2.1 Absence of the imperative ending in the allocutive imperative

Following the pattern exhibited by most New Indo-Aryan languages (Masica 1991: 476), Punjabi typically makes imperatives with a bare verb form. I label them standard imperatives. With a 2nd person singular subject, the verb occurs with null morphology as in (11). With a 2nd person plural subject, the verb is marked with –o, see (12).

The 2nd person endings in the imperative, while historically related to 2nd person forms employed in indicatives (Hewson & Bubenik 1997; Butt & Rizvi 2010 etc.), constitute an imperative-specific paradigm synchronically. As shown in Table 1, the 2nd person singular imperative ending is null, in contrast with the declarative ending eN.⁴

In addition to standard imperatives, the language makes another imperative with the allocutive ending, which in Punjabi is available across clause types. Punjabi (Kanpur, Lahore and Gujrat district varieties reported thus far) is an allocutive agreement language – it has distinct verbal forms for the singular and the plural addressee, corresponding to ii/aa and je respectively (Bailey 1912; Akhtar 1997; Butt 2007; Kaur 2017; 2019; 2020). These endings comprise a separate paradigm, distinct from the endings in standard imperatives and 2nd person subject agreement in declaratives. Crucially, unlike imperative endings, which are specific to the imperative clause-type, allocutivity occurs across clause-types in Punjabi. I illustrate with declaratives here. In the declarative in (13), the presence of ii encodes a singular utterance addressee. The forms ii and aa are allomorphs, determined by the phonological ending of the preceding verb. When the verb ends in –aa, the form ii is used, as is the case in (13) where the progressive verbal form ends in –aa as a result of agreement with the masculine nominative subject. Contrastingly, when the verb ends in –ii typically due to agreement with a feminine argument, the form of the allocutive marker changes to aa, as shown in (14). In the declarative in (15), the presence of je encodes a plural utterance addressee.

The allocutive markers in the above declaratives are optional in that they can be replaced by the minus person (also used as default) form of the ‘be’-auxiliary with no change in the truth-conditional semantics of the clause. Consider (16), with the ‘be’-auxiliary. This sentence has the same meaning as those in (13) to (15), except the missing overt reference to the addressee.

Moving to imperatives, the allocutive endings cannot occur in standard imperatives, which must obligatorily occur with ∅/-o, as shown in (17) and (18).

However, the language makes an additional imperative with a distinct verb form, composed of the bare verb stem plus -(e)yaa ending (e.g. kar-eyaa ‘do’, jaa-yaa ‘go’ etc.). This verb form is unique to the imperative paradigm, and does not occur elsewhere in the verbal paradigm of the language.⁵ Crucially, this imperative composed of the V-(e)yaa form (instead of the bare verb form) must occur obligatorily with the allocutive ending je. The (co)-occurrence of the imperative specific 2nd person ending –o is disallowed. This imperative, labeled as the allocutive imperative, is shown in (19).⁶

In summary, Punjabi has a unique imperative with allocutivity, which disallows the 2nd person ending found in the standard imperative in the language.

2.2 Ban on generic addressee use of the allocutive imperative

In addition to its lack of the imperative-specific ending, the second property of the allocutive imperative which differentiates it from the standard imperative is its inability to be used in contexts with a generic addressee. To elaborate, both imperatives pattern alike in exhibiting addressee-restriction on the subject. Crucially however, in contrast with the standard imperative, which can be used for both generic and specific addressees, the allocutive imperative can only be used in contexts with a specific addressee.

To see addressee-restriction on the imperative subject, consider the following facts. Apart from permitting null subjects (as seen in the examples thus far), both imperatives allow pronominal subjects. Crucially, however, these are restricted to 2nd person pronouns.

Further support for addressee-restriction on the subject comes from its binding properties. Even when covert, the subject of both standard and allocutive imperatives can bind a 2nd person anaphoric object, but not a 1st or 3rd person anaphoric object. Punjabi has person-variable possessive forms, which must match the person feature of their antecedent to be bound. This is demonstrated for the 1st person possessive pronominal object in (22), which can only be subject-bound by a 1st person subject.

Null subjects of both standard and allocutive imperatives in Punjabi can bind a 2nd person anaphoric object, signaling a matching 2nd person antecedent. A 1st or 3rd person object cannot be subject-bound. This is demonstrated in examples (23) and (24).

Apart from the restriction on the overt pronominal subject and binding properties, the addressee-restriction on imperative subjects is also evidenced by agreement facts. Both imperative types in Punjabi can occur with quantifier subjects such as ‘everybody’, as shown in (25) and (26). The reference of ‘everybody’ must overlap with the set of addressees, failing which the imperative form cannot be used. Crucially, even in the presence of a 3rd person quantifier subject, the form of the imperative verbal complex remains invariable, i.e. it inflects for 2nd person agreement and not 3rd person.

Contrast the above pattern with declaratives shown below, where a 3rd person quantifier subject must occur with corresponding 3rd person agreement, and not 2nd person agreement, see (27). The 3rd person agreement can optionally be replaced by the allocutive marker je; however, there is no overlap between the subject and the addressee in (27).

