Imperative constructions are typically used in clauses that are directive in nature, i.e. intended to persuade the addressee to bring about or maintain a certain state of affairs. They function as commands, requests, advice, encouragement, and so on; cf. Fortuin (2003/2004). Commands and requests differ from advice and encouragement in that compliance with the former would benefit the speaker, whereas compliance with the latter would benefit the addressee. Commands differ from the rest in that they usually involve a hierarchical relation between speaker and addressee, while the others need not; cf. Van Olmen (2010).

In earlier work, like Vendler (1957) and Dowty (1979), it was claimed that the imperative is only possible with certain aspectual verb classes. For example, verbs like weten/kennento know denoting states were shown to be either unacceptable as imperatives or to lead to readings in which the addressee is encouraged to perform activities which may have little to do with the imperative verb in question (e.g. to engage in philosophical debates about life in general), but which may ultimately lead to the state denoted by the verb.

However, Section 1.2.3, sub III, has shown that all aspectual types can be used as imperatives, provided that the addressee is able to control the state of affairs denoted by the verb in question. We give another set of examples in (166).

A special form of directive use may be the use of imperatives as discourse markers used as a means to organize the discourse; they may be used to introduce a new topic or to announce a further explanation, as in (167a&b), to interrupt the speaker, as in (167c), to announce a turn-taking, as in (167d), and so on.

Imperatives are also sometimes possible when the addressee cannot control the event denoted by the verb, in which case the construction typically reads as a wish or a curse, as in the (a) and (b)-examples in (168).

A special kind of wish is expressed by the so-called success imperative, in which the imperative is followed by the element ze, which is normally used as a third-person plural pronoun. However, it is not very likely that we are dealing with a regular object pronoun in the success imperative, since ze is clearly non-referential and can also occur with intransitive verbs such as slapento sleep in (169b').

The success imperative is used in contexts where (i) the addressee has the intention to perform a certain activity and (ii) the speaker expresses the wish that this activity will be performed to the satisfaction of the addressee; cf. Coppen (1998). Coppen adds that the activity must be approved by the speaker, but it seems likely that this can be inferred simply from the fact that the speaker wishes the addressee success. Finally, Coppen suggests that the activity in question must be of a habitual nature; it is impossible to say spring ze!jump well to someone who is planning to jump off a table he happens to be standing on, but it would be perfectly acceptable to say it to someone who is planning to go springboard diving. However, the habituality of the activity denoted by the verb does not seem absolutely necessary, since one could easily say Kook ze!Enjoy your cooking! to someone who has never cooked before but wants to try it. The restriction may therefore be aspectual in the sense that the activity must be durative or iterative; we leave this open for further research.

The cases discussed so far can be seen as directive in an extended sense of the word, but there are also non-directive uses of the imperative. Consider the conjunction constructions in (170); cf. e.g. Kraak & Klooster (1968:276), Proeme (1984), Fortuin (2003), and Fortuin & Boogaart (2009). These examples are still directive in nature, but the more salient meaning aspect of these constructions is conditional: if the addressee performs the activity denoted by the imperative verb, the event mentioned in the second conjunct will take place. The imperative form is underlined.

In (171), structurally similar examples are given in which the directive interpretation has completely disappeared. In fact, these constructions are peculiar in that the implied subject no longer refers to the addressee, but is interpreted generically; we are dealing with more broadly applicable generalizations.

In fact, it is even possible to use imperatives in conditional constructions that would be unacceptable in isolation. Although example (172a) is infelicitous in an imperative reading, since the subject is normally unable to control the property denoted by the individual-level predicate blond haar hebbento have blond hair, it can be used as the antecedent (i.e. the if-part) of the conditional construction in (172b); cf. Boogaart (2004) and Boogaart & Trnavac (2004).

We refer the reader to Section C38.4.1, sub IC/D, for a detailed discussion of examples of the sort in (170) to (172), and to Section C38.4.1, sub IIC/D, for similar cases with the disjunctive coordinator ofor.

