  Hare (1989c) further hoped to reduce the paradox of an embedded imperative by making a distinction between two elements within the expression of a speech act: when a speaker says “Do X”, thereby telling a hearer to do X, he both issues a sentence in the imperative mood, fit for the communication of a command, and indicates that he intends so to be using it. He calls a sign of the first a tropic, or sign of mood; this is to be distinguished from a neustic, or sign of subscription (like Frege’s assertion-sign). When “Do X” is embedded within a conditional antecedent, as can be expressed in English by “If you want to do X”, the tropic remains though the neustic disappears. This is why it is the imperative “Do X”, and not the indicative “You are about to do X”, that releases the consequent.