Example: Open the door. Close the window.
Be quiet. You be quiet.
Agung, open the door. The negative form of the example above just put Don’t before the
imperative sentence. Example: Don’t open the door.
Don’t close the window. Don’t smoke in this area.
Don’t park in this place. The negative form with putting Don’t also can be used to prohibit person
about something and in the last two example it also can be used to utter imperative symbols into sentence.
b. The imperative first and second person together.
In this imperative used let’s and the meaning of let’s is “I have a suggestion for us”
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, the first person suggest something to second person. Let’s is used to make suggestion about activities for you and me.
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It is used when the speaker also does the command.
Form : Let’s let us + infinitive V1
Example : Let’s go home.
Let’s open the door. The negative form of this kinds are Let’s not and Don’t Let’s, but the
more common and more correct is the first one Let’s not.
13
11
Betty Schrampfer Azar, Understanding and Using English Grammar: Third Edition, New York: Pearson Education, 1999, p. 169.
12
Betty Schrampfer Azar, Fundamentals of English Grammar: Third Edition, New York: Pearson Education, 2003, p. 215.
13
Michael Swan, Practical English Language, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 315.
c. The third person imperative.
Thomson and Martinet mentioned the third type of the imperatives. Form
: Let himheritthem + infinitive
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Example : Let them go by train.
In this type, the imperative is used the third person. The third person can
be him, her, it, them. In theory let himthem express a command, but
very often the speaker has no authority over the person who obeys the command.
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Like in the example above, the speaker has no authority and the person can obey the command.
Meanwhile, according to Hall about the meaning of imperative, he said that imperative sentence is to express command or request. It means that
command and request are related.
a. Request
A command in imperative sentence if we add please into commands it is not used as a command but that imperative sentences are used to make
polite request.
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It means that a command changes into polite request if put please into command. According to Azar, “the difference between a
command and a request lies in the speaker’s tone of voice and the use of please.”
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The word please is not only put at the beginning sentence, the word please also be inserted at the end of the sentence.
Examples: Open your books. command Please open your books. request
Open your books, please. request
14
A. J. Thomson, and A. V. Martinet, A Practical English Grammar, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 245.
15
A. J. Thomson, and A. V. Martinet, A Practical English Grammar, … p. 245.
16
Betty Schrampfer Azar, and Stacy A. Hagen, Basic English Grammar: Third Edition, New York: Pearson Education, 2006, p. 395.
17
Betty Schrampfer Azar, Fundamentals of English Grammar: Third Edition, New York: Pearson Education, 2003, p. 213.