The above observations for both standard and allocutive imperatives clearly show that subjects of both imperatives are restricted to the addressee, which underlies the presence of an agreeing 2nd person feature in the functional spine of the imperative clause. Importantly however, only the allocutive imperative is restricted to contexts with a specific addressee, as I discuss below.

We typically understand the addressee as a speech act participant who is being spoken to directly by the speaker of the speech act. However, as Pak (2015); Portner et al. (2019), among others, propose, this pre-theoretic notion of the ‘addressee’ needs further nuance. There are contexts where the speaker interacts directly with the addressee, yielding a specific use of the addressee. However, we also find utterance contexts, which involve a non-specific/generic addressee. To see this difference, consider the following imperatives from English.

The utterance in (28) identifies the addressee as a specific individual who is interacting with the speaker and is being requested to have tea. This instance of the addressee is called the interlocutor-addressee. On the other hand, (29), in its natural usage, does not pick a specific addressee who is being spoken to directly by the speaker at a given point of time. Here, the addressee “is merely the individual(s) towards whom the prohibition is targeted or directed” (Portner et al. 2019: 4), which could be anyone visiting the zoo.

This divide is also attested in Punjabi imperatives. The allocutive imperative must always refer to an interlocutor-addressee, while the standard imperative can be used to refer to a generic or non-specific addressee. Recall that je is the plural allocutive marker. As a plural form, it must identify the relation of the addressees with the speaker, which can be either honorific or non-honorific. The marker je can also be used as a singular form, but only to refer to an honorific addressee.

The standard imperative can also be used in an interaction like the allocutive imperative. Consider (31), where the presence of –o must identify the speaker- addressee relation – it can be used for (a) honorific plural addressees, (b) non-honorific plural addressees, or (c) a singular honorific addressee.

Crucially, however, unlike the allocutive imperative, the standard imperative is also permitted in contexts where the addressee cannot be identified, and the speaker-addressee relation cannot be determined. There are two contexts which illustrate this. First, only the standard imperative is felicitous with the indefinite pronoun ‘someone’ as the subject, as shown in (32).

Note that in its occurrence in the standard imperative, it is obligatory for the subject ‘someone’ to overlap with the addressee or a subset if there is a set of potential addressees, failing which this structure is ungrammatical. This is illustrated in (33), where the addressee and the 3rd person subject of the event of opening the door are distinct. Only a phi-feature matching subjunctive verb form is permitted in such sentences.

Secondly, standard imperatives can be used in mottos and public orders – contexts which lack an interlocutor-addressee that the speaker is directly talking to (Pak 2015; Portner et al. 2019). Consider the standard imperative used as a motto in (34) and as a general public order in (36). The allocutive imperative is disallowed in such contexts, as shown in (35) and (37).

In summary, we have seen two imperatives in Punjabi – the standard imperative and the allocutive imperative. While both imperatives show addressee-restriction on the subject, there are two critical differences between them. First, while the standard imperative employs the 2nd person imperative ending and bans allocutivity, the allocutive imperative lacks the 2nd person imperative ending and appears instead with obligatory allocutivity. Secondly, while the standard imperative is felicitous in contexts with either a generic or a specific addressee, the allocutive imperative can be felicitously used only with a specific addressee, whose (non)-honorific relation with the speaker can be determined. Given these morphosyntactic and interpretive differences, we are faced with the following questions:

1. Assuming that the imperative-specific 2nd person ending is the overt realization of the Jussive head, does the allocutive imperative also consist of a Jussive head, albeit covert? Or, does the allocutive imperative lack the Jussive head altogether such that the allocutive head licenses the imperative subject?

2. How is the ban on generic addressee readings obtained in the allocutive imperative in contrast with the standard imperative, which allows these readings?

3.1 Distribution of allocutivity with person agreement

This section presents the distribution of allocutivity, focusing on its occurrence vis-à-vis subject agreement in order to better determine the composition of person probes in the C-T domain – does it host two distinct person probes, one for the subject and one for the Adr, or does it host a unique person probe?

As seen previously in section 2, allocutivity in Punjabi can occur across different clause types. It is realized by free morphemes, which occur in place of the tensed auxiliary in the clause-final position after aspect, voice, modal elements and negation. This is shown in (42).

The only item that can follow the allocutive marker (or the tensed auxiliary) is the polar question item kii. The PolQ item can occur both in the sentence-initial and final positions, as in (43). Allocutivity precedes the clause-final occurrence of the polar question particle, as shown in (44).

Allocutivity in Punjabi has a curious distribution vis-à-vis the tensed auxiliary, as I now illustrate. The (person-variable) tensed auxiliary in Punjabi is a stand-alone form, which occurs to the right of the verb. The verb hosts aspectual information, and shows agreement in number and gender but not person.⁷ The auxiliary encodes temporal information (present/past), and phi-agreement in person and number. The availability of person-inflected auxiliaries is determined by a conjunction of two factors: (a) case-alignment in the language, and (b) phi-completeness of subject agreement (in contrast with object agreement, which is always minus person).