Non-directive imperatives can also be used to invite the addressee to empathize with the event, as in (173). Such examples also have a conditional flavor; the addressee is invited to interpret the imperative clause as the antecedent of an implicit material implication and to work out the consequence (the then-part) for himself.

In the conditional constructions discussed so far, the imperative functions as the antecedent of the implied material implication, but it can also function as a consequence, as shown in (174).

These constructions, which are typically used in narrative speech, have the interesting property that the presumed imperative form in the consequence can be in the past tense if the finite verb in the antecedent is also in the past tense.

The same applies to constructions in which the imperative is part of the antecedent of the material implication. In a story about his military service, the speaker can easily use an example such as (176); cf. e.g. Proeme (1984) and Wolf (2003).

In fact, example (176) contains not only an imperative verb in the past tense, but also an imperative past-perfect construction. The latter construction is more often used with a special meaning cf. Duinhoven (1995) and Van Olmen (2013). Consider the examples in (177a&b), which are counterfactual in nature; the event denoted by the main verb has not taken place, and at the time of utterance this has some undesirable consequence. Such examples are mainly used as a means of reprimand or expression of regret, and are therefore more or less equivalent to the if only-constructions given here as translations.

The situation is reversed when the imperative clause contains the negative adverb nietnot, as in (178): the event denoted by the verb did take place, and it would have been better if it had not.

Past-perfect constructions like (177) and (178) share the property of more regular imperatives that they require that the addressee has the potential to control the state of affairs denoted by the verb; examples such as (179) are semantically anomalous and can at best be used as a kind of pun. Constructions like (177) and (178) seem to be closely related to past-perfect constructions with a counterfactual interpretation, discussed in Section 1.5.4.2, sub VII.

Proeme (1984) and Duinhoven (1997) claim that counterfactual imperatives also occur with a slightly more aggressive touch in the simple past, as in the primeless examples in (180), but some people consider such examples degraded and much prefer their past-perfect counterparts in the primed examples; cf. Van Olmen (2013: fn.11) . The reason for this contrast may be that the past-perfect tense is better suited to express current relevance than the simple past; cf. Section 1.5.3 for discussion.

However, some speakers can also use the simple past tense to express an irrealis meaning. The examples in (181) both function as advice, but the past tense variant in (181b) additionally expresses doubt on the part of the speaker as to whether the advice will be followed. For a more general discussion of the relationship between past tense and irrealis, see Section 1.5.4.1, sub VII.

Finite subjectless imperatives are typically formed by the stem with the null morpheme -Ø. In the formal register, it is also possible to mark the imperative as plural by adding a -t ending. This is a relic from earlier stages of the language; in colloquial speech, it has survived only in fixed expressions such as (184b).

The reason why we call these imperative verbs finite is that they occur sentence-initially; while non-finite verbs always follow verbal particles and complementives, the examples in (185) show that the imperative forms under discussion must precede them.

Imperative clauses are always main clauses. This means that they can only be embedded as direct reported speech, as can be seen from the contrast between the two examples in (186).

By occupying the first position in their sentence, finite imperatives differ markedly from indicative verbs in declarative clauses, which are usually preceded by some constituent; cf. Section 11.2.3. This means that there is no wh-movement in imperative clauses, as illustrated for topicalization by the contrast between the two examples in (187). Note, however, that there is language variation in this respect, since verb-second imperatives do occur in the eastern Dutch dialects (as well as in German). For a discussion of verb-second imperatives see Barbiers (2007), Koopman (2007) and Van Alem (2023).

However, we see in (188) that bare imperatives can be preceded by left-dislocated elements, which are arguably external to the main clause; cf. Section C37.3. This is indicated by the fact that they are separated from the main clause by an intonation break and are repeated in the sentence by the resumptive pronoun het. Note that the resumptive pronoun can be omitted, at least marginally, in imperatives (but not in declaratives).

The marked possibility of omitting the pronoun in (188b) may be related to the fact that subjectless finite imperatives are special in that they more generally allow the omission of the object: so, while the object must be present in the declarative clause in (189a), it can easily be omitted in the imperative clause in (189b).

