Optimizing the future: imperatives between form and function

The aim of this paper is to get rid of a nasty ambiguity between commands and permissions associated with imperatives (necessity/constraining of options vs. possibility/widening of options). I argue that a uniform semantics in terms of necessity together with certain assumptions about the context can account for the different effects on the pragmatic side. The difference is explained by employing either a speaker or a hearer centered ordering source, together with basic assumptions about speaker and hearer interests. if you like-phrases frequently found in permission imperatives are analysed as indicating a hearer centered ordering source and filtering out one of the presuppositions required for a permission usage. It is argued that any in imperatives constitutes only an apparent contradiction to a necessity semantics for imperatives. 1 The Janus face of imperatives Studies in various areas of linguistics have noticed that across the languages of the world imperatives come with a puzzling range of illocutionary potential (cf. Palmer 1986, Merin 1991, Rosengren 1992). Not only do they vary in expressing commands (the default interpretation for (1a)), warnings, wishes, requests, but they are also found to express permissions (1b) and permission-like concessives (1c):