Eeli Kaikkonen wrote:No. I predict that the questions about imperative won't last long.
Hey Eeli! Don't curse my efforts in getting help with the imperative! I'll keep slogging along in my journey alone if I have to, but it's nice to have reliable guides pointing out the way!
If one can distinguish the outstanding characteristics of the imperative over its alternatives then one might come to some conclusions about its nature and use. I'm still trying to understand the elemental facts about the imperative. Has Robertson said all that can be said about the history and development of the imperative? Please feel free to comment on what I state as facts about the imperative as well as my questions and tentative answers to some of my questions.
Facts:
Past time is not present in the imperative so the augment is omitted in the imperfect and aorist tense-forms.
The imperative always implies future time.
The imperative is a late development in Greek. It is the last of the moods to appear.
Prohibitions in the 2nd and 3rd person aorist subjunctive held their place and were not supplanted by the imperative.
The imperative and the future between them carried off the old jussive use of the subjunctive in positive commands of 2nd and 3rd person.
The imperative receives most of its forms from the old injunctive.
The subjunctive, optative, future indicative, infinitive and participle are all used imperativally.
The imperative lacks a regular set of its own suffixes.
The imperative appears in a present form sometimes indistinguishable from the 2nd person plural present indicative active and middle.
Questions that arise and some possible answers:
Q. What is it that the imperative does/has that the alternatives for the imperative has/lack?
A. The alternatives to the imperative lack immediacy/urgency. They lack a sense of a superior addressing an inferior or a peer speaking with urgency.
Q. Is aspect more prominent in the imperative than in the alternatives?
Q. Since prohibitions in the 2nd and 3rd person aorist subjunctive held their place and were not supplanted by the imperative is there a clear sense of urgency in the subjunctive or not? Is it Stop or Do not…?
Q. Do prohibitions in the imperative show a clear sense of urgency?
Q. What significance is there to the adverb δεῦρο/δεῦτε used imperativally?
Q. Is there special significance in the imperatival suffixes?
A. Robertson is suggestive in his comments that non-thematic stems used the suffix θι (possibly an adverb; cf. “you there!” He also points out that τω is probably the ablative of the demonstrative pronoun. (Rob. 328, 3 & 4)
Q. What might the present form of the imperative add that the alternatives lacked?