Kai von Fintel will present work with Sabine Iatridou at the department colloquium on March 9, 3:30 in Machmer E-37. Reception to follow in 3rd floor lounge. Dinner to be hosted by Angelika Kratzer. A title and abstract follow.
"Imperative Puzzles"
Work by Kai von Fintel and Sabine Iatridou
Abstract:
Imperatives, which are prototypically used to issue commands, can also be used to give permissions:
(1) A: May I open the window? B: Sure, go ahead, open it!
Further, imperatives can serve as quasi-conditional antecedents in "left-subordinating conjunctions":
(2) Study hard and you will pass the class.
(3) Ignore your homework and you will fail the class.
(4) Open the paper and you will find 5 mistakes on every page.
We show that these phenomena present severe challenges for all existing theories of imperatives. We lay out desiderata for a successful analysis and speculate on ways of getting there. Along the way we present data from English, German, and pretty much every language spoken on the Mediterranean Rim.
