Imperative and waw-Imperative: A Text-Linguistic Description of the Distribution

The paper aims at describing the distribution of clause initial imperatives with and without waw, applying the text-linguistic model of Weinrich and Niccacci. Imperative clauses without waw are found in the following text-linguistic environments: At the very beginning of a new text, i.e., of a new direct speech; after other prelude constructions; at the beginning of a new text segment; as a foreground construction, connected semantically and syntactically closely to a preceding imperative. On the other hand, waw-imperative clauses are foreground constructions.