order to formalize the secondapproach, the discourse model would have to incorporate a specific set ofselection functions as part of its basic structure: one modeling obligations in


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general, another modeling orders, a third modeling advice, and so forth. Onlythen would we have a place in the discourse model in which to represent theprecise status of ½½/imp��. But the range of interpretations we can distinguish formodals and imperatives cannot be specified in advance as a grammaticalmatter, as pointed out by Kratzer (1977) in the case of modals. Nevertheless,though I think the approach in (57b) is correct, as far as the main goals of thispaper go either approach will do, and readers are free to consider in the place(57b) an alternative definition which relies on modifying h.

In light of the definition of the pragmatic function of imperatives in (57), wecan represent the differences among the following sentences in terms of theselection functions they may most plausibly be used with19:

(58)a. You sit down right now!! h ¼ deonticaddressee

b. Have a piece of chocolate!! h ¼ bouleticaddressee

c. Talk to your advisor more often!! h ¼ teleoaddressee

If the addressee accepts any of (58), the property expressed becomes acommitment in the sense that it becomes a member of his or her To-Do List.Moreover, it becomes pragmatically presupposed that the property is selectedby the selection function. For example, (58a) will result in a context in whichsitting down right now is on the addressee’s To-Do List, and in which it ispragmatically presupposed that sitting down right now is an obligation of theaddressee.

In order to analyze the relationship between imperatives and priority modalsin discourse, we will use selection functions to interpret modals as well. I willfollow the approach laid out in Kratzer’s work, and so context must providetwo conversational backgrounds, f and g. Thus, a context is of the formhCG;Q; T ; h; f ; gi. The basic idea is that we will implement the modal semanticsof Kratzer (1981) using f as the modal base and ½kw:hðw; gðwÞÞ� as the orderingsource. More accurately, when the selection function is parameterized, it musttake an individual argument, and this function in combination with g forms theordering source. In many cases this individual is the referent of the subject, andthen the selection function should be formed by letting a h take the referent of

19 In the interest of expository vividness, we can make up some terminology for fine-grainedselection functions which gives a sense of exactly how these examples are interpreted:

(i) (58a): h ¼ speaker-authority-deonticaddressee(ii) (58b): h ¼ short-term-pleasure-bouleticaddressee(iii) (58c): h ¼ career-goal-teleoaddressee

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the modal’s subject as argument, as h½½subject��, reflecting the fact that it’s thisindividual’s obligation which is at issue.20 Thus the ordering source is½kw � h½½subject��ðw; gðwÞÞ�. In these terms, should may be analyzed as follows (basedon Kratzer 1981: 47–48):

(59) ½½should��C ¼ ½kPkxkw: f is a realistic conversational background, andg is a prioritizing conversational background . for all u 2 \fðwÞ, thereis a v 2 \fðwÞ such that

(i) v �hxðw;gðwÞÞ u, and(ii) for all z 2 \fðwÞ: If z �hxðw;gðwÞÞ v, then z 2 PðxÞ�.

(A ‘prioritizing’ conversational background is one appropriate to a prioritymodal, that is, one which speakers use to assign priority to one action orsituation over another. It includes deontic, bouletic, and teleological back-grounds.) Should uses a realistic modal base and a pragmatically salient subsetof a prioritizing conversational background as ordering source; some likelycandidates would be the subject’s obligations or desires. For example, in (60) weprobably initially think of an interpretation that uses deonticJohn as the selectionfunction:

(60) John should leave.

It is also possible to use bouleticJohn and teleoJohn as selection functions here(among others), given the right contexts.

20 It is an open issue in the literature whether non-epistemic modals take their subjects as anargument. Moreover, it is frequently assumed that if they take their subject as an argument, theyshould be described as control predicates, and that if they do not, they should be described asraising predicates. See for example Ross (1969), Jackendoff (1972), Brennan (1993), Bhatt (1998),Wurmbrand (1999), Hacquard (2006), Portner (to appear).

