Sources for historical imperatives

Abstract

Abstract The article deals with historical (narrative, descriptive, dramatic) imperatives, an imperative replacing a past tense form in referring to unexpected events or in vivid narration. As their association with the basic directive function of imperatives is not clear, attempts have been made to derive them from some abstract general meanings of imperatives (presumably underlying also their directive meaning). There has been, however, no research into the source constructions for historical imperatives. In this article I point out two types of sources: stylistic devices such as inner monologue and apostrophe on the one hand, and mirative imperatives (of different origin) on the other. As mirative imperatives may be put to use to state the occurrence of unexpected events, the two types of sources coalesce into a common though diffuse construction type comprising historical and mirative imperatives, whose basic function is to describe unexpected events, though languages differ as to the extent to which they use these forms as a narrative device.