I am studying in the imperative sentence and I wonder what "No parking" is short for.I also want to get more comprehensive material of the imperative sentence.
Answer
It's not short for anything. It's a direct instruction.
When forming a basic imperative, instructing someone to do an action, we just use the verb form directly, possibly with an exclamation mark:
Run!
Stop!
Come back!
This is the case whether we are instructing someone specific or people in general to perform the action.
But when we construct a sentence instructing someone to not do an action, there are two forms. The first form is a basic negated imperative - used when we are telling someone that the action must either not happen, or must stop happening. For this we use the simple negation of the imperative by adding don't (or equivalent) to the front of the sentence:
Don't run!
Don't stop!
Don't come back!
The second form is when we are telling someone that the action is forbidden. In this case we add the determiner no and change the verb into gerund form, and this is the form generally found in slogans and signage:
No running!
No stopping!
No coming back!
Indeed, if you look up the dictionary definition of no, you'll find this listed as one of the many specific uses of the word:
No - determiner
used in notices or slogans forbidding or rejecting something specified.
So as you can see, "no parking" is not, in fact, short for anything. It's a direct instruction, telling people in general that parking is forbidden in the vicinity of the sign.
No comments:
Post a Comment