This book is about the semantics and pragmatics of imperatives. That is to say, it is about the interaction of linguistic meaning and contextual factors, including speaker intentions, in the interpretation of utterances of a particular type of linguistic form. To undertake to write such a book is to presuppose that the term ‘imperative’ picks out a distinct linguistic type with a meaning consistent across different instantiations, such that interesting things can be said about its contribution to utterance interpretation. In this chapter, we justify this assumption by showing that, cross-linguistically, the ‘imperative form’ can be identified by virtue of its function in communication. For now, we will just say that this function is to signal the performance of directive speech acts such as commands, orders, requests and pleas. However, as we will see in later chapters, the uses to which the type of linguistic form we are investigating can be put goes beyond this narrow range. Moreover, we will also see that identifying the form by virtue of this function in no way commits us, nor any other theorist, to claiming that this function is encoded by that form.

In any interesting sense of ‘encode’, if a form encodes a function, then it does more than merely indicate that that function is its most prototypical use. Rather, if a form encodes a function, then no literal and serious use of that form is possible without its performing the function at hand, so that comprehension of the form is nothing more than relating it to its typical function. This point is very important, as we will see again and again that one of the central issues about the imperative is whether or not every literal use of it necessarily corresponds to the performance of a directive speech act.