Example (190b) shows that if the direct object is not overtly realized in its canonical position in the imperative construction, it can optionally be expressed by a right-dislocated phrase; cf. Den Dikken (1992) and Visser (1996). Example (190a) shows that this does not help to save the declarative clause without an object in the canonical object position. For completeness’ sake, note that right dislocation is also possible in imperatives when the object is present: cf. Zet het terug in de kast, dat boek!Put it back on the shelf, that book!.

Since the finite verb is the first element in the sentence, the subject is expected to follow. However, the examples above have already shown that this expectation is not fulfilled because the subject is suppressed. This does not mean that the subject is syntactically absent. That they are syntactically present can be seen from the fact that it is possible to use anaphors like je(zelf)/u(zelf)yourself and elkaareach other, which would normally require an antecedent in the same clause; cf. Chapter N22 on anaphor binding. The form of these anaphors shows that the empty subject is marked for second person, but underspecified for number and politeness features; cf. Bennis (2006/2007).

Note in passing that the reflexive in (191a') can be either strong or weak, which is surprising since the strong reflexive jullie is not normally found in inherently reflexive constructions. The exceptional use of jullie may be licensed in this context because it is the only way to express plurality overtly. This would also explain why it cannot be used if the imperative follows a vocative, as in Hé, jullie twee, gedraag je!Hey, you two, behave yourselves!.

The examples in (192) show that the pronouns jij, jullie and u can sometimes be used with finite imperatives. However, they do not function as subjects, but as vocatives (which take the nominative case by default). This is clear from the fact that (i) at least the primeless examples are unacceptable without an intonation break (due to the lack of subject-verb agreement), (ii) the pronouns can occur in the right periphery of the sentence and (iii) the pronouns can all be easily replaced by a proper noun or an epithet; cf. Kom eens hier, Jan/sukkel(s)!Come here, Jan/idiot(s)!.

Subjectless finite imperatives can also be used to express general rules. This means that the implied subject can be interpreted like the non-referential second-person pronoun jeone in statements such as (193a). In this interpretation, the use of a vocative leads to a degraded result.

Because subjectless finite imperatives tend to be relatively short and because they begin with a contrastively accented finite verb, they can sound quite unpleasant to the addressee. For example, most speakers will find the objectless example in (194), repeated from (189b), quite uncomfortable. However, Dutch has a number of discourse particles, such as maar in (194b), which can make such an example more “hearer-friendly” by weakening the imperative force: whereas (194a) would normally be interpreted as an order, (194b) would rather be seen as a friendly suggestion. Although such particles also play a role in licensing the imperative-like constructions discussed in the following construction, we will not discuss them here, but refer the reader to Foolen (1993) and Van der Wouden (1998) for more detailed discussions.

The examples in (195) finally show that Dutch freely allows negative imperatives with all event types; telic cases like (195c&d) can sometimes be interpreted as warnings, but more directive interpretations are also possible: Lees dat boek maar niet!Do not read that book!. In this respect Dutch differs sharply from languages like Italian, which do not allow finite imperatives with negation, as shown in *Non lava-tiDont wash (yourself)’; cf. Postma & Wurff (2007: §2.2.1) for discussion.

In addition to bare finite imperatives such as Ga weg!Go away, Dutch has finite imperatives like those in (196); such imperatives have a finite verb marked for person and number in sentence-initial position, as well as an obligatorily overt subject in the regular subject position, i.e. immediately after the finite verb. The subject pronouns are special in that they must be strong, i.e. they cannot be reduced phonetically; replacing the strong form jij in (196a) with the weak form je leads to a degraded result; *Ga je eens weg!

The examples without a subject after the finite verb in (197) are ungrammatical in the intended reading; the number sign in (197a) indicates that it can be interpreted as a bare imperative of the kind discussed in Subsection A; cf. Bennis (2006/2007).