Punjabi is an aspect based split-ergative language (Bhatia 1993; Deo & Sharma 2006; Bhatt 2007; Kaur 2016; Chandra & Kaur 2017 etc.). Subjects are nominative case valued in the imperfective but ergative/oblique in the perfective (transitive) domain. Only nominative subjects control phi-agreement on the verbal complex. Objects across aspectual specifications receive either an unmarked accusative or an overt differential object marker/DOM as determined by its properties – only the unmarked object triggers agreement. Crucially, only subject agreement triggers agreement in full phi – the verb shows agreement in number and gender, and the auxiliary shows agreement in person and number. Object agreement, on the other hand, is invariable for person. The verb agrees in number and gender, and the auxiliary inflects for number alone. Given this, it is only with 1st/2nd person nominative subjects that occur in the imperfective aspect that 1st/2nd person-inflected auxiliaries obtain. This is shown in (45).⁸

In the remaining scenarios, i.e. (a) subject agreement with 3rd person nominative subjects, (b) object agreement in the presence of ergative subjects, which do not control agreement, and (c) default agreement in the presence of ergative subjects and DOM objects, person-inflected auxiliaries fail to obtain. Instead, the auxiliary occurs in its 3rd person form (e/ne). Following standard assumption (cf. Harley & Ritter 2002 and others), I treat 3rd person as being minus person. Consider (46) to (47) with a 3rd person nominative subject which occurs with minus person agreement forms e/ne.

The same auxiliary-forms obtain with object agreement in the presence of an (un)marked ergative subject in the perfective domain. This subject fails to control agreement on the verb, which instead agrees with the unmarked object in number and gender. Consider (48), where the unmarked feminine, singular object ‘cat’ controls agreement on the verbal complex.⁹ Crucially, object agreement is not person-variable. 1st/2nd person pronominal objects bear obligatory differential object marking/DOM, –nuu. As a consequence of being marked, there is no possibility for (person) agreement with objects (Kaur 2016).

The minus person form e also obtains when both the subject and the object fail to control agreement, resulting in default agreement. Consider (49) with the oblique subject and the DOM object. In such a scenario, neither of the arguments controls verbal agreement, yielding a default (3sg) form of the auxiliary, e.

The distribution of the present tensed auxiliary forms, in view of (a) case-alignment, and (b) phi-completeness of only subject agreement, is summarized in Table 2.

Given the distribution of the auxiliary forms, we find that allocutivity is disallowed with the 1st and 2nd person nominative subjects which must occur with corresponding person-inflected auxiliaries, as shown in (50).

Allocutivity can only occur in configurations which license a minus person auxiliary. This means that allocutivity is grammatical in configurations with 3rd person nominative subjects as in (51), with object agreement configurations as in (52), and in default agreement configurations, as in (53).

The distribution of allocutivity vis-à-vis the past tense auxiliary is the same – it cannot co-occur with 1st/2nd person nominative subjects, as in (54).

Allocutivity is only permitted in configurations which result in a minus person auxiliary. Crucially, unlike in the present tense, where the minus person auxiliary cannot be overtly realized in the presence of allocutivity as in (55), in the past tense the minus person auxiliary and allocutivity can co-occur, as shown in (56).

In summary, allocutivity in Punjabi is mutually exclusive with 1st/2nd person agreement.¹⁰ I take this fact to suggest that across tense specifications, the C-T in Punjabi hosts a unique person probe, which can either agree with the 1st/2nd person subject yielding person-inflected auxiliaries, or with the Adr to yield allocutivity but not both. The next section determines the structural location of allocutivity and provides a derivational account.

3.2 Deriving allocutivity- one person-probe analysis

To analyse the above facts, I propose that the Punjabi clause structure has a unique person probe situated at Pers⁰ above T⁰. Allocutivity obtains upon agreement with this probe at Pers⁰ but only when it fails to be valued by the subject in the first agreement cycle (see Kim 2019 for a similar proposal for the verbal suffix -si in Korean which alternates between subject honorification and allocutive agreement).

There are two crucial components to the analysis. First, I follow Miyagawa (2012); (2017) in treating allocutivity as agreement in the 2nd person feature between a probe and the Adr. Like 2nd person pronouns, the Adr occurs with 2nd person, number, gender and honorificity features, which can also be realized on the probe.¹¹ Secondly, the specific implementation of allocutivity I employ here involves two agreement mechanisms that are well-motivated in syntax: (i) (phase-bound) bidirectional probing, and (ii) sequential agreement with multiple goals, i.e. Cyclic Agree. Bidirectional probing, as is well-motivated for phenomena such as switch reference, adjectival agreement, polyvalent case (Merchant 2006; Baker 2008; Arregi & Hanink 2018, among others), allows a probe to seek a goal in either direction and agree with it. For instance, the embedded C in switch references systems like Washo probes both downward to agree with the embedded subject and also upward to agree with the matrix subject (Arregi & Hanink 2018). See the schema in (57), where C⁰ undergoes agreement in two directions simultaneously.

