Description and Analysis of the Imperative Construction in ‎Persian: A Cognitive Approach

This paper is the report of a thesis, a corpus- based descriptive and theoretical study of cognitive grammar account of Imperative construction in Persian language. The study investigated the classification of Imperative construction in Persian language, the most frequent verbs and their usage pattern in Persian language, frequency of verbs in negative imperative and also discourse- interactive usage of imperative construction in Persian language. The data consisted of imperative constructions which were extracted and collected from the novel “Dai Jan Napelon” . Then data collection was extended to PLDB, where , “Tatneshinhaye Boloke Zahra”, “Ghessehaye Behrang”, “Educational Hamshahri Newspaper 1-1382” and “Educational Hamshahri Newspaper 2-1382” were examined for their Imperative constructions. The study characterized Persian imperative in terms of cognitive grammar concepts as prototype and schema. It showed that based on these concepts, Persian imperative can be classified into simple, passive, conditional, good wishes, imprecation and interrogative types. The most frequent verbs in Persian imperative are to say, to let, to see, to go, to come, and to give. In negative imperative mental verbs are mostly used. Moreover, it was observed that some imperative constructions demonstrate non- imperative functions.