Grammatical mood
Encyclopedia
In linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

, grammatical mood is a grammatical
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...

 (and specifically, morphological
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...

) feature of verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...

s, used to signal modality
Linguistic modality
In linguistics, modality is what allows speakers to evaluate a proposition relative to a set of other propositions.In standard formal approaches to modality, an utterance expressing modality can always roughly be paraphrased to fit the following template:...

.
That is, it is the use of verbal inflection
Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...

s that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying (for example, whether it is intended as a statement of fact, of desire, of command, etc.). Less commonly, the term is used more broadly to allow for the syntactic
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....

 expression of modality — that is, the use of non-inflectional phrases.

Mood is distinct from grammatical tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...

 or grammatical aspect
Grammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...

, although the same word patterns are used to express more than one of these meanings at the same time in many languages, including English and most other modern Indo-European languages. (See tense–aspect–mood for a discussion of this.)

Some examples of moods are conditional, imperative, indicative, injunctive, optative, potential, and subjunctive. Infinitive
Infinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...

 is a category apart from all these finite forms
Finite verb
A finite verb is a verb that is inflected for person and for tense according to the rules and categories of the languages in which it occurs. Finite verbs can form independent clauses, which can stand on their own as complete sentences....

, and so are gerund
Gerund
In linguistics* As applied to English, it refers to the usage of a verb as a noun ....

s and participle
Participle
In linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...

s. Some Uralic
Uralic languages
The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...

 Samoyedic
Samoyedic languages
The Samoyedic languages are spoken on both sides of the Ural mountains, in northernmost Eurasia, by approximately 30,000 speakers altogether....

 languages have more than ten moods; Nenets has as many as sixteen. The original Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...

 inventory of moods was indicative, subjunctive, optative, and imperative. Not every Indo-European language has each of these moods, but the most conservative ones such as Avestan, Ancient Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

, and Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

 have them all. English has the indicative, imperative, and subjunctive moods; others, such as the conditional, do not appear as morphologically distinct forms.

Not all of the moods listed below are clearly conceptually distinct. Individual terminology varies from language to language, and the coverage of (e.g.) the "conditional" mood in one language may largely overlap with that of the "hypothetical" or "potential" mood in another. Even when two different moods exist in the same language, their respective usages may blur, or may be defined by syntactic rather than semantic criteria. For example, the subjunctive
Subjunctive mood
In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb mood typically used in subordinate clauses to express various states of irreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred....

 and optative
Optative mood
The optative mood is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope. It is similar to the cohortative mood, and closely related to the subjunctive mood....

 moods in Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 alternate syntactically in many subordinate clauses, depending on the tense of the main verb. The usage of the indicative, subjunctive and jussive mood
Jussive mood
The jussive is a grammatical mood of verbs for issuing orders, commanding, or exhorting . English verbs are not marked for this mood...

s in Classical Arabic
Classical Arabic
Classical Arabic , also known as Qur'anic or Koranic Arabic, is the form of the Arabic language used in literary texts from Umayyad and Abbasid times . It is based on the Medieval dialects of Arab tribes...

 is almost completely controlled by syntactic context; the only possible alternation in the same context is between indicative and jussive following the negative particle lā.

Realis moods

Realis moods are a category of grammatical moods that indicate that something is actually the case or actually not the case. The most common realis mood is the indicative mood. Some languages have a distinct generic mood for expressing general truths. For other realis moods, see the main article.

Indicative

The indicative mood, or evidential mood, is used for factual statements and positive beliefs. All intentions that a particular language does not categorize as another mood are classified as indicative. In English, questions are considered indicative. It is the most commonly used mood and is found in all languages. Example: "Paul is eating an apple" or "John eats apples".

Irrealis moods

Irrealis moods are the set of grammatical moods that indicate that something is not actually the case. Simply put, they are any verb or sentence mood that are not realis moods. They may be part of expressions of necessity, possibility, requirement, wish or desire, fear, or as part of counterfactual reasonings, etc.

Irrealis verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...

 forms are used when speaking of an event which has not happened, is not likely to happen, or is otherwise far removed from the real course of events. For example, in the sentence "If you had done your homework, you wouldn't have failed the class", had done is an irrealis verb form.

Some languages have distinct grammatical forms that indicate that the event described by a specific verb is an irrealis verb. Many of the Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...

 preserve a subjunctive mood
Subjunctive mood
In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb mood typically used in subordinate clauses to express various states of irreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred....

 that functions as an irrealis; some also preserve an optative mood
Optative mood
The optative mood is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope. It is similar to the cohortative mood, and closely related to the subjunctive mood....

 that describes events that are wished for or hoped for but not factual.

Common irrealis moods are the imperative, the conditional, the subjunctive, the optative, the jussive, and the potential. For other examples, see the main article.