Note that there are two logical possibilities for bidirectional probing –the probe can target both goals in the same derivational step and hence manifest Multiple Agree (Hiraiwa 2001), as is the case for the probe at C⁰ in Washo, or it can target the two goals sequentially and exhibit Cyclic Agree (e.g. Béjar & Rezac 2009; Despić et al. 2019, among others). I propose Cyclic Agree for the probe at Pers⁰ in Punjabi. This probe can target two arguments. Crucially, it searches its domain one argument at a time – it looks downward first and attempts an agreement relation. If the first instance of probing satisfies the probe, it bleeds probing of all additional goals. Only upon failure of the first agreement cycle, the second cycle of agreement is initiated – this instance of agreement is upward.

Putting this technical machinery together, allocutivity in Punjabi will be analysed as second-cycle agreement of the Adr with the unique person probe in the C-T which fails to agree with the subject in the first agreement cycle. But before we proceed to do this, I establish the structural location of the allocutive marker in the language.

I propose that je occupies the Pers⁰ head, separate from T⁰ which hosts temporal information. Support for the presence of two heads, where one hosts temporal information but not person and the reverse holds for the other head, comes from two facts: (a) the decomposition of the forms of the 1st and 2nd person agreement auxiliaries in the language, and (b) the co-occurrence of the past tense auxiliary and the allocutive marker.

As shown in Table 3, 1st and 2nd person agreement forms can clearly be decomposed into the phi-agreement morpheme corresponding to –aaN (1sg,1pl), -aiN (2sg) and –o (2pl), and the tense morpheme realized via ∅ and s- for the present and the past tense respectively. This decomposition suggests that tense is located on a distinct syntactic head than the person and number feature bundle. More evidence is provided by the co-occurrence of the past tense auxiliary and the allocutive marker. Recall that in the past tense, which is realized overtly via s-, je can co-occur with the 3rd person past tense auxiliary form (as shown in ex. 56 previously). The co-occurrence of two auxiliary forms (sii/sann and je) clearly attests to the presence of two syntactic heads. The head spelled out as sii/sann encodes temporal information realized via the affix s-. The Pers⁰ head in contrast does not encode temporal information – it bears the person feature and is realized as je.¹²

In view of the above facts, I propose that the C-T domain in Punjabi consists of two adjacent heads T⁰ and Pers⁰, where T⁰ hosts temporal information while the person probe is situated on Pers⁰. 1st and 2nd person tensed auxiliaries spell out the two adjacent heads together. The 3rd person auxiliary only spells out the minus person T head, leaving je to spell out Pers⁰.

With these assumptions in place, I propose the following analysis of allocutivity in Punjabi. T⁰ and Pers⁰ probe independently. The probe at T⁰ agrees with the subject – this agreement relation values nominative case on the subject. As for the person probe at Pers⁰, it has two possible sources for its valuation. Assuming Cyclic Agree, the probe first looks in its c-command domain. In the presence of 1st and 2nd person subjects, the person feature on the probe is checked, and is labeled as Pers_subj. This obligatory person agreement is motivated by the Person Licensing Condition (Béjar & Rezac 2003), as given in (58).

Obligatory person agreement with the 1st and 2nd person subject bleeds the next cycle of agreement with the Adr, ruling out allocutivity. Consider the schema in (59).

In such configurations where the 1st/2nd person subject values both T⁰ and Pers⁰ probes, the features on the two adjacent heads are spelled out together as (s)-aaN, (s)-aiN and (s)-o.

With 3rd person nominative subjects, the (number) probe at T⁰ is valued by the subject, which is valued as nominative by T⁰ in return. As for the person probe, it probes downward to agree with the 3rd person subject, but remains unchecked since 3rd person is minus person. This triggers a second cycle of agreement where Pers⁰ looks upward to target the Adr and yields allocutivity, as in (61). I label this instance of Pers⁰ as Pers_alloc.¹³

In such configurations, T⁰ is valued by the subject while the person probe at Pers⁰ is valued by the Adr. Features on the two heads are spelled out separately, as is evident from the past tense. In the past, features on T⁰ are realized overtly, while in the present tense, they remain unrealized. The person probe on Pers⁰ valued by the Adr is realized as je.

It must be noted that since allocutivity results from the second-cycle of agreement on the person probe, the distinct 2nd person morphology of allocutivity (je) as compared to 2nd person subject agreement (–o) in Punjabi is not surprising and can be treated as an instance of second-cycle effects (in the sense of Béjar & Rezac 2009).

In summary, allocutivity does not underlie a distinct allocutive probe in Punjabi. The C-T in Punjabi hosts a unique instance of the person feature at Pers⁰, which has two possible sources of valuation – the 1st/2nd person subject or the Adr but not both. In a given derivation, only one of the potential goals triggers agreement. If the valuing goal is the subject, we get subject agreement. If Pers⁰ targets the Adr upon failure to be valued by the subject, it bears allocutivity.