The fact that the form of the finite verbs in (196) is the same as that of the indicative verbs in the corresponding declarative constructions might suggest that we are dealing only with indicative verbs, and that the imperative interpretation is due to the fact that the verb occupies the first position in the sentence; cf. Fortuin (2004: §2). However, there are also reasons to think that we are dealing with special imperative forms. Section 1.3, sub IV, has shown that the indicative present-tense forms of the verb zijnto be are ben(t) and zijn, and also that subject-verb inversion affects the inflection of the verb in the case of the colloquial second-person singular pronoun, but not in the other cases. This is illustrated again in (198).

The finite imperatives with and without an overt subject, on the other hand, are uniformly based on the stem weez-, which is also found in the past participle geweestbeen; cf. the primeless examples in (199). This is a strong indication that the forms found in the finite imperatives in (196) cannot be considered regular indicative forms either; cf. Verdenius (1940). The percentage signs in the primed examples in (199) indicate that some speakers also allow the indicative forms ben(t) and zijn in these imperative constructions.

The alternation between the primeless and primed examples in (199) led Proeme (1986) to argue against the claim that weez- is the designated stem for the imperative. His main argument is that the second-person form wees can sometimes be followed by the reduced subject pronoun je, which is normally not possible in imperatives. He concludes that examples such as (200a) are questions, as is example (200b).

The translations given in (200) aim to express the difference in meaning that Proeme (1986:34) ascribes to the two examples. Proeme claims that the form wees in (200a) differs from the form ben in (200b) in that it adds the meaning aspect that the addressee assumes the role of aiming to accomplish the state of being careful (cf.: “daarbij presenteert [(200a)] dat voorzichtig zijn als iets [...] dat de referent van het subject [...] op zich neemt om te volbrengen”), thus building part of the imperative interpretation of (200a) into the lexical meaning of the verb form wezen. Proeme supports this claim with non-imperative constructions with wezen, but since these are not accepted by all speakers, it is not easy to draw firm conclusions from them. For the moment, we will simply assume that the fact that the pronouns in the primeless examples in (199) cannot be reduced phonetically is sufficient to conclude that we are dealing with imperatives; we will leave open whether there are varieties of Dutch in which wees- can also (sometimes) be used as a stem for the indicative.

Finite imperatives with overt subjects are like the imperative constructions discussed in the previous subsections: there are no aspectual restrictions on the verbs that can be used. The only requirement is that the addressee should be able to control the event; cf. Subsection IA.

However, finite imperatives with overt subjects differ markedly from the other constructions in that the object cannot be omitted, as shown in (202a). The object also seems to resist placement in the right periphery of the sentence, although Visser (1996) provides a possible counterexample to this claim (her examples in (9b) and (34)), which may indeed be somewhat better than (202b) below.

Finite imperatives with a subject typically contain modal particles like eens, maar, even, dan, etc.: the examples in (196), (199) and (201) all degrade without the particle. cf. Van der Wouden (1998) and Barbiers (2007/2013). Fortuin (2004) argues that this is due to semantic competition with their counterparts without a subject, which are understood as “an appeal by the speaker to the hearer to perform an action, whereby the speaker does not explicitly take into account the hearer’s failure to perform this action: the impulse is directed towards the hearer’s immediate and unreserved acceptance of the appeal” (p.350; our translation). There are various pragmatic reasons why the speaker may expect or hope that the hearer will perform the action immediately: we illustrate three of them in (203).

Modal particles can be used to downplay the prominence of these pragmatic grounds, and thus soften the directive force of the imperative; the examples in (204) show that this allows the subject to be expressed overtly.

Fortuin (2004: §5) also shows that the addition of a modal particle is not the only way of licensing an overt subject; this can also be achieved by various other means, which often seem to involve some form of contrast. The examples in (205) illustrate this for contrasts related to the performer of the action:

In the corpus, there is a larger set of finite imperatives with a subject but without a modal particle, that seem to be licensed by the addition of another element: some examples are (i) a vocative or other element that makes the directive more personal, (ii) certain subject-oriented and manner adverbs, (iii) the use of the plural or honorific form of the pronoun. We will not give an exhaustive review of all the cases discussed in Fortuin (2004) and simply refer to this article for a more detailed discussion.

