Informal leave-taking wishes in Dutch: a Functional Discourse Grammar account

Our aim in this paper is to describe and analyse Dutch constructions like Werk ze! and Slaap ze!, which consist of a verb (stem) immediately followed by the invariable element ze. Although these ze-constructions formally resemble imperative constructions, they are used to express the wish that the Addressee will enjoy the action described by the verb. As it turns out, however, the ze-construction is characterized by numerous formal and (discourse)functional restrictions, which pose a challenge to any formal treatment of the construction. In this paper, we first provide a detailed description of the specific (discourse)pragmatic, semantic, morphosyntactic and phonological properties of the ze-construction. Subsequently, we discuss some previous analyses of the construction, which are shown to be inadequate and/or implausible. Finally, we propose a new fdg analysis in which the element ze is regarded as a particle triggered by an Optative operator at the layer of the Illocution. This analysis, it is argued, is not only more successful in accounting for the distinguishing features of the construction, but in addition shows that fdg, by including a separate level for the analysis of the pragmatic and discoursal aspects of utterances, is particularly suitable for dealing with constructions of this kind.