The Prohibitive (Feature 56)

From Apics

Feature Annotation

The prohibitive is the negated counterpart of the affirmative imperative (e.g. don't go!). For this feature, we only consider the singular prohibitive, i.e. a prohibition addressed to a single addressee. The prohibitive may use the same imperative form as the affirmative imperative (normal imperative construction), and the sentential negative construction found in indicative declaratives (normal negator) (value 1).
But there are many cases where this is not the case. Sometimes the prohibitive uses the normal imperative construction but a special negator (value 2), as in Afrikaans the special negator moenie:

Praat! Jy praat nie. Moenie praat nie!
speak 2sg speak neg proh speak neg
‘Speak!’ 'You don’t speak.’ ‘Don’t speak!’

It does not matter whether the special prohibitive negator combines with the standard negator (as in the Afrikaans example) or not.
The prohibitive may also use the normal negator, but a special prohibitive construction (value 3), as in Italian:

Dormi! Non dormi. Non dormire!
sleep neg sleep.2sg neg sleep.infinitive
‘Sleep!’ ‘You don’t sleep.’ ‘Don’t sleep!'

In these examples, the prohibitive construction is special because the ending of the affirmative imperative verb form (-i ) differs from the ending of the prohibitive verb form (-ire, which corresponds to the ending of the infinitive).
Value 4 is for languages which use a special negator and a special prohibitive construction, such as Latin (see the value annotation).

Additional remarks

One way in which a prohibitive construction can be special is by requiring (or allowing) a subject pronoun in the prohibitive, where the corresponding imperative does not use the subject pronoun.

Values

Value		Value Annotation
1	Normal imperative construction and normal negator	German; and Principense: kanta! ‘sing!’ txi sa kanta fa [you.sg prog sing neg] ‘you are not singing’ vs. kanta fa! [sing neg] ‘don’t sing!’
2	Normal imperative construction and special negator	Afrikaans; and Tugu: djenti djenti, pasa piyo! [people people pass foot] ‘People, go by foot!’ yo nungku sabe ‘I don’t know’ vs. numiste ri! [proh laugh] ‘don’t laugh!’
3	Special imperative construction and normal negator	Italian; and Spanish: canta! ‘sing’ no cantas ‘you don’t sing’ vs. no cantes! (subjunctive) ‘don’t sing!’
4	Special imperative construction and special negator	Latin: veni! 'come!' non venis 'you don't come' vs. noli venire! ‘don’t come!’ (infinitive: different verbal construction; noli: special negator)
5	Other	(Please give details in the “General comments” field.)

WALS No.

71 (Total)