{"id":195,"date":"2011-05-30T01:55:13","date_gmt":"2011-05-30T06:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/talossan.org\/?page_id=195"},"modified":"2011-05-30T01:55:13","modified_gmt":"2011-05-30T06:55:13","slug":"the-imperative-mood","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/?page_id=195","title":{"rendered":"The Imperative Mood"},"content":{"rendered":"

The imperative mood is used when issuing commands to second-person (“you” and “y’all”) subjects. For example, the English phrases “Come here!” and “Eat your vegetables, children!” are both imperative statements.<\/p>\n

Conjugation of Regular Verbs<\/h2>\n

To form the imperative mood, simply use either the third-person singular (“he\/she\/it”) or the second-person plural (“y\/all”) form of the present-tense conjugations. That is, all regular verbs will have their infinitive -arh<\/strong> ending changed to either -a<\/strong> or -etz<\/strong> when used in an imperative sense. For example, \u00a1menxha!<\/em> and \u00a1menxhetz!<\/em> both are commands to “eat!”.<\/p>\n

Note that it does not matter whether you are commanding a single person (“you”) or multiple people (“y’all”); you may choose to use either one of these forms. However, a recent recommendation holds that the form mimicking the third-person singular may be thought a more polite command\/instruction than is the other form, such that ¡parla Talossan!<\/i> is more emphatic and insistent than ¡parletz Talossan!<\/i> (both = speak Talossan!).<\/p>\n

When it is important to indicate whether the commanded subject is “you” or “y’all”, the subject pronoun is appended after the verb form; that is, the pronoun is used “in inversion”. For example, \u00a1menxha-tu!<\/em> and \u00a1menxhetz-tu!<\/em> are both commands directed to a single person, while \u00a1menxha-voi!<\/em> and \u00a1menxhetz-voi!<\/em> are both commands directed to a group.<\/p>\n

The imperative mood is also a case where object pronouns appear in inversion. However, this usually is not done if a subject pronoun (indicating the recipient of the command) is also being provided. For example, \u00a1tu xhetez-en! <\/em> is considered less proper than \u00a1xhetez-en!<\/em> and \u00a1en xhetez-tu!<\/em> (all = throw it!).<\/p>\n

These simple word-ending changes apply to all Talossan verbs except those that are listed in the next section, which have irregular imperative mood conjugations.<\/p>\n

Irregular Imperative Mood Verbs<\/h2>\n

As stated earlier, the imperative mood usually takes the same form as either of two different present-tense conjugations. This is typically true even of irregular verbs. For example, the imperative forms for s\u00e2parh <\/em>(= to know) are s\u00e4p <\/em>and s\u00e4petz<\/em>. This is not always the case, however; for example, the verb credarh <\/em>(= to believe) has the irregular third-person singular present-tense form crea <\/em>(= he\/she\/it believes), but the imperative is formed without this irregularity: creda <\/em>(= believe!), and credetz <\/em>(= believe!).<\/p>\n

The list below contains those verbs that have imperative forms which are created other than by application of the regular rules to create the two present-tense forms that are used for the imperative. Notice, then, that since estarh <\/em>(= to be), like credarh<\/em>, does not appear in the table below, this means that both of the forms esta <\/em>and estetz <\/em>are proper, even though esta <\/em>(like creda<\/em>) is not used as a present-tense form.<\/p>\n