It is generally agreed that sentences can express four basic kinds of meaning: (l) facts (declarative sentences) ; (2) commands (imperative sentences) ; (3) questions (interrogative sentences) ; (4) exclamations (exclamatory sentences). There is less agreement, however, on whether we should apply these labels according to the intent behind the sentence or according to the word order. For example, the sentence "You will apologize immediately to Mr. Willigan" would normally be felt as a command, though it has the form of a declarative sentence. In the sectionsthat follow, the classification is chiefly formal, though some of the conflicts of form and meaning are noted.