De directieve infinitief en de imperatief in het Nederlands.

In Dutch both the imperative and the infinitive can be used as directives; in the latter case the term 'directive infinitive' is used. The difference in meaning between these forms is often very subtle and hard to define. This paper addresses the question what the difference in meaning is between the imperative and the directive infinitive and how the difference in meaning can account for the different semantic and syntactic features of these forms. First, the general meaning of the infinitive ('situation type') and different uses of the directive infinitive ('procedure', 'script', 'appropriate situation') are investigated, and an analysis is provided of the context-types in which the directive interpretation of the infinitive occurs. It is argued that the directive interpretation of the infinitive can only be analyzed against the background of these context-types, which each constitute the directive interpretation of the infinitive. Subsequently, the meaning of the imperative is analyzed and compared to the meaning of the directive infinitive. The remaining part of the paper is devoted to an analysis of four different semantic-syntactic features of the directive infinitive and the imperative. It is shown that the difference in meaning between these two forms accounts for the difference in semantic-syntactic features of the imperative and the directive infinitive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]