Justification of “werf” in spoken German instead of “wirf” (correct imperative)?

Question

I’m a native speaker and the above problem is not very important, but interesting to me. Also I’m almost sure that you can, but want to hear other opinions on it.

I think that it is correct because in spoken German you can leave out es at the end, so spoken werf would correspond to written werf’, which resolve to werfe (subjunctive I). Subjunctive I in German is used e.g. to give instructions, mostly in 3rd person, like “Man nehme …” in cooking recipes.

Knowing this, one could interpret the spoken werf as short term for “werfe er”, adressing the other person in 3rd person singular, which feels oldfashioned but valid to me. Since imperative and instruction share the meaning (maybe with different strength), both choices seem correct in spoken German. (Note that this could have been applied to most other words with irregular imperative in the same way.)

Do you agree or have I made a mistake?

Answer 1

What you traced back as subjunctive I – werfe – can also be interpreted as a genuine imperative in third person. Some languages, e.g. Finnish, feature such a form (to throw: heittää; 3^rd person singular present indicative: hän heittää, 3^rd person singular present conditional: hän heittisi. 3^rd person singular imperative: heittäköön). Given its use in German especially in cookbooks as man nehme, I think it can be considered a third person imperative in German, too.

The thing about imperatives in German that are not in a grammatical second person, is that they need a subject. Compare:

Wirf!

Werft!

Werfen Sie!

Werfe Er!

Werfen wir!

Therefore, I feel your analysis crumbles and fails at the point where you implicitly assume that the subject — Er in medievalistic formal language or er in a more contemporary variation — has been dropped. It shouldn’t be; German hardly ever drops subjects; the exception being the passive form of intransitive verbs and second person imperatives (i.e. sentences that don’t have a subject in the first place).

Finally, although this is only partially relevant, note that not every terminal shwa can be dropped in German. If all could be the typical Rapunzel clause would be ambiguous and could mean both your hair (the singulare tantum of the entirety of hair on your head) and your hairs (every single individual hair). However, when saying this, it’s clear that it can only be the singular because the plural would have terminating shwas:

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, lass dein Haar herunter!

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, lass deine Haare herunter!