3.3 Independent evidence for the one person probe system

In this section, I provide independent evidence for the one person-probe system from a subject-object interaction in Punjabi. Punjabi has a 3rd person animate clitic suu, which in its object occurrence is disallowed with 1st/2nd person subjects (Akhtar 1997; Butt 2007; Kaur 2017; Kaur & Raynaud 2019). Following Kaur (2017), I show that this ban results from the presence of a unique person probe in C-T, which can either license the 1st/2nd person subject, or the object clitic, which ends up in the same agreement domain as the subject.

The 3rd person pronominal clitic suu occurs post-verbally to replace a 3rd person singular argument. Consider the following example in (64), where suu, occupying the position of the auxiliary, replaces a 3rd person subject. Similarly, in (65), it replaces a 3rd person object.

In its subject occurrence, suu is unaffected by the person feature on the object, which can be 1st/2nd or 3rd. Objects do not control person agreement in the language. However, in its object occurrence, suu manifests person effects, i.e. it can replace a non-agreeing 3rd person object but only when the subject is also 3rd person, as seen in (65). The presence of a 1st/2nd person subject with an object suu results in ungrammaticality, as shown in the following example in (66). The sentence is grammatical only with corresponding 1st/2nd person agreement auxiliaries.¹⁴

An important thing to be noted here is that only the 3rd person clitic pronoun suu is subject to the person effects. There is no incompatibility between a 3rd person full object pronoun and an agreeing 1st/2nd person subject.

This pattern with 3rd person clitic pronominal object suu, which occupies the auxiliary position, is akin to the ban on allocutivity with agreeing 1st/2nd arguments. Examining the properties of suu, these facts follow from a one-probe system. The analysis in a nutshell is as follows: like 3rd person dative indirect object clitics in PCC languages, suu in Punjabi can only reference animate entities and can be argued to bear a person feature, albeit negatively specified (cf. Adger & Harbour 2007, among others). Punjabi is a DOM language (Bhatia 1993; Kaur 2016), which requires 3rd person animate objects (among 1st/2nd person pronouns and reflexives) to undergo object shift. This triggers the movement of the object clitic to the edge of vP. However, since suu unlike full pronouns is morphologically deficient (in the spirit of Cardinaletti & Starke 1994; Déchaine & Wiltschko 2002; Roberts 2010 etc.), it cannot be licensed via the PP based DOM within vP and targets the agreement based licensor, i.e. T-Pers complex, which is also the locus of subject licensing. This results in a ban on suu in the presence of 1st/2nd person subjects.

Despite its occurrence in the position occupied by the auxiliary, suu is a pronominal clitic. First, unlike agreement markers which do not restrict the co-occurrence of the argument that they agree with, object-indexing suu can never co-occur with an overt object.

Secondly, it has been observed that agreement typically is not restricted in terms of the semantic properties of the goal (Corbett 2006). In contrast, clitics exhibit semantic restrictions with regard to the argument that they can co-reference (Jaeggli 1982; Suñer 1988; Kramer 2014, among others). Patterning with clitics (albeit without any clitic-doubling), suu exhibits semantic restrictions in that it can only reference animate and specific DPs. Using it to refer to an inanimate entity is infelicitous.

No such (in)animacy-sensitivity is observed for the agreement marker, which agrees with the unmarked object, regardless of its (in)animacy.

The above diagnostics show that suu patterns with a pronoun and not an agreement marker. Moreover, it is also animate, in contrast with inanimate pronouns like ‘it’ in English. However, suu is distinct from the full 3rd person pronoun in that it behaves like an X⁰ as is evidenced by (a) its inability to be focused, and (b) fixed position in the verbal complex. Akhtar (1997) notes that the arguments suu stands for are unstressed and not the focal part of the sentences. This can be seen directly from the inability of suu to stand for wh-words.

Furthermore, unlike the full pronoun, which can be scrambled since Punjabi, like Hindi-Urdu allows scrambling with information-structural effects (cf. Kidwai 2000 etc.), suu must occur in the clause-final position replacing the auxiliary.

I take the above mentioned behavior of suu to indicate that it is an X⁰/XP item (in the sense of Chomsky 2001). Put together, these properties show that suu is a pronominal clitic, which needs licensing akin to 3rd person full object pronouns. However, unlike a full pronoun, it is structurally deficient. Question: what is the nature of this licensing?

Punjabi is a DOM language, which requires 1st/2nd person object pronouns, proper names and reflexives to obligatorily occur with DOM, realized as –nuu, as in (75) and (76).

With 3rd person pronouns, the presence/absence of the marking correlates with interpretive effects. The animate 3rd person full pronoun in the object position requires obligatory differential object marking/DOM, as shown in (77). In the absence of DOM, the 3rd person object pronoun can only be interpreted as inanimate or eventive, (78).

