Lil' or no irrealis marking

[Pole, the]

I seek information on languages that either:
(1) have no separate morpheme for imperative and don't use zero marking, or
(2) have all imperative and irrealis moods conflated into one, or
(3) have no imperative marking, using irrealis instead, or
(4) use no irrealis marking at all.

Do such languages exist? Any info of them and/or examples would be greatly appreciated.

[zompist]

English? There are some pseudo-subjunctive bits in the formal language, but I'd say there are plenty of modern dialects that lack them.

Not sure what you mean about imperative.

IIRC Mandarin doesn't have anything that can be described as irrealis.

[Pole, the]

English uses zero-marking for imperatives, so it does not count as 1 nor 3, and has a separate conditional auxiliary ("would"), failing at 2 and 4.

Maybe I'm unclear. The first variant means that there are no dedicated morphemes used only for imperatives, but the concept is otherwise viable (in other words, there is no element glossing directly to IMP in such construction; an analogical example could be "I am going to do it" used for future in English).

However, thank for the reply. I'll try to find something about Mandarin.

[Xephyr]

English? There are some pseudo-subjunctive bits in the formal language

I don't see how "if I were you..." and "it's important that he take it" are either pseudo or formal.

[zompist]

English? There are some pseudo-subjunctive bits in the formal language

I don't see how "if I were you..." and "it's important that he take it" are either pseudo or formal.

The "pseudo" part in that I'm not sure I believe these aren't the past tense and the infinitive. The English 'subjunctive' never actually has a form of its own. (Of course you can have syncretic forms, but it just seems suspicious if a whole verb mood is nothing but syncretic forms.... makes me think grammarians were too anxious to make it look like French and Latin. Plus, using tensed forms with modal or irrealis meanings is not uncommon.)

And the "formal" part because lots of people are perfectly content to say "if I was you" and "it's important that he takes it".

[clawgrip]

English? There are some pseudo-subjunctive bits in the formal language

I don't see how "if I were you..." and "it's important that he take it" are either pseudo or formal.

The "pseudo" part in that I'm not sure I believe these aren't the past tense and the infinitive. The English 'subjunctive' never actually has a form of its own. (Of course you can have syncretic forms, but it just seems suspicious if a whole verb mood is nothing but syncretic forms.... makes me think grammarians were too anxious to make it look like French and Latin.

There is of course "thou wert" which is subjunctive only and contrasts with the regular past tense "thou wast" but maybe this is too archaic for what you're saying (though you did say "never")?

[zompist]

Yes, that's archaic. I'm talking synchronically.

[Niedokonany]

I believe Esperanto counts as (3). But you're probably more interested in natlangs... Hungarian uses the (overtly marked) subjunctive mood as an imperative.

[Pole, the]

I believe Esperanto counts as (3). But you're probably more interested in natlangs... Hungarian uses the (overtly marked) subjunctive mood as an imperative.

Esperanto does indeed distinguish between parolus vs parolu. However the latter one seems to be described as more generic "volitive mood", so it might count.

I have to get a look at Hungarian.

[Niedokonany]

I believe Esperanto counts as (3). But you're probably more interested in natlangs... Hungarian uses the (overtly marked) subjunctive mood as an imperative.

Esperanto does indeed distinguish between parolus vs parolu. However the latter one seems to be described as more generic "volitive mood", so it might count.

The -u ending is used in sentences of the type: I want him to go, though. I've got no faintest idea why Zamenhof considered this a 'simple' or straightforward solution but apparently this is how it works. Some references:

1
2
3

[Ser]

I seek information on languages that either:
(1) have no separate morpheme for imperative and don't use zero marking, or

French is an almost perfect example of that, once you forget about its conservative spelling. Its present indicative serves as an imperative. E.g. /ty-ɛm/ 'you love' and /ɛm/ 'love! (sg.)', /vuz-ɛme/ 'you guys love' and /ɛme/ 'love! (pl.)'.

And I say "almost" mainly because the language does have three verbs, all highly stative, where the present subjunctive serves as an imperative for the 2P singular instead: /ɛtʀ/ 'to be', /avwaʀ/ 'to have', /savwaʀ/ 'to know'. (The present indicative serves as an imperative for 2P plural as normal though.) You could pull off some analysis that the imperative is simply syncretic with either the present indicative or the present subjunctive, but I think that's unnecessary.

One real weak point for this analysis is liaison in the 2P.SG present indicative as opposed to the imperative. In particularly high registers of French, it's possible to add a /z/ before an object that is not pronoun, something not really expected for the 2P.SG imperative. Contrast /ty-ɛm(z) ameli/ 'you love Amelie' and /ɛm ameli/ 'love Amelie!'. The 2P.SG imperative does in fact have a liaison with /z/ too, but only before a pronominal object: contrast /ɛml-ø/ 'love him!' and /ɛm-z-ø/ 'love them'.)

(2) have all imperative and irrealis moods conflated into one, or
(3) have no imperative marking, using irrealis instead, or

Obviously not what you're looking for, but Latin could use the tenses called present subjunctive and perfect subjunctive as imperatives...

What's the difference between (2) and (3) anyway? (Yes, I read your reply to Zompist, and I did not understand it.)

(4) use no irrealis marking at all.

Mandarin is indeed an example of such a language. There's no particular aspect particle that can be nicely called irrealis. I want he tell me; we go now; if I be a rich man all day I send biddybiddybum sound; if I know this I not would've do it; I [am searching] for a can-see-me doctor...

I think you get the idea.

[Richard W]

The "pseudo" part in that I'm not sure I believe these aren't the past tense and the infinitive.

I'm inclined to make the latter imperative, at least in my speech. Oddly enough, I seem to lengthen the 3s verb as though there were a silenced ///z///. This may be a consequence of switching from the indicative to the infinitive/imperative as a teenager. I know the latter's subjunctive because it doesn't follow the sequence of tenses in my idiolect.

On the other hand, 'I were' is definitely subjunctive in my idiolect.