대한언어학회 전자저널

Lee, Saeng-Keun. (2018). English imperatives and Aktionsart. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 26(3), 179-200. This paper focuses on imperative sentences in English and accounts for the interaction of the imperative and the inherent lexical aspect of verbs (Aktionsart). Since Vendler (1957), it has largely been assumed that state and achievement verbs are incompatible with imperatives (e.g. *Know the answer and *Recognize John). However, it is not so difficult to find imperatives that are resistant to this line of analysis (e.g. Think about getting a job and Find the cat). The present study argues that verbs commonly or rarely occurring with the imperative correlate with (i) controllability and (ii) the process element of meaning, depending on certain contextual factors. More specifically, the common imperative verbs typically take a human subject as agent, actively controlling the action (or state) expressed by the verb. In this account, state verbs like appreciate, desire, know, like and want take a human subject as experiencer rather than agent, and thus they rarely occur with the imperative. The second condition specifies that verbs must have a process leading to a culmination to be permitted to occur in imperatives. Thus, the verb find, although it is classified as an achievement having the feature [+punctual], can be used in imperatives whenever it has a process of searching that is controlled by agent. In conclusion, the paper demonstrates that imperatives can only be used in contexts in which verbs satisfy these two conditions together.

# 명령문(imperatives) # 어휘상(Aktionsart) # 상태 동사(state) # 달성 동사(achievement) # 통제가능성(controllability) # 과정(process) # 문맥(context)

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