Re: Third-person imperatives - how do they work?

[Jonlang]

Second person imperatives are pretty simple and I'm told that English first person plural imperative is basically the construction "let's X", but what about third person? I'm struggling to think of something which sounds like a third person imperative.

[Soap]

It's basically "let him sleep!", "let them eat! " etc... with the different interpretations of the verb "let" also being valid interpretations of the 3rd person imperative. My conlangs also have a 1st person imperative... "let me go!" And such. Spanish has this in the plural only.

This might be common in prayers .... "let him be happy" ... and obscenities .."let him eat sh--t"... when the subject is not the listener.

[linguoboy]

Second person imperatives are pretty simple and I'm told that English first person plural imperative is basically the construction "let's X", but what about third person? I'm struggling to think of something which sounds like a third person imperative.

Languages which use third-person forms for direct address have to have some way of forming third-person imperatives. Spanish, for instance, uses forms which are identical to the subjunctive, e.g. ¡Mira! "Look!" (2s fam) vs ¡Mire! "Look!" (3s/2s form).

[mèþru]

"should" can be thought of as a modal verb for the imperative. By the way, I think that 1st and 3rd imperative is usually considered a separate mood called the jussive.

[linguoboy]

By the way, I think that 1st and 3rd imperative is usually considered a separate mood called the jussive.

Depends on your analysis. It may make sense for languages like Spanish where there's a means of forming second-person imperatives that's distinct from the use of mandative subjunctive forms for other persons. In English, I'd be more inclined to speak of a jussive construction incorporating the irrealis mood.