The formulation of should’s semantics in the text is based on the assumption that should has ameaning on which it takes its subject as an argument. It clearly also has a reading on which it doesnot, as shown be availability of expletive subjects:

(i) There should be less poverty in the world.

In the literature on deontic modality, several distinctions have been made which are relevant tothe question of whether priority modals sometimes take their subject as argument: First we have thedifference between ‘ought-to-do’ and ‘ought-to-be’ deontic modals (e.g., Feldman 1986; Brennan1993). Ought-to-do deontics are said to describe an obligation of their subject, while ought-to-be deontics are said to describe a situation as simply better or preferable. And second, we have adistinction between imperative-like/performative deontics of the kind discussed in Sect. 3.3 andother deontics (Ninan 2005; Hacquard 2006; Portner to appear). Hacquard identifies the ought-to-be deontics with the imperative-like ones; however, this may be problematical as (i) seems to be anought-to-be deontic, but doesn’t have an imperative-like character. The natures of and relationshipbetween these two distinctions is not yet fully understood. See Portner (to appear) for furtherdiscussion. In this paper, I cannot address the range of issues concerning the syntax and argumentstructure of priority modals. If some priority modals take their subjects as argument, the correctsemantic representation is like the one given in the text. If some are imperative-like, the selectionfunction should take the addressee, rather than the subject, as its argument. If there existnon-imperative-like modals which don’t take their subject as argument, they should use anon-parameterized selection function, e.g., deontic, rather than deonticx.


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We are now in a position to see an explanation of the relationship betweenimperatives and deontic modals in a sequence of sentences. We need thefollowing two principles21:

(61) ‘Conversational backgound contains To-Do List’Given a context of the form hCG;Q;T; h; f; gi, for all participants in theconversation a, for all P 2 TðaÞ; and for all w 2 \CG;PðaÞ 2 gðwÞ:

(62) ‘Same selection function’The selection function strongly tends to remain the same through a unitof discourse.

I don’t know how to define a ‘‘unit’’ of discourse for the purposes of (62), buttwo-sentence sequences and exchanges like those in examples like (23)–(27) and(42)–(48) would count as a unit by anyone’s definition. A few comments are inorder concerning the status of the principles in (61) and (62). Are they gram-matical principles or some kind of less rigid tendencies (communicative strat-egies, in some sense)? The answer to this question in the end depends on twomatters. First, the data: does the link between the interpretation of an imper-ative and a priority modal in discourse show a sensitivity to discourse structureakin to that displayed by ostensibly grammatical phenomena like the accessi-bility of discourse referents, or does it hold only to the extent that it serves thecommunicative interests of the participants in the conversation? And second,can one or both of these principles be motivated by considerations external togrammar? That is, if they are strategies, they should be deducible from thepragmatic principles which describe how speakers strategize in general. In anycase, it is not crucial to this paper to decide on the status of (61) and (62). Mygoal has been to develop the theories of imperative and modal semantics in sucha way that the relevant principles can be stated.

I will illustrate how the principles in (61) and (62) serve to explain the data bylooking at some examples. We begin with (43), repeated below as (63).According to (61), the proposition that you pay your taxes must be part of theconversational background for should.

(63) A: Pay your taxes!B: OK. #In view of my moral obligations, should I pay?

To interpret A’s utterance, B had to be able to figure out what selectionfunction was intended, and B’s OK signals that she thinks she was able to figureit out. At this point, if B intends to use the same selection function for theinterpretation of should, there is no point in adding the in view of phrase. Itwould be redundant. If, in contrast, B intends to use a different selection

21 I’m leaving aside consideration of the ordering sources used by epistemic modals. I don’t thinkthat this principle applies to them, and so ultimately we may want the context to contain threeconversational backgrounds: hCG;Q; T ; h; f ; gpri; gepisi.

