LIES2_a5_t4_b4

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Types of sentences 
 
Notes: 
 
1) According to Williams, 2005, many people assume that imperative sentences 
have no subject, but the subject of imperative sentences is you, since in these 
types of sentences, the person that is making the command or request is always 
asking you to do something. 
 
For this reason, the subject in imperative sentences is called you understood 
because, although the subject may be elliptical in the sentence, it is 
understood that the subject is you. 
 (You) give me a break. 
 (You) don’t mess the room. 
 
This happens even when the person is giving an order to him/herself. Imagine 
someone who does not like to wake up early, who are ‘night owls’ may need a little 
incentive to do do: 
 Wake up! 
2) Fischer, 1992, signals that languages may use both syntax and prosody to 
distinguish interrogative sentences (which pose questions) from declarative 
sentences (which state propositions). 
In English, German, French and other languages, questions are marked by a 
distinct word order featuring inversion – the subject is placed after the verb 
rather than before it: "You are here" becomes "Are you here?" 
However, English allows such inversion only with a particular class of verbs 
(called auxiliary or special verbs), and thus sometimes requires the addition of 
 
 
 
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an auxiliary do, does or did before inversion can take place ("He plays" → "Does 
he play?"). 
 
Intonation patterns characteristic of questions often involve a raised pitch near the 
end of the sentence. In English this occurs especially for yes–no questions; it may also 
be used for sentences that do not have the grammatical form of questions, but are 
nonetheless intended to elicit information (declarative questions), as in "You're not 
using this?”, as we are going to see next.