Corver (1995) and Coppen (1998) show that success imperatives such as Slaap ze!Sleep well, which were briefly introduced in Subsection I B, are subject to several syntactic constraints. First, the verb must be (pseudo-)intransitive in order to occur in the success imperative: the primeless examples in (207) are intransitive and must be interpreted as success imperatives; the verbs in the singly-primed examples can be either transitive or pseudo-intransitive, and the constructions can be interpreted as either directive or success imperatives; the doubly-primed examples are necessarily transitive, and the number sign indicates that they can only be interpreted as directive imperatives.

The element ze cannot be used with an overtly expressed direct object. The examples in (208) show this for the semi-intransitive and transitive verbs from the primed examples in (207); note that the order of the object and the element ze does not affect the acceptability of these examples. The unacceptability of these examples suggests that the non-referential element ze still functions as a (non-referential) pronominal object in the success imperative, as both Corver (1995) and Coppen (1998) claim. The unacceptability of the examples in (208) then follows from the fact that the transitive verbs cannot case mark ze because they already assign accusative case to their direct object. The unacceptability of the success reading in the doubly-primed examples in (207) must then be due to the fact that the referential reading of ze is the canonical one and blocks the non-referential reading.

The examples in (209) show that unaccusative verbs can be used in bare imperatives, but not in success imperatives. This supports the proposal that the non-referential element ze still acts syntactically as a pronominal object in success imperatives; since unaccusative verbs cannot case-mark their nominal complement, the element ze remains caseless and is therefore excluded.

Finally, the examples in (210) show that, although they can be used in bare imperatives, verbs taking a complementive or a verbal particle are not possible in success imperatives; cf. the singly-primed examples in (207). This is because the regular object reading takes precedence, just as in the case of the transitive verbs with an obligatory direct object in the doubly-primed examples in (207).

The analyses proposed in the studies of Corver and Coppen are similar in that they assume that the element ze is pronominal; as noted above, this provides a natural account of the restrictions illustrated in (207) through (209). However, they provide different accounts for the unacceptability of the primed examples in (210). Corver assumes that ze must be incorporated into the verb in order to license the success reading; this is possible if the object pronoun is an internal argument of the verb, but would be blocked if it functions as the logical subject of a complementive/particle. Coppen, on the other hand, derives the unacceptability of the primed examples in (210) by assuming that success imperatives contain an empty complementive, which blocks the addition of another complementive/particle. The latter account can also deal with the fact that verbs in success imperatives can be intransitive, as the addition of a complementive can have a transitivizing effect and may thus license the presence of the pronoun ze; cf. Section 2.2.3, sub I. Coppen further suggests that assuming the presence of an empty complementive can account for the non-referential status of the pronoun ze; the idiomatic examples in (211) show that ze is more often used non-referentially in such contexts. We leave these two proposals for further research.

This section discusses so-called forum imperatives. The term forum refers to the speaker’s here-and-now: the arguments of the imperative verb refer to main participants in the discourse (addressee and speaker) and entities that are immediately accessible to them, while the construction as a whole calls for immediate action on the part of the addressee; cf. Postma (2013). For example, the forum imperative in (212b) prompts the addressee to inform the speaker immediately about news available to him and of interest to the speaker; this differs markedly from the bare imperative in (212a), which aims to persuade the addressee to tell (i) a yet-to-be-determined bedtime story (ii) to someone who may not be present in the discourse (iii) at a later time.

The most conspicuous feature of the forum imperative is that it consists of a finite imperative verb followed by the particle op (lit. “up”). This particle is typically used as part of more or less fixed particle verbs, such as opsturento send, but it clearly does not function that way in the forum imperative in (212b), given that there is no particle verb *opvertellen; to distinguish the two cases we will use the terms verbal and forum particle. In order to establish and clarify some of the morphosyntactic properties of forum imperatives, we will first examine the three imperative constructions in (213) with the ditransitive verb gevento give.

