Although various kinds of sentences are employed to express command, their graded appropriateness in politeness is based on mutually exclusive language-used situations. A lot of evidences show cross-linguistic variance in expressing politeness in alliance with the cultural differences. Especially, when speaking politely in English command, indirect and respectful expressions are preferred to direct ones. Also it is reported that past tense is used for less direct and more polite expressions. By making these usages constraints and setting their rankings differently in Optimality Theory, it can be systematically explained to judge graded appropriateness of various polite expressions used in English command.

• 박인진(부산외국어대학교)