Subjunctive

The subjunctive mood, sometimes called conjunctive mood, has several uses in dependent clause
Dependent clause
In linguistics, a dependent clause is a clause that augments an independent clause with additional information, but which cannot stand alone as a sentence. Dependent clauses modify the independent clause of a sentence or serve as a component of it...

s. Examples include discussing imaginary or hypothetical events and situations, expressing opinions or emotions, or making polite requests (the exact scope is language-specific). A subjunctive mood exists in English, though it is used in English much less than in many other Indo-European languages; in English, this mood has, for some uses, become something of a linguistic fossil
Fossilization (linguistics)
In linguistic morphology, fossilization refers to two close notions. One is preserving of ancient linguistic features which have lost their grammatical functions in language. Another is loss of productivity of a grammatical paradigm , which still remains in use in some words. Examples of...

. An example of the subjunctive mood is "I suggest that Paul eat an apple". In this instance, Paul is not in fact eating an apple; the sentence merely presents the hypothetical (but unfulfilled) actions of Paul according to the speaker's suggestion. Contrast this with the indicative verb of the sentence "Paul eats an apple", in which the verb "to eat" is in the present tense and employs a mood that states an unambiguous fact. Another way of expressing the request is "I suggested that Paul should eat an apple", derived from "Paul should eat an apple."

Other uses of the subjunctive in English, as in "And if he be not able to bring a lamb, then he shall bring for his trespass..." (KJV Leviticus
Leviticus
The Book of Leviticus is the third book of the Hebrew Bible, and the third of five books of the Torah ....

 5:7) are archaism
Archaism
In language, an archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current. This can either be done deliberately or as part of a specific jargon or formula...

s. Statements such as "I will ensure that he leave immediately" often sound archaic or overly formal, and have been almost completely supplanted by constructions with the indicative, like "I will ensure that he leaves immediately".

The subjunctive part of the conditional version of "John eats if he is hungry" is:
English: John would eat if he were hungry.
German: Johannes äße, wenn er hungrig wäre.
Spanish: Juan comería si tuviera hambre.


The subjunctive mood figures prominently in the grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...

 of the Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...

, which require this mood for certain types of dependent clauses. This point commonly causes difficulty for English speakers learning these languages.

In certain other languages, the dubitative or the conditional moods may be employed instead of the subjunctive in referring to doubtful or unlikely events (see the main article).

Conditional

The conditional mood is used to speak of an event whose realization is dependent upon another condition, particularly, but not exclusively, in conditional sentence
Conditional sentence
In grammar, conditional sentences are sentences discussing factual implications or hypothetical situations and their consequences. Languages use a variety of conditional constructions and verb forms to form such sentences....

s. In Modern English, this type of modality is expressed via a periphrastic construction
Compound verb
In linguistics, a compound verb or complex predicate is a multi-word compound that acts as a single verb. One component of the compound is a light verb or vector, which carries any inflections, indicating tense, mood, or aspect, but provides only fine shades of meaning...

, with the form would + infinitive, (e.g. I would buy), and thus is a mood only in the broad sense and not in the more common narrow sense of the term "mood". In other languages, such as Spanish or French, verbs have a specific conditional inflection
Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...

. This applies also to some verbs in German, in which the conditional mood is conventionally called Konjuntiv II, differing from Konjunktiv I. Thus, the conditional version of "John eats if he is hungry" is:
English: John would eat if he were hungry.
German: Johannes äße, wenn er hungrig wäre.
French: Jean mangerait s'il avait faim.
Spanish: Juan comería si tuviera hambre.
Portuguese: João comeria se estivesse com fome.


Johannes würde essen, wenn er hungrig wäre is also acceptable in German.

In the Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...

, the conditional form is used primarily in the apodosis
Apodosis
Apodosis may refer to:*In linguistics, the main clause in a conditional sentence*In logic, the apodosis corresponds to the consequent; ....

 (main clause) of conditional clauses, and in a few set phrase
Set phrase
A set phrase or fixed phrase is a phrase whose parts are fixed, even if the phrase could be changed without harming the literal meaning. This is because a set phrase is a culturally accepted phrase. A set phrase does not necessarily have any literal meaning in and of itself. Set phrases may...

s where it expresses courtesy or doubt. The main verb in the protasis
Protasis
In drama, a protasis is the introductory part of a play, usually its first act. The term was coined by the fourth-century Roman grammarian Aelius Donatus. He defined a play as being made up of three separate parts, the other two being epitasis and catastrophe. In modern dramatic theory the term...

 (dependent clause) is usually in the subjunctive or in the indicative mood. However, this is not a universal trait: among others in German (as above), Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

 and Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

 (even though the latter is a Romance language), the conditional mood is used in both the apodosis and the protasis. A further example is the sentence "I would buy a house if I earned a lot of money", where in Finnish both clauses have the conditional marker -isi-: Ostaisin talon, jos ansaitsisin paljon rahaa. In Polish (as well as in east slavic languages) the conditional marker -by also appears twice: Kupiłbym dom, gdybym zarabiał dużo pieniędzy.

