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    Syntactic positions of the argument IPI
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    The Imperativus-pro-Infinitivo (IPI) may have various syntactic functions, depending on the syntactic position in which it is found. These positions all share the property that they are selected positions: subject, object, prepositional complement, adjectival complement and nominal complement. A distinction must be made between verbal and prepositional arguments, on the one hand, and nominal and adjectival arguments, on the other hand. Verbal and prepositional arguments are often realised by means of an anticipatory pronoun linked to the IPI. Nominal and adjectival arguments never feature an anticipatory pronoun.

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    The function of the IPI depends on the syntactic position in which it is found, or with which it is indirectly connected by means of an anticipatory pronoun. IPIs bearing the function of subject, object or prepositional complement tend to be connected to the relevant syntactic position by means of an anticipatory pronoun. This is illustrated below for the subject and the object:

    1
    a. It is gjin dwaan allyk en pleagje dy âldman sa
    it is no doing like and tease that old.man so
    It is not a good thing to tease the old man in this manner
    b. Ik ried jimme oan en drink net te folle kofje
    I advise you to and drink not too.much coffee
    I advise you not to drink too much coffee

    The IPI occurs at the end of the clause, and the anticipatory pronoun it it occurs in the syntactic position to which the IPI is linked. The same holds for the IPI functioning as prepositional complement, except that the anticipatory pronoun is the R-pronoun der there, it, as in (2).

    2
    Jeltsje hie der skjin har nocht fan en wurd hieltyd neifluite
    Jeltsje had R clean her pleasure of and be continually after.whistle
    Jeltsje was completely fed up with being wolf whistled at

    In addition, the IPI is also found as the complement to a functionally premodified adjective, as in the following example:

    3
    Hja wiene sa wiis wol en bemuoi har der net mei
    they were so wise DcP and involve themselves R not with
    They were so wise as to not get involved in it

    Here the adjective is premodified with the functional element sa so, which licenses a complement in the form of an infinitival clause, which may take the form of a to-infinitival clause or of an IPI, see also high degree specification sa so. The IPI cannot be linked to an anticipatory pronoun in this usage. Correspondingly, the IPI cannot be pronominalised, neither by a Noun Phrase (NP) nor by an Adposition Phrase (PP).

    The IPI is also found in a peculiar construction in which it occurs as some kind of selected adjunct in a rhetorical construction. In this construction, no anticipatory pronoun can be used. An example is given below:

    4
    Wat moatsto hjir en brek samar yn 'e hûs?
    what must.you here and break DcP in the house
    Why do you come here and break into the house without any proper reason?

    The construction has a negative entailment implying that the addressee has no reason to do what he does. In addition, the construction expresses strong emotion. The construction has the outward appearance of an adjunct IPI, as is clear from the presence of a modal verb in the matrix clause. However, unlike adjunct IPIs, it resembles argument IPIs in that it can be replaced by a to-infinitival clause:

    5
    Wat moatsto hjir (om) samar yn 'e hûs te brekken?
    what must.you here for DcP in the house to break
    Why do you come here and break into the house without any proper reason?

    See also As an adjunct specifying an activity to do in an exclamative interrogative. It seems that the complementiser may only be present in the to-infinitival if it has a purpose interpretation, which implies animacy. The following example refers to an impersonal type of event, and the complementiser must be absent:

    6
    a. *Wat moat dat dêr om rare kluchten út te heljen?
    what must.2SG that there for strange tricks out to take
    Why are you messing around there?
    b. Wat moat dat dêr rare kluchten út te heljen?
    what must.2SG that there strange tricks out to take
    Why are you messing around there?

    However, the example improves considerably in case the IPI refers to a specific event:

    7
    ?Wat moat dat dêr en helje sa'n rare klucht út?
    what must.2SG that there and take such.a strange trick out
    What are you doing here and what are you up to?

    The IPI is also found as the complement to a noun, as in the examples below:

    8
    a. De langst en smook in sigret waard har op it lêst oermânsk
    the desire and smoke a cigaret become her at the last overpowered
    In the end she was conquered by the desire to smoke a cigaret
    b. Syn ûnderfinings binne net fan dyn aard en wês dêr daalks tige eigen mei
    his experiences are not of that kind and be R soon very own with
    His experiences are not such that one feels directly at home with them

    The IPI cannot be linked to an anticipatory pronoun in this usage. Correspondingly, the IPI cannot be pronominalised, neither by an NP nor by a PP.

    The following example is not an IPI but an imperative embedded in the quotative construction signalledd by fan of, like:

    9
    Hat se wol witten wat se die doe't se sei fan ja en tsjen mei, werom nei har âlde wrâld?
    has she DcP known what she did when she said of yes and come along back to ger old world
    Did she know what she was did when she said yes and came along, back to her old world?

    What is peculiar about the example above is that the imperative is homophonous to the infinitive, which must be due to the author's dialect. However, it is clear that an imperative speech act is involved, contrary to what is the case in the IPI.

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      About this article
      Author(s): Eric Hoekstra
      Category: Frisian Syntax
      Keywords: IPI-construction
      Version: 1.0, December 2015
      Version history:
      version editor(s) date remarks
      1.0 Eric Hoekstra December 2015
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