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function, the use of in view of would make sense, but this intention wouldconflict with the requirement that the selection function remain the samethrough a unit of discourse. Either way, B’s utterance is predicted to be prag-matically anomalous. Note that it’s acceptable for B to respond to A’simperative by inquiring about which selection function is intended:

(64) A: Pay your taxes!B: Are you telling me to pay my taxes in view of my moral obligations,

or my legal obligations?

Here B has indicated that she is not certain which selection function A intendedfor the imperative, and so there is no conflict with the in view of phrase.

Taking away the in view of phrase leads to a different kind of problem:

(65) A: Pay your taxes!B: OK. #Should I pay my taxes?

Given (61) and (62), A’s utterance entails that the answer to B’s question is‘‘yes’’. B’s utterance is anomalous because nobody who understood what A saidwould need to ask the question.

If the subject of the modal sentence is not the addressee, there is no conflict:

(66) A: Pay your taxes!B: OK. Should John pay his taxes?

Even though principle (61) implies that the proposition that B pays his taxes isin the conversational background used to interpret should, this proposition willnot contribute to the ordering source because the selection function will notselect it. The selection function will not select it because its individual parameteris the addressee (i.e., B) in A’s utterance and John in B’s; that is, in the one casewe use deonticB while in the other we use deonticJohn. At an intuitive level, thefact that B should pay his takes does not imply anything about whether Johnshould, so the question makes sense.

4 Further connections

Imperative particles in Badiotto

Data from the central Rhaetoromance language Badiotto provides evidence forthe kind of subtyping of imperatives which this analysis provides. Everyimperative in this language must contain one of five particles: negation, ma, mo,pa, and po. I’ll focus in particular on two particles, ma and mo, since theircontributions are clearer than those of pa and po.


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1. Ma

Ma is used in imperatives that give advice or permission, for example(Poletto and Zanuttini 2003: (8) and (10)):

(67)a. M�angel ma che spo cr€esceste.eat-it ma that then grow (2nd sg)‘Eat it and you’ll grow.’

b. T�ete ma n d�e de vacanza!take-yourself ma a day of vacation (2nd sg)‘Take a day off for vacation!’

c. Va ma tres ad€erta fora!go ma always straight ahead (2nd sg)‘Keep going straight ahead!’

(68)a. *Puzen�eime ma ciamo i cialz�a!clean-me ma yet the shoes‘Polish my shoes!’ or ‘You still have to polish my shoes!’

b. *Arjigneme ma c�a le bagn!prepare-me ma here the bath‘Get my bath ready!’

2. MoMo is used to give an order (Poletto and Zanuttini 2003: (12)):

(69)a. Puzen€eieme mo ciam�o i �cialz�a!clean-me mo yet the shoes‘Polish my shoes!’ or ‘You still have to polish my shoes!’

b. Arjigneme mo c�a le bagn!prepare-me mo here the bath‘Get my bath ready!’

Poletto and Zanuttini (2003) describe imperatives with ma as being ‘‘from thepoint of view of the hearer’’ and sentences with mo as being ‘‘from the point ofview of the speaker’’. That is, the examples with ma seem to describe actionswhich benefit the hearer, while those with mo describe actions which benefit thespeaker. In terms of the ideas discussed so far, we can restate this as follows:

(70)a. Imperatives with ma are interpreted with respect to the selectionfunctions bouleticaddressee or teleoaddressee.

b. Imperatives with mo are interpreted with respect to the selectionfunction deonticaddressee.

22

22 Probably a more specific selection function is required in order to capture the concept of an orderrelevant here. We may want to select just the set of requirements imposed by the speaker. Thoughmore fieldwork is required in order to fine-tune the semantics, it should be clear how the frameworkcould capture a variety of subtle distinctions.

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Example (67b) is bouletic, examples (67a) and (67c) are teleological, andexamples (69a) and (69b) are deontic.

