Insubordination and its uses

Abstract Prototypical finite clauses are main clauses—indeed, the ability to occur in a main clause is often taken as definitional for finiteness, e.g. by Crystal (1997: 427) —and prototypical nonfinite clauses are subordinate clauses. Problems thus arise when clauses that would by standard criteria be analysed as non- finite are used as main clauses; examples are the use in main clauses of the English bare infinitive go (1a) or Spanish ir in (1b) (both from Etxepare and Grohmann 2005: 129), or the Italian and German infinitives used to express commands in (2).