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Please let me ask you native or very well-trained Eglish speakers if there’s some patterns, rules, or formulas in regards of an imperative sentence’s structure.

For example, I was reading this article from Towson University on sentence patterns — I came to that site via that one search engine — which lists ten patterns for creating English sentences. Though, none of those sentences are an imperative sentence. After unsuccesfully trying to find ressources on this matter, please let me ask this community for your help.

Probably the most simple pattern for an imperative sentence à la “Eat!” would be: an action verb (here: intransitive I think) followed by an exclamation mark.

Next could maybe be “Eat vegetables!”: transitive action verb followed by noun (plural) and exclamation mark.

But there’s also e.g. “Eat healthy!”: intransitive action verb followed by an adverb and exclamation mark.

This already gives us three possible patterns (speaking of only one or two words per imperative sentence):

1) intransitive action-verb + exclamation mark

2) transitive action-verb + noun (singular or plural in some cases) + exclamation mark

3) intransitive action-verb + adverb

Do you know any ressources where I can find way more patterns for creating grammatically correct imperative sentences?

fooness
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    I don't have a recommendation for resources, but I can offer this advice: you should almost never use exclamation marks and you definitely do not need to use exclamation marks to denote imperative sentences. I have noticed a lot of English language learning materials using exclamation marks to punctuate imperative sentences, but I think they do this simply to differentiate imperative sentences from declarative ones, i.e. to make the difference more obvious to learners. To a native speaker, an exclamation mark suggests an angry or excited tone, like you're yelling at me to EAT MORE VEGETABLES! – Juhasz Jan 24 '19 at 14:17
  • Well, healthy is not an adverb in that sentence. Just because it is paired with a verb is beside the point, because if it were an adverb it would be healthily. It's an adjective functioning as a noun due to the actual noun being modified having been dropped. – Robusto Jan 24 '19 at 15:08
  • @Robusto Healthy is being used as a flat adverb, just as we have drive slow on road signs rather than drive slowly. Eat healthy (with the word used as an adverb) has fallen into common usage despite complaints. See "Why do we say 'eat healthy' instead of 'eat healthily'?". – Jason Bassford Jan 24 '19 at 20:45
  • @JasonBassford: The question is open to multiple interpretations, but I think the least likely is your flat-adverb theory. – Robusto Jan 24 '19 at 21:22
  • @Robusto Flat (or bare) adverbs are far from just a theory. They're a well-known grammatical structure that used to be far more prevalent in the past than they are today. Your insistence that adverbs must end in ly is simply wrong. I've already pointed to one ELU post on "eat healthy" specifically Here's an article from another site. – Jason Bassford Jan 24 '19 at 21:59
  • @Jason: Perhaps I wasn't clear. I'm not disputing that flat adverbs exist. I'm merely disagreeing with your theory that such is the usage in this case. – Robusto Jan 24 '19 at 22:44
  • @Robusto What you said was, "because if it were an adverb it would be healthily." Unless there is some reason for you to say that other than healthily ends in ly, I'm not sure what it is. Aside from the spelling of the word, what makes you conclude that a noun has been dropped? Why think that somebody originally didn't mean it to be used as an adverb and just picked the wrong word at the time—but one that stuck in future idiomatic use? (Like irregardless.) I'd be happy to look at other articles or sources that argue for the dropped-noun theory. – Jason Bassford Jan 25 '19 at 01:56
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Robusto Jan 25 '19 at 02:04
  • @JasonBassford: I've responded in the chat, if you're interested. – Robusto Jan 25 '19 at 20:31
  • Eat! implies [your food or something else.] It is not imperative. Any verb where you only use the action verb implies an object..... – Lambie Jan 26 '19 at 17:55
  • I have the same question did you find the answer ? – M.Abulsoud Mar 11 '19 at 12:35
  • Unfortunately no one answered … – fooness Mar 11 '19 at 21:45

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