For non-pronominals, the presence/absence of DOM correlates with effects like definiteness and specificity, (79).¹⁵

Following recent work by Kalin (2017); (2018), I treat DOM as the manifestation of a licensing requirement on certain object nominals in a given language. Restricting the discussion to pronouns, I propose that the [person] feature on object pronouns must be licensed via DOM. Given the interpretive effects associated with DOM on 3rd person pronouns, not only 1st/2nd person objects but also 3rd person full animate pronominal objects enter the derivation with a person feature, albeit negatively specified (Adger & Harbour 2007). The presence of the person feature on the object triggers object shift to the edge of vP. Clear evidence for this movement is provided by the position of –nuu marked direct object/DO vis-à-vis the indirect object/IO in ditransitives (Bhatt & Anagnostopoulou 1996; Kidwai 2000; Kaur 2016 for more evidence). In ditransitives, the IO typically precedes the DO in Punjabi, (80). However, in the presence of a DOM bearing DO, this order must reverse, (81).

Upon movement of the object to spec, vP, the person feature on said nominals is licensed by agreement with a postposition/P selected by v. This gets realized as –nuu, yielding DOM.¹⁶

Akin to full object pronouns, suu originates in the complement of V. Due to the presence of a positively specified 3rd person feature, it raises to the inner specifier of vP and ‘tucks-in’ below the subject (in the sense of Richards 1999 etc.). However, since it is defective, it cannot host the adpositional DOM realized as –nuu. Consequently, it targets the only functional head with a person probe, i.e. Pers⁰. As schematized in (83), Pers⁰ bearing the person feature probes its c-command domain and agrees with the object suu for person, which then adjoins to the T-Pers complex.

In the presence of a 1st/2nd person subject, however, the person feature on Pers⁰/Pers_subj is valued by agreement with the 1st/2nd person subject, preventing the licensing of suu. The ungrammatical derivation for such a structure is shown in (84).

If the C-T domain in Punjabi had two person probes, both a 1st/2nd person subject and 3rd person animate object clitic would have been permitted, contra facts. This subject-object interaction clearly demonstrates that Punjabi has a unique person probe in the C-T, which can either agree with a 1st/2nd person subject, a 3rd animate object clitic or the Adr.¹⁷ This is summarized in Table 4.

3.4 Interim summary

This section has argued that the distribution of allocutivity vis-à-vis both 1st and 2nd person subject agreement in Punjabi cannot be explained by the presence of two probes, which predicts 1st person agreement to be allowed with allocutivity, contra facts. Instead, this distribution is better explained from the presence of a unique person probe. Allocutivity obtains upon agreement with this probe, but only when it fails to be valued for person by the subject.

Extending this syntax of allocutivity (and the C-T) to imperatives, the facts in the allocutive imperative follow. Allocutive imperatives obligatorily host the allocutive marker. Given our analysis of allocutivity, this means that the imperative structure must host a unique Pers_alloc, which forms a complex with the minus person T⁰. Moreover, the one-person probe approach also requires that in the presence of Pers_alloc, no other person probe is available in the C-T domain to agree in person with the subject and license it. This rules out the co-occurrence of Jussive head which bears a 2nd person feature and agrees with the imperative subject to license it.

Given the independent support for the one-probe analysis and the problems pertaining to (a) stipulated optionality at PF, and (b) inability to explain interpretive effects that (38/8a) raises for allocutive imperatives in Punjabi, this section has convincingly shown that the allocutive imperative in Punjabi is best analysed via (8b), which lacks a Jussive head. Instead, the functional projection which hosts allocutivity across clause types, i.e. Pers_alloc, replaces the Jussive head to derive addressee-restriction on imperative subjects.

5.1 Standard imperative

Consider an instance of the standard imperative composed of the bare verb stem with 2nd person endings, as shown in (97) (repeated from ex. 12).

The syntax of the standard imperative hosts a C head with an imperative operator – I designate this via C_imp. The C_imp occurs with an irrealis T complex. Recall that the T complex in Punjabi consists of two heads T⁰ and Pers⁰. The imperative T head has an irrealis feature.²³ Following Zanuttini (2008) and Zanuttini et al. (2012), it also has a case feature to license the subject but crucially no person.

The Pers⁰ in imperatives is a special imperative head, on par with the Jussive head (Zanuttini 2008), which enters the derivation with a 2nd person feature.²⁴ Crucially, it hosts only a 2nd person feature but not a [status] feature, and is labeled as Pers_imp. In line with the one-probe system advocated in this paper, Pers_imp is the only person probe in the imperative C-T domain. There are two empirical upshots to this claim. First, in the absence of an additional person probe with an unvalued person feature which can target the Adr to yield allocutivity, we correctly rule out the co-occurrence of allocutivity with imperative-specific agreement in standard imperatives. Secondly, in the complete absence of the allocutive head, the availability of standard imperatives in contexts with a generic addressee also follows. Pers_imp hosts only a 2nd person feature, and there is no allocutive head with an unvalued [status] feature to be valued by the Adr, which can restrict the structure to specific addressee contexts.

