Imperative mood

The imperative is a grammatical mood that forms commands or requests, including the giving of prohibition or permission, or any other kind of advice or exhortation.

An example of a verb in the imperative mood is be in the English sentence "Please be quiet". Imperatives of this type imply a second-person subject (you); some languages also have first- and third-person imperatives, with the meaning of "let's (do something)" or "let him/her/them (do something)" (these forms may alternatively be called cohortative and jussive).

Imperative mood can be denoted by the glossing abbreviation IMP. It is one of the irrealis moods.

Formation

Imperative mood is often expressed using special conjugated verb forms. Like other finite verb forms, imperatives often inflect for person and number. Second-person imperatives (used for ordering or requesting performance directly from the person being addressed) are most common, but some languages also have imperative forms for the first and third persons (alternatively called cohortative and jussive respectively).