Imperatives, Modals and Conditionals

Many native speakers of English think that the imperative is simply the simple present tense with the subject you deleted from the sentence, but this is a mistaken belief.  The imperative is actually a separate verb form and carries at least some unique sentence forms.

Since imperatives are sentences directed at listeners, the subject of an imperative sentence is you, the 2nd person.  You may be singular or plural, depending on the number of people the imperative is directed towards.  The main reason many native speakers mistake the imperative for the simple present is that an action verb in an affirmative imperative sentence with an overt subject and a declarative sentence with the affirmative indicative mood in the 2nd person subject do look the same: 1) imperative: You clean that up now! 2) indicative: You clean that up every day after class. 

One of the big differences, however, is that imperative sentences don’t need an overt subject.  It is perfectly okay, and perhaps even preferred, to say Clean that up now! whereas it is ungrammatical to leave the subject out of a declarative sentence: *Clean that up every day after class.  Also, shifting the subject to the right of the auxiliary is acceptable in a negative imperative (Don’t you leave your book there!), but creates a question when used with the indicative (Don’t you leave you book there?). 

Most telling, however, is when the verb is not an action verb, but is the irregular verb Be.  In an imperative, You be good now! the base verb form is used.  In a declarative, the indicative has a wholly different form in order to make a statement, You are good now.  And we see the same in the negative: Don’t be naughty now! takes the base verb form, but You aren’t naughty now takes a conjugated form.  Quite clearly, the imperative is the base form of the verb, and the subject you may or may not be stated.

Grammar Muscle Heads might be wondering about the case when a person’s name is given and whether that means that the subject is in the 3rd person.  It does not: it is possible to say both the person’s name and the subject you in the same imperative sentence. . Example: John, you sit in the front seat, and Beth, you sit in the back. This usage is no different than whenever we say or call out a persons’ name to indicate that we want to speak to that person.  This is sometimes called a direct address or a vocative (to borrow the term from Latin.)

Imperatives, Modals and Conditionals - Page 3