Compare this with the two-probe approach in (38/8a). According to this approach, the structure of the standard imperative in Punjabi would host both the Pers_imp head, which would agree with the subject, and the Pers_alloc head to agree with the Adr. In the presence of both imperative and allocutive agreement, the latter is ruled out by morphophonological economy constraints. Assuming the two-probe approach for the standard imperative would compel us to posit a non-uniform system – standard imperatives use a two-probe system with an active morphophonological constraint while allocutive imperatives and declaratives underlie a one-probe approach. Furthermore, the presence of an allocutive head with a [status] feature would value the [status] feature (via agreement) in syntax, like in the allocutive imperative. It is unclear as to why the covertness of allocutivity at PF in the standard imperative should have a distinct semantic-pragmatic effect as compared to its overt realization in the allocutive imperative. I thereby maintain a one-probe system for the standard imperative in Punjabi.

With the above-mentioned composition of T-Pers_imp, we proceed to the nature of the imperative subject, which while typically covert, can be realized overtly and is hence best analyzed as pro, and not a PRO (cf. Chomsky 1981; Rizzi 1986, among many others). Following the basic tenets of the Government and Binding (GB) and Minimalist framework, DPs can be partitioned according to their needs with respect to abstract Case. Overt DPs and pro require normal abstract Case, whereas PRO either doesn’t require Case or requires a special “null” Case (Martin 2001). In finite domains, the T head is a nominative case valuing head, which can license overt DPs and pro. In non-finite domains on the other hand, only a PRO can be licensed as the subject due to the lack of a case-licensing T⁰. Given the availability of both overt 2nd person pronouns and also some quantificational 3rd person items as imperative subjects, the imperative subject cannot be treated as PRO which must always be covert. I therefore treat the imperative subject position as a pro, in the sense of Rizzi (1986). The pro is inherently unspecified for phi-feature values, which must be valued in relation to person features located on functional heads via agreement. Clear motivation for the subject not hosting the 2nd person feature, but rather inheriting it from the agreeing functional head in imperative comes from the observation that the verbal complex obligatorily appears with 2nd person morphology, which cannot vary for person even with minus person (3rd person) quantificational subjects. I repeat the relevant example for both the standard and allocutive imperative here in (98) – the observation holds for either manifestation of the 2nd person feature –o or je.

In summary, the standard imperative hosts an irrealis T⁰ with Pers_imp. The T-Pers complex has a pre-specified 2nd person feature and a nominative case feature, which agree with the pro subject to value it as 2nd person and thereby restrict it to the addressee. Consider the tree in (99).

The structure in (99) consists of C_imp, which occurs with an irrealis T-Pers_imp complex, where Pers_imp bears an interpretable and valued instance of the 2nd person feature, and T⁰ bears a valued case feature. The subject, i.e. pro enters the derivation with an unvalued person feature as well as an unvalued case feature. Assuming downward agree (Chomsky 2000; Chomsky 2001), the T-Pers_imp complex searches its c-command domain for the closest active goal; it finds the subject, which hosts an unchecked case feature. Upon agreement, the subject is valued for case and receives a 2nd person feature, resulting in addressee-restriction, as required. Crucially, since Pers_imp lacks the [status] feature, generic addressee readings can obtain.

5.2 Allocutive imperative

The allocutive imperative is analysed on par with the standard imperative except for two differences: (a) the clause-type free Pers⁰ (specifically, Pers_alloc) and not the imperative-specific Pers_imp constitutes the licensor of the 2nd person feature on the subject in allocutive imperatives, and (b) the allocutive head agrees not only in person but also in status feature with the Adr, which restricts it to contexts with a specific addressee.

The structure of the allocutive imperative also consists of a C head with an imperative operator, which occurs with an irrealis T-Pers complex. However, unlike the irrealis T complex in the standard imperative which has a pre-valued 2nd person bearing Pers_imp, the irrealis T complex in the allocutive imperative hosts Pers⁰, which enters the derivation with an unvalued person and status feature, and must be valued by agreement with the Adr. Recall our analysis of allocutivity: the Pers⁰ head with the unvalued person feature probes downward to agree with the subject; however, since both Pers⁰ and the pro subject are unvalued for features, this agreement cycle fails. This gives way to the second cycle of agreement – Pers⁰ probes upward and agrees with the Adr. This values the features on Pers⁰. To ensure that these features are transmitted to pro, I invoke the Feature Sharing view (Pesetsky & Torrego 2007) in (100), albeit with a modification in directionality of agreement probing.

The feature sharing view of agreement allows the possibility to value a feature at more than one location as a consequence of an application of Agree that involves only one of these locations. Consider a derivation with two unvalued occurrences of F. Agree between these two occurrences of F yields a structure that contains only one occurrence of F with two instances; this is shown with indices in (101). When either of these instances of F undergoes agreement with a valued occurrence of F in a third syntactic location, the result will be a valued feature F present at three locations, as schematized in (102).

