ABSTRACT
This chapter presents evidence to decide between the competing hypotheses. It also presents arguments against a verb phrase (VP)-internal representation of the imperative subject at surface structure. The chapter discusses some theoretical issues and summarizes the similarities between imperative phrase structure and standard conceptions of English clause structure. It outlines three phrase structure proposals concerning the identity of the phrasal projections that make up the imperative clause. The position of adverbs in finite main clauses serves as a diagnostic for the position of subjects in imperatives. The chapter explores two syntactic phenomena that can be used to identify complementizer phrase: topicalization and inversion-triggering adverbials. The VP-Internal Subject Hypothesis claims that subjects originate in a position inside VP and raise in the syntax to a higher position among the inflectional projection(s). In particular, the position of the subject is claimed to be interestingly different from that in ordinary clauses.