Den Dikken (1999) observes that the three imperative constructions in (213) are more or less propositionally equivalent in a given context: they all aim at persuading the addressee to make true the proposition x give y to z, where agent x refers to the addressee, recipient z to the speaker, and theme y to some third entity identifiable to both speaker and hearer. The near-equivalence of (213a) and (213b) is not so surprising, since the locative proform hier refers to the speaker’s location; the speaker wants the addressee to transfer the theme to (the location of) the speaker. The near-equivalence of (213a) and (213c) is less easy to understand, because the forum particle op has no obvious referential content. Note that the direct object (here: dat boek) cannot be expressed overtly in the forum imperative in (213c) above, but the examples in (214) show that it is clearly implied, as it can be made explicit in right-dislocated position, just as in the imperatives in (213a&b) with an implicit object; cf. the discussion in (190) in Section IIA.

The propositional equivalence of the examples in (213) and (214) again shows that the forum particle op is not the particle found in the particle verb opgevento give up, since the particle verb is transitive, not ditransitive, and expresses a different meaning. The examples in (215) show that the alternative expression of the recipient is only possible if it refers to the speaker; it is not possible if the recipient refers to a third person in the room, as in (215a). Note that the distal proform daarthere and the proximal proform hierhere in (215b) are used to indicate relative distance from the speaker, and that the number signs indicate that the acceptability judgments refer only to the intended reading; cf. examples (214b&c).

Although a forum particle clearly does not function as a verbal particle in the usual sense, it still behaves like a verbal particle in that it blocks the use of (other) verbal particles. This is illustrated by the impossibility of using the ditransitive verb teruggevento give back in (216b&c). On the more or less standard assumptions that (i) verbal particles are complementives (i.e. predicative complements) and (ii) there can be no more than one complementive in a single clause, it would follow on the plausible assumption that the locational proform hier in (216b) and the forum particle op are also complementives; cf. Den Dikken (1999:§2) for relevant discussion and analysis. For completeness, note that changing the order of hier/op and the verbal particle terug does not improve the results.

The main finding so far is that the constructions in (213b&c) are alternative realizations of the proposition x give y to z, where the arguments of the predicate give refer to the main discourse participants (speaker and hearer) and to some third entity identifiable to and within the immediate reach of these discourse participants. The three constructions in (213) differ in the extent to which they allow the arguments of the predicate to refer to other entities. Of course, they are all similar in that they require a second-person subject, as this is an inherent part of the meaning of finite imperatives. The constructions differ, however, in that the first-person recipient in the bare finite imperative in (213a) can easily be replaced by a third-person recipient, while a similar change (in form or interpretation) cannot be obtained in the case of (213b&c); cf. the discussion of the example in (215). The examples in (217) further show that the three constructions also differ with regard to the accessibility of the referent of the theme argument: bare finite imperative constructions can easily have a non-specific indefinite object (i.e. not familiar to speaker and hearer), while this is not easily possible in imperatives with the hier and forum imperatives.

It is noteworthy that finite imperatives with hier and the forum particle op also seem to differ with respect to the nature of the theme argument dat boekthat book. The forum imperative in (213c) implies that the book in question is in the possession of the addressee, or at least in his vicinity. This need not be the case with the imperative with hier: no sense of possession is implied, and the book in question may be elsewhere in the forum space. The contrast is mainly a matter of interpretation, as shown by the fact that (218c) without the proform daarover there clearly cannot be used with the same meaning as the finite imperatives in (218a&b). However, it is difficult to support the contrast by acceptability judgments, because (218c) with the proform present seems marginally possible: however, it is crucial that, in contrast to the cases in (218a&b), the proform daar must then again refer to a location close to the addressee.

A similar but clearer contrast between finite imperatives with hier and the forum particle is found in the case of temporal modification. Bare finite imperatives can be freely modified by temporal adverbials referring to the speech time or to the non-actualized part of the present-tense domain. This also seems to hold for finite imperatives with hier, although the use of the second type of temporal adverbials seems somewhat marked. Forum imperatives, on the other hand, resist the use of both types, which is easily explained by their strong attachment to the speaker’s here-and-now: the use of an adverbial such as vanmiddagthis afternoon conflicts with this, while the use of nunow is tautological.