Assuming the feature sharing approach to agreement coupled with bidirectional Agree, we can resolve the agreement relation between the pro subject, Pers⁰ and Adr. Recall that Pers⁰ first agrees with the subject, but is not valued since the imperative pro lacks pre-specified feature values. This application of agreement between the subject and Pers⁰ yields a structure that contains only one occurrence of the person feature with two instances. When Pers⁰ probes upward in the next cycle and receives a value from the Adr, the person feature on both the subject and Pers⁰ get valued. Consider (103).²⁵

In summary, in the absence of Pers_imp, the pro subject agrees with the Pers_alloc head, which receives its features via agreement with the Adr. This agreement relation between the subject and the Adr, mediated via the allocutive head, restricts the subject to the addressee, as required by imperative syntax. Moreover, the presence of [status] feature on the allocutive head bans the allocutive imperative from occurring in contexts with a generic addressee.

A question that remains is as follows: given the availability of allocutivity across clause types, what prevents agreement between the Adr, Pers_alloc and the subject in declaratives? In other words, why is the declarative subject not restricted to the addressee in the presence of Pers_alloc, which also hosts a 2nd person feature? There are two possible answers to this question. The first possibility is to argue that feature transfer from the Pers_alloc head to the subject is context-sensitive – in the presence of C-imp, the Pers_alloc head transmits features to the subject. If the C head does not have an imperative operator, there is no feature transfer to the subject. While plausible, such an approach arguably suffers from the same premise that the paper attempts to question – akin to associating a person projection with a clause-type, this approach associates a certain derivational step with a clause-type. A better solution lies in the distinct nature of subjects across imperative and declarative domains. We have seen that the imperative subject is a pro which enters the derivation without any pre-specified values for the person feature and must receive them from the agreeing head in order to be licensed. The declarative domain in Punjabi, however, does not seem to have an underspecified pro, even when the subject is covert. Unlike the imperative domain, in the declarative domain, licensing of the covert subject is not contingent on agreement (Butt & King 1997; Butt 2001). Consider the imperfective sentence with a null subject in (104) – similar to Italian, the absence of null subject in this structure seems to correlate with corresponding agreement on the verb. However, like in Japanese-like languages, which lack phi-agreement, a null subject in the declarative domain can also be licensed in the absence of corresponding subject agreement. Consider the example in (105), which is a perfective structure where the verb agrees with the object and not the oblique subject. The subject can be null, notwithstanding.

If the null subject in (105) were a minimally specified pronoun requiring licensing via agreement with the functional head, it is unclear how it would be identified as a 1st person singular in the absence of corresponding agreement on the verbal complex. Butt & King (1997) and Butt (2001) link pro-drop in HU/Punjabi declaratives to the discourse structure of the language. Employing a range of HU film dialogs, Butt & King (1997) propose that only old information such as continuing topics or background information can be dropped. Consider (106) from HU – the Punjabi sentence is exactly the same.

As shown in (106), the 3rd person plural pronoun, which is the continuing topic, is dropped throughout the dialogue at four instances. The possibility to drop the continuing topic may or may not correlate with agreement/case. In the second instance, there is no corresponding agreement on the verb dekha, which shows agreement with the object. Moreover, the case of the dropped argument in this second instance is not even nominative. Instead, given the transitive perfective configuration, it should be ergative. In the third and fourth instances, however, the verb shows corresponding 3rd person plural agreement. While a larger examination of the issue is awaited and the question remains as to what governs the distribution of covert arguments in the declarative domain, it is clear that the determining factor is not agreement. I take this preliminary observation to suggest that even when phonologically unrealized, the covert subject pronoun in Punjabi declaratives patterns with an overt pronoun which enters the derivation with pre-valued phi-features.²⁶ In the absence of a true minimal pronoun subject in the declarative domain, there is no reason to transfer the allocutive features from Pers_alloc to the subject. Subject licensing, regardless of its (c)overt phonological realization takes place as discussed in section 3. 1st/2nd person subjects agree with the person probe at Pers⁰ to be licensed – no further agreement between Pers⁰ and the Adr takes place. This renders the issue of transferring allocutive features to the subject moot.²⁷ As for 3rd person subjects, they enter into agreement with the T head, where they receive a nominative case. Due to the lack of person on the 3rd person subject, the probe at Pers⁰ remains unvalued. It agrees upward and receives the 2nd person feature from Adr. However, since the 3rd person subject does not have a [person] attribute, valued or unvalued to begin with, it is clear that no feature transfer would take place between Pers⁰ and the subject.

To sum up, allocutive imperatives pattern with standard imperatives in that they host a functional projection, which agrees with the subject to restrict it to the addressee. However, this projection varies across the two imperatives – it corresponds to the imperative-specific Pers_imp in the standard imperative and the clause-type free Pers_alloc in the allocutive imperative. In its declarative occurrence, the clause-type free Pers_alloc does not transfer 2nd person features from the Adr to the subject, which is distinct from the underspecified pro subject of the imperative. These findings are summarized in Table 5.