Because English is used as a lingua franca, a similar kind of doubling of the word would is a fairly common way to misuse an English language construction: *I would buy if I would earn....
As in this wrong case, in English, the would + infinitive construct can be employed in main clauses, with a subjunctive
Subjunctive mood
In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb mood typically used in subordinate clauses to express various states of irreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred....

 sense: "If you would only tell me what is troubling you, I might be able to help".

Optative

The optative mood expresses hopes, wishes or commands and has other uses that may overlap with the subjunctive mood. Few languages have an optative as a distinct mood; some that do are Albanian
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...

, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

, and all forms of the Persian language (Avestan, Old Persian, Middle Persian
Middle Persian
Middle Persian , indigenously known as "Pârsig" sometimes referred to as Pahlavi or Pehlevi, is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times became a prestige dialect and so came to be spoken in other regions as well. Middle Persian is classified as a...

, New Persian).

Jussive

The jussive mood expresses pleading, insistence, imploring, self-encouragement, wishing, desiring, intention, commanding, purpose or consequence. It is found in Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

, where it is called the مجزوم, maǧzūm. The rules governing the jussive in Arabic are somewhat complex.

Potential

The potential mood is a mood of probability indicating that, in the opinion of the speaker, the action or occurrence is considered likely. It is used in Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

, Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, in Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

 and in the Sami languages
Sami languages
Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme northwestern Russia, in Northern Europe. Sami is frequently and erroneously believed to be a single language. Several names are used for the Sami...

. (In Japanese it is often called something like tentative, since potential is used to refer to a voice indicating capability to perform the action.)

In Finnish, it is mostly a literary device, as it has virtually disappeared from daily spoken language in most dialects. Its affix is -ne-, as in *men + ne + e → mennee "(s/he/it) will probably go".
In English, it is formed by means of the auxiliaries may, can, ought and must: "She may go.".

Imperative

The imperative mood expresses direct commands, prohibitions, and requests. In many circumstances, using the imperative mood may sound blunt or even rude, so it is often used with care. Example: "Paul, do your homework now". An imperative is used to tell someone to do something without argument.

Many languages, including English, use the bare verb stem to form the imperative (such as "go", "run", "do"). Other languages, such as Seri
Seri language
Seri is a language isolate spoken by the Seri people by between 716 and 900 people in two villages on the coast of Sonora, Mexico.-Classification:...

 and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, however, use special imperative forms.

In English, second person is implied by the imperative except when first-person plural is specified, as in "Let's go" ("Let us go").

The prohibitive mood, the negative imperative may be grammatically or morphologically different from the imperative mood in some languages. It indicates that the action of the verb is not permitted, e.g. "Don't you go!"

In English, the imperative is sometimes used to form a conditional sentence
Conditional sentence
In grammar, conditional sentences are sentences discussing factual implications or hypothetical situations and their consequences. Languages use a variety of conditional constructions and verb forms to form such sentences....

: e.g. "go eastwards a mile, and you'll see it" means "if you go eastwards a mile, you will see it".

Interrogative

The interrogative mood is used for asking questions. Most languages do not have a special mood for asking questions, but Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

 and Nenets do.

English

English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 has three moods: indicative (I am here), imperative (Be here), and subjunctive (if I were here, I wish that he were here, I demand that he be here). It expresses conditionality not with a mood (that is, not inflectionally) but rather periphrastically using the modal
Modal verb
A modal verb is a type of auxiliary verb that is used to indicate modality -- that is, likelihood, ability, permission, and obligation...

 auxiliary verb
Auxiliary verb
In linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,...

 would.

Romance languages

Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...

 such as Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

, and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 have four moods: indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and conditional. These languages contrast with English in two ways: they make substantially more use of the subjunctive mood, and they express conditional modality as a mood (that is, with inflections) rather than syntactically
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....

 as in English would go.

See also

  • Articles on specific grammatical moods
  • Grammatical conjugation
    Grammatical conjugation
    In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories...

  • Grammatical modality
  • Polarity item
    Polarity item
    In linguistics, a polarity item is a lexical element that can appear only in the environment of a certain "licensing context." Polarity items are defined as Negative Polarity Items or Positive Polarity items...

  • Nominal TAM
    Nominal TAM
    Nominal TAM is the indication of tense–aspect–mood by inflecting a noun, rather than a verb. In clausal nominal TAM, the noun indicates TAM information about the clause....


External links



From SIL International
SIL International
SIL International is a U.S.-based, worldwide, Christian non-profit organization, whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to expand linguistic knowledge, promote literacy, translate the Christian Bible into local languages,...

:
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