Imperatives as semantic primitives

Abstract

There are three different ways in which nondeclaratives have been integrated into formal theories of meaning. These are: the performative analysis, which treats them as explicit or modal performatives and attempts to reduce them to statements; the parametric analysis, distinguishing a sentence type expression M from a ‘sentence radical’ p, together forming a meaningful expression [M,p]; and the operator analysis, according to which (nondeclarative) sentence type expressions scope over an statement, yielding M(p)