Imperatives and commands in Nungon

The two dedicated positive imperative paradigms of the Papuan language Nungon cover all subject person/number combinations. The Immediate Imperative and Delayed Imperative differ semantically, pragmatically, and formally. The Immediate Imperative demands immediate compliance, rings peremptorily, and shares morphology with the Counterfactual and medial verb Different-Subject marking. The Delayed Imperative anticipates delayed compliance and is polite; it may have originated through iconic vowel alteration of the Future Irrealis. The time distinction between the positive Immediate and Delayed Imperatives is neutralized under negation; a single dedicated Prohibitive likely arose from the combination of an attention-getting suffix and the positive Future Irrealis. Nungon also has eight imperative strategies, which may be coordinated with dedicated imperative forms; conventional verbless directives exist as well. Dedicated imperatives can function in questions. Children show early acquisition of canonical and non-canonical imperative forms. Finally, this hunting society also has dog commands that are unrelated to usual imperative forms.