verb, infinitiv form can be imperative

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If a linguistic problem:
What wordform makes the faulty analysis occur?
fragen

I get as result:
fragen<+V><3><Pl><Pres><Ind>
fragen<+V><3><Pl><Pres><Konj>
fragen<+V><1><Pl><Pres><Ind>
fragen<+V><1><Pl><Pres><Konj>
fragen<+V><Inf>

Missing is:
fragen<+V><3><Pl><Pres><Imp>

Explanation: infinitiv form can also be imperativ

Example: Fragen Sie am Schalter nach

Original issue reported on code.google.com by eleonor...@gmx.net on 20 Jul 2011 at 9:28

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I'm afraid, I'll have to disagree on that one. From a morphological point of 
view, only "frag(e)" and "fragt" are imperative wordforms of "fragen". A 
sentence like "Fragen Sie am Schalter nach" receives its overall imperative 
modality from its syntax and its prosody: If you change the melody of the 
sentence, it could also be a question: "Fragen Sie am Schalter nach?"
Similarly, a sentence like "Könntest Du jetzt bitte mal hierherkommen?" is 
extremely imperative wrt its modality, but "könntest" is simply a plain 
conjunktive wordform.
cf. 
http://hypermedia.ids-mannheim.de/pls/public/sysgram.ansicht?v_typ=v&v_id=1952&v
_wort=Imperativ

Original comment by CWRSimon@googlemail.com on 21 Jul 2011 at 9:33

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After heavy discussions with my colleagues and after consulting some German 
grammars, I go with eleonora: "Fragen Sie" seems indeed to be an imperative 
form. I attached you section 1.9.1.2 from "Deutsche Grammatik" by Helbig und 
Buscha (2001).

Original comment by wuerz...@gmail.com on 22 Jul 2011 at 7:54

Attachments:

• imperativ.png

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In my understanding, let's take the word schreiben. Imperativ forms are:
Schreibst du bitte mal das. sg, 2
Schreibe mal das.           sg, 2
Schreiben wir mal das.      pl, 1
Schreibt ihr mal das.       pl, 2
Schreiben Sie mal das.      pl, 3

there is no sg_1 and sg_3 imperative in German with flektion, they are 
expressed with modal verbs:
Er sagte, ich soll schreiben  sg 1
ich sagte, er soll schreiben  sg 3

Corpora tagging is like that.

Original comment by eleonor...@gmx.net on 22 Jul 2011 at 7:16

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This is definitely not true according to German standard grammar: Ignoring the 
fact that "Schreibt ihr mal das" is not a valid German sentence, imperative 
forms usually select no subject. The honorific form seems to be an exception 
(if we accept as an imperative form). Therefore we have a maximum of three 
German imperative forms: schreib(e), schreibt and schreiben Sie. The other 
forms you mentioned are declarative sentences. I very much doubt that they are 
tagged as imperatives in negra/tiger.

@Christian What do you think about adding an imperative analysis for 3rd ps. pl?

Original comment by wuerz...@gmail.com on 23 Jul 2011 at 12:47

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I'm sorry for having been off-line for such a long time.
I concede that "fragen Sie" could be considered an imperative on the 
morphological (!) level, iff (two f!) and only if the "Sie" stands with 
"fragen". But how do you guys suggest that we implement it in Morphisto? What 
would the correct analysis potentially look like?

fragen Sie<+V><Imp><Sg/Pl><Honorific>

This would raise any interesting question: How do we deal with disjunct 
wordforms? Like "fragen Sie" or "ging weg"?

Original comment by CWRSimon@googlemail.com on 25 Jul 2011 at 10:20