Choice between imperative forms in contemporary Hungarian dramas: A historicai background In Hungarian, both in the subjective and in the objective conjugation, two forms are used in imperative second person singular: a shorter one and a longer one, for example várj: várjál, várd: várjad 'wait'. The choice between these forms is influenced on one hand by morphological features of the verbs, and on the other hand, by the nature of the speech act expressed by the imperative form. The proportion of occurrences of shorter and longer forms can be different in the subjective and objective conjugations; in the subjective conjugation, the use of -ik verbs can also be different. The nature of the speech act primarily refers here to intensity; it refers to a "request type" and "command type" of directive. There is also a third type; the use of conjunctive in some subordinated clauses, induced by a key word or by the content ofthe main clause. The current paper analyses the choice between imperative forms in eight contemporary Hungarian dramas. It is a new link in the chain of a diachronic investigation. The author's aim is to reve al the history of choice between shorter and longer fonns on the basis of dramatic texts, by examining synchronic sections and making a diachronic comparison. Five such segments have been analysed so far, from about 1770 until the end of 20th century. The dramas analysed were published in 2009-2010. Drama, as a genre that uses dialogue, has been and continues to be a favoured subject for analysis, because it is stylistically comparable to natural spoken language, which means that imperative fonns can be easily found. In addition, the paper deals with the role of the idiolects of the playwrights. The study also includes statistical analysis.