It is also possible to reconstruct the ‘for the benefit of the hearer’ analysismore directly. We can introduce a new selection function:

(71) benxðw;PÞ ¼ fy 2 P : y benefits x in w _ yðxÞ benefits x in wg

In terms of such a selection function, we have:

(72)a. Imperatives with ma are interpreted with respect to the selectionfunction benaddressee.

b. Imperatives with mo are interpreted with respect to the selectionfunction deonticaddressee.

I do not propose that mo requires benspeaker because we have no clear examplesof mo being used in a request, that is, in an imperative which expresses a courseof action which is for the benefit of the speaker, but which is not an order. Anexample would be (73):

(73) Please, help me!

Further fieldwork should reveal whether mo is better described as ‘‘deontic’’ or‘‘speaker’s point of view’’.

4.2 Embedded imperatives

A number of languages allow imperative clauses to be embedded. We’ll focuson Korean data here (data from Miok Pak, p.c.)23:

(74)a. Inho-ka Sooni-ekey cip-ey ka-la-ko malha-ess-taInho-NOM Sooni-to home-to go-IMP-COMP say-PAST-DEC‘Inho said to Sooni to go home.’

b. Inho-ka Sooni-ekey cip-ey ka-la-ko ceysiha-ess-taInho-NOM Sooni-to home-to go-IMP-COMP propose-PAST-DEC‘Inho proposed to Sooni to go home.’

c. Inho-ka Sooni-ekey cip-ey ka-la-ko myenglyengha-ess-taInho-NOM Sooni-to home-to go-IMP-COMP order-PAST-DEC‘Inho ordered Sooni to go home.’

d. Inho-ka Sooni-ekey cip-ey ka-la-ko yokwuha-ess-taInho-NOM Sooni-to home-to go-IMP-COMP request-PAST-DEC‘Inho requested that Sooni go home.’

23 While Han (1998) claims that imperatives cannot be embedded in Korean, Shim et al. (1977), Pak(2004), and Pak et al. (2004) show that they can be.


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The matrix verbs which can embed imperatives cover the range of forces thatimperatives may have in root sentences. What I want to consider here is how theselection function can play a role in the interpretation of embedding structureslike these. An interesting way to look at this involves the idea that the matrixverbs in (74) select ‘‘monsters’’ (Kaplan 1989), roughly as in Schlenker (2003):

(75)a. ½½s say to h /imp�� =fw : C is a context representing what ½½s�� says to½½h�� in w ^ C þ ½½/imp�� ¼ Cg

b. ½½s order to h /imp�� = fw : C is a context representing what ½½s�� saysto ½½h�� in w ^ hC ¼ deonticaddresseeðCÞ ^ C þ ½½/imp�� ¼ Cg

The semantics of say is open as to what type of selection function is usedto interpret its complement. In contrast, order requires a deontic function(or some subspecies thereof). Parallel to this, suggest, propose, request andthe like would place their own restrictions on the selection function. In this way,we can see these verbs as imposing subvarieties of imperative force on theircomplements.

Of course it would be possible not to treat the embedding verb as selecting amonster in this way. We could just treat the property expressed by the imper-ative as an argument of the matrix verb in the usual way. This would not saythat there’s anything special about an embedded imperative. It might as well bean embedded subjunctive or infinitive. However, the imperative form does notbehave as subjunctives and infinitives typically do; it can only be used withdirective matrix verbs. We can account for this restriction by saying thatimperatives can only be interpreted via that ‘þ’ defined in (57), with (75)showing how an embedding predicate can take advantage of that. In otherwords, the property expressed by an imperative clause cannot be the argumentof any operator other than þ, and this means that they will always havedirective force with respect to a real (‘‘root’’) or derived (‘‘embedded’’) context.I’m not sure why this restriction would hold, but it would explain the fact thatfew languages allow imperatives to be embedded, and the fact that whenimperatives are embedded, it’s under directive verbs.

