Imperative Turns at Talk

Abstract

The chapter considers the verbal design of Finnish second-person singular imperative and first-person plural hortative turns, asking whether and how those turns where there is a clitic particle-pA or-pAs attached to the finite verb differ from the non-cliticized turns, and whether-pA and-pAs are used in similar or dissimilar ways. The imperative and hortative turns used in the analysis are drawn from a data set of four violin lessons with a 5-year-old child and her teacher as the participants. All the imperative and hortative turns analyzed were spoken by the teacher to the child. The analysis shows that the non-cliticized imperative or hortative turns and the ones with-pA or-pAs are used differently. The non-cliticized turns are common in contexts where the speaker and the recipient are actively engaged in an ongoing collaboration. The imperative and hortative turns with-pA occur characteristically after the recipient's immediately preceding failures, which need to be remedied for the participants to be able to continue what they are up to. The imperatives and hortatives with-pAs are frequently used at activity transitions, where the speaker demonstrates her right to determine the broader agenda of the participants' joint activity. The chapter suggests that the linguistic design of Finnish secondperson singular imperative and first-person plural hortative turns is informed by the speaker's understanding of the extent to which, and the particular sense in which, the participants' current actions are to be seen as joint ones. While the selection between imperatives and hortatives is warranted by the identity of the agent(s) of the nominated action (whether it is the recipient alone, or both the speaker and the recipient together), it is in and through the choices between the cliticized and non-cliticized formats that speakers invoke and manage the more specific basis upon which the recipient's compliance can be expected.

Managing contingencies in requests: The role of negation in Norwegian interrogative directives

“…As a result, while making a retry (line 06), Ramsy uses an imperative format, which explicitly marks that he expects compliance (Craven and Potter, 2010). This construction is typically used in joint projects in Norwegian (Urbanik, 2017) as well as in other languages (Rossi, 2012;Zinken and Ogiermann, 2013;Sorjonen et al, 2017).…”

Paheksuntaimperatiivi – affektinen lausekonstruktio

“…Suomen permissiivisen imperatiivin tunnusmerkkejä ovat tietyt itsenäiset partikkelit (esim. nyt, vaan, vain, sit(ten), pois, ihmeessä), joilla voidaan ilmaista hienojakoisia merkityseroja (Häkkinen 2003;ISK 2004ISK § 1674Sorjonen 2017;Duvallon & Peltola 2017).…”

<i>Kato. Hulluna puolukoita.</i>

“…Liite partikkeli -pA tekee imperatiivista sävyltään ehdottavan, ja se jättää jossain määrin vastaan ottajan valittavaksi, toteuttaako kehotus tai pyyntö vai ei; -pAs puolestaan merkitsee epä symmetrisessä vuorovaikutustilanteessa (aikuinen-lapsi, ohjaajaohjattava) kehotuksen sellaiseksi, että sen voi toteuttaa ongelmitta (Carlson 1993: 90; VISK § 835). On myös havaittu, että -pAs liittyy imperatiivimuotoon tyypillisesti silloin, kun kyse on siirtymästä edeltävästä toiminnasta seuraavaan (Stevanovic 2017). Tekemään ohjaavissa katopa-vuoroissa puhuja siis vähentää liitepartikkelilla vastaanottajan velvoitetta toimia kehotuksen mukaan.…”

“…Vuoroissa, joilla ohjataan katsomaan tai teke-mään muuta konkreettista, kato on predikaattiverbi, joka imperatiivimuotoisena rakentaa osaltaan direktiivistä toimintoa (esim. Sorjonen, Raevaara & Couper-Kuhlen 2017). Päivittelevä kato taas on partikkeli, ja se voi esiintyä omana vuoron rakenneyksikkönään tai yhdistyneenä pitempään lausumaan (ks.…”