The contrast between the proform hier and the forum particle op suggests that while the latter clearly locates the propositional content of the imperative in the forum (i.e. the speaker’s here-and-now), the effect of the use of hier is much weaker: it expresses only an attachment to the speaker’s physical location. This may also account for the contrast between the examples in (220) with the triadic verb vertellento tell, where the number sign indicates that hier cannot be interpreted as a replacement of the indirect object; the reason for this is that we are not dealing with a physical transfer of the theme (i.e. the message), so that the location of the recipient of the message (i.e. the speaker) is irrelevant; cf. Den Dikken (1999).

The ditransitive verbs gevento give and vertellento tell both allow a dative/PP alternation in which the PP-alternant of the dative object is an aan-PP. Section 3.3.1 shows that there are four more types of dative/PP alternation, in which the PP-alternant is headed by another preposition: this is illustrated in examples (221b-e).

We might therefore expect that verbs of the kind in (221b-e) could also occur as forum imperatives, but this seems impossible; at first this seems surprising because all these examples seem to involve a transfer of the theme from the addressee to the speaker, or vice versa. However, since we are dealing with verbs with an obligatory verbal particle or PP-complementive, this can be explained by the prohibition of having more than one complementive in the clause; cf. the discussion of the examples in (216). Therefore, it remains to be seen whether a restriction that the ditransitive verb must take a recipient is necessary; this would require a more detailed inventory of forum imperatives than is currently available.

The use of the forum imperatives with intransitive and transitive verbs seems to be excluded, although this is not so clear for the verb (op)bellento call/phone in (223): depending on the context, (223b) can be used with the speaker or another person as the recipient of the hearer’s call. A forum reading (with the speaker as the recipient) should be based on the transitive verb bellento call/phone, but since transitive verbs such as roepento call do not occur in forum imperatives this seems to be a less likely analysis than one which assumes that we are simply dealing with bare finite imperatives. We therefore tentatively conclude that transitive and intransitive verbs are categorically excluded in forum imperatives; cf. Den Dikken (1999).

However, Den Dikken (1999) also claims that there is at least one unaccusative verb that can occur in forum imperatives, the verb komento come in (224). There are good reasons for analyzing this example as a forum imperative. First there is no particle verb opkomen (with the same meaning). Second, the imperative clearly involves the two main participants in the discourse: the hearer is urged to come to/with the speaker, although there is also a more idiomatic reading “repackage yourself and move on!”. Finally, the use of the adverb nunow seems quite marked.

There do not seem to be many other unaccusative verbs that can occur in forum imperatives, with the exception of the notable group in the primeless examples in (225); cf. Postma (2013). These imperative constructions have very strict properties. First, the imperative verbs are morphologically characterized by the fact that they are denominal and (diachronically) based on taboo words: donderthunder, duveldevil, flikker (offensive name for a gay man), hoepelhoop, krasscratch, lazer (probably a body part; cf. iemand op zijn lazer gevento hit someone), mieter (short form of sodemieter), rot (military term for troop), sodemieterbugger, and so on. Second, they are semantically characterized by the fact that they all urge the addressee to leave, i.e. to remove himself from the speaker. And, third, the finite forum imperatives in the primeless examples are special in that they have infinitival and participial counterparts. That the verbs in these forum imperatives are all unaccusative is clear from the fact that they select the perfect auxiliary zijn, as in Jan is eindelijk opgedonderd!Jan has finally left; cf. Section 2.1.2, sub IIC.

However, we have seen in our discussion of the examples in (223) that it is actually very difficult to decide for particle verbs with op whether they are really forum imperatives. Moreover, it is difficult to see whether the properties of forum imperatives with triadic verbs are present in the primeless examples, for the simple reason that there are no other arguments next to the implicit subject. The only clue we have comes from temporal modification, and the result is actually negative; the finite imperatives can be modified by the adverbial nunow, as in En donder nu op!And now go away!. However, should the conclusion that we are indeed dealing with forum imperatives be viable, the question why such forms are possible with monadic unaccusative but not intransitive verbs can easily be answered on the basis of our earlier conclusion that forum particles are regular verbal particles: monadic particle verbs are always unaccusative.