5 Conclusion

This paper has made two main empirical contributions. First, it has shown thatparallels exist between the varieties of directive force which imperatives mayconvey, on the one hand, and the varieties of priority modal interpretation,on the other. And second, it has demonstrated that these parallels affectinterpretation in discourse; the way you interpret an imperative affects theinterpretation of subsequent imperatives and modals, and the way you interpreta modal affects the interpretation of subsequent modals and imperatives. Onthe theoretical level, it has analyzed these connections in terms of a link betweenTo-Do Lists and ordering sources and a selection function which picks outpragmatically coherent subsets of To-Do Lists and ordering sources. Using the

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selection function, we keep track not just of what we should do, but moreprecisely of what we should do because it’s an obligation, because we wantit, because it’s useful to our purposes, and so forth. The fact that these cate-gories are both cognitively and interactionally real is demonstrated by theirimportance to both modals and imperatives.

I would like to conclude with some thoughts on how this analysis ofimperatives contributes to semantic and pragmatic theory. A basic question forpragmatic theory concerns the practical foundation which drives our explana-tion of pragmatic phenomena. We talk for many reasons, but which reason, orreasons, should be represented in formal pragmatic models? Semanticists oftenconsider the goal of conversation to be the exchange, and hopefully growth, ofinformation. The concept of Common Ground models this feature of discourse;the field’s history of focusing on declaratives and, to a lesser extent, interrog-atives confirms this understanding of what is central. Once we take the prag-matic contribution of imperatives seriously, however, our perspective on thegoals of conversation shifts. Conversation is also about planning and coordi-nating action; sharing and increasing the information at our disposal is part ofthis, but at some point we have to form a commitment to act. Often we try toimpose such a commitment on someone else or make explicit our own com-mitments; the To-Do List models this aspect of conversation. Priority modalsallow us to reason about possible future actions. But no matter what conclusionone may reach about the necessity of a particular future action, this is not thesame thing as publicly committing to it. Modality relates to Common Groundand imperatives to the To-Do List, and neither should be reduced to the other.

Subvarieties of directive force and subvarieties of modal interpretationparallel one another because we care about particular kinds of rationale foraction (e.g., authority, desires, goals). The fact that it is difficult to switch theselection function within a unit of discourse shows that we tend to focus on oneparticular kind of rationale for action at a time. We pick a selection functionwhich represents the type of rationale we’re interested in. For example, if we’retalking about what we should do in light of certain goals, we’ll pick a teleo-logical selection function. Then, we’ll reason about it (using modals, amongother means) and plan in light of it (using imperatives, among other means).

I wonder whether the way we manage the selection function will ultimatelyhave to be modeled in terms of some kind of recursive structure, just as analysesof interrogatives in discourse have shown that the question under discussioncan spawn subquestions under discussion (Ginzburg 1995a,b; Roberts 1996).On the one hand, just thinking about the nature of planning may lead one toexpect that we might start with a high-level selection function (our goal is to eatdinner) which then leads to lower-level selection functions (our goal is to cooksome dumplings). But on the other, the nature of clause type systems acrosslanguages is not encouraging. Whereas we have two universal clause typesdevoted to exchanging information, declaratives and interrogatives, we onlyhave one, imperatives, devoted to making commitments to action. Moreover,this type is typically limited to the addressee’s actions; we don’t universally havecanonical ways of committing the speaker or third parties to do something


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(though the existence of exhortatives in many languages and promissives inKorean shows that there are more constructions to be studied; see Pak et al.2004, 2006). So perhaps our ability to use language to coordinate what we’regoing to do is fundamentally impoverished compared to our ability to talkabout what is the case. That might explain a lot.

Acknowledgements This work is part of a project undertaken with Raffaella Zanuttini and MiokPak on the nature of clause types, and I thank both of them for much insightful discussion. It hasbeen partially supported by NSF grant BCS-0234278 ‘Clause types: Form and force in grammaticaltheory’. I also thank audiences at SALT 14 and the Fourth Workshop on Discourse Structure at theUniversity of Texas at Austin, and two anonymous reviewers, for some very helpful comments.

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