Grammatical mood
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Grammatical features |
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In
Mood is distinct from
Some examples of moods are
, which are non-finite forms of the verb, are not considered to be examples of moods.Some Uralic Samoyedic languages have more than ten moods; Nenets[4] has as many as sixteen. The original Indo-European inventory of moods consisted of indicative, subjunctive, optative, and imperative. Not every Indo-European language has all of these moods, but the most conservative ones such as Avestan, Ancient Greek, and Vedic Sanskrit have them all. English has indicative, imperative, conditional, and subjunctive moods.
Not all the moods listed below are clearly conceptually distinct. Individual terminology varies from language to language, and the coverage of, for example, 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 and optative moods in Ancient Greek alternate syntactically in many subordinate clauses, depending on the tense of the main verb. The usage of the indicative, subjunctive, and jussive moods in Classical Arabic 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.
Indicative
The indicative mood, or evidential mood, is used for factual statements and positive beliefs. It is the mood of reality. The indicative mood 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 or non indicative moods are the set of grammatical moods that indicate that something is not actually the case or a certain situation or action is not known to have happened. They are any verb or sentence mood that is not a realis mood. They may be part of expressions of necessity, possibility, requirement, wish or desire, fear, or as part of counterfactual reasoning, etc.
Irrealis verb 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 irrealis
Common irrealis moods are the conditional, the subjunctive, the optative, the jussive, and the potential. For other examples, see the main article for each respective mood.
Subjunctive
The subjunctive mood, sometimes called conjunctive mood, has several uses in dependent clauses. 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 not an inflectional form of the verb but rather a clause type which uses the bare form of the verb also used in imperatives, infinitives, and other constructions. An example of the English subjunctive is "Jill suggested that Paul take his medicine", as opposed to the indicative sentence "Jill believes that Paul takes his medicine".[6]
Other uses of the subjunctive in English are
Some Germanic languages distinguish between two types of subjunctive moods, for example, the Konjunktiv I and II in German.
Language | Sentence |
---|---|
English | John would eat if he were hungry. |
Danish | John ville spise, hvis han var sulten. |
Dutch | Jan zou eten, als hij hongerig zou zijn. |
French1 | Jean mangerait s’il avait faim. |
German | Johannes äße, wenn er hungrig wäre. |
Hindi[7][8] | जॉन खाता अगर उसे भूख होती।
jôn khātā agar use bhūkh hotī. |
Italian | Giovanni mangerebbe se avesse fame. |
Lithuanian | Jonas valgytų, jei būtų alkanas. |
Polish | Jan jadłby, gdyby zgłodniał. |
Portuguese | O João comeria se tivesse fome. |
Russian | Иван поел бы, если бы был голоден. |
Spanish | Juan comería si tuviera hambre. |
Swedish | Johan skulle äta, om han vore hungrig. |
Slovenian | Janez bi jedel, če bi bil lačen. |
1 In modern usage, the imperfect indicative usually replaces the imperfect subjunctive in this type of sentence.
The subjunctive mood figures prominently in the grammar of the Romance languages, which require this mood for certain types of dependent clauses. This point commonly causes difficulty for English speakers learning these languages.[citation needed]
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 for speaking of an event whose realization is dependent upon another condition, particularly, but not exclusively, in conditional sentences. In Modern English, this type of modality is expressed via a periphrastic construction, with the form would + infinitive, (for example, 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" requiring morphological changes in the verb. In other languages, verbs have a specific conditional inflection. In German, the conditional mood is identical to one of the two subjunctive moods (Konjunktiv II, see above).
English | John would eat if he were hungry. |
Basque | Jonek jango luke, goserik balu. |
Estonian | Juhan sööks, kui tal oleks nälg |
Finnish | Juha söisi, jos hänellä olisi nälkä |
French | Jean mangerait s'il avait faim. |
German | Johannes äße, wenn er hungrig wäre.
Also: Johannes würde essen, wenn er hungrig wäre. |
Hindi | जॉन खाता अगर उसे भूख होती।
jôn khātā agar usē bhūkh hotī. |
Irish | D'itheadh Seán dá mbeadh ocras air. |
Italian | Giovanni mangerebbe se avesse fame. |
Lithuanian | Jonas valgytų, jei būtų alkanas. |
Polish | Jan jadłby, gdyby zgłodniał. |
Portuguese | João comeria se estivesse com fome. |
Russian | Иван поел бы, если бы был голоден. |
Spanish | Juan comería si tuviera hambre. |
Swedish | Johan skulle äta, om han vore hungrig. |
In the
- Irish has conditional marking in both clauses, -adh in the verbs illustrated: d'itheadh 'would eat, would have eaten' and beadh 'would be, would have been', along with a specific irrealis conditional dá 'if', which contrasts with the realis conditional má 'if' (i.e. Ithfidh sé má bhíonn ocras air. 'He'll eat if he is hungry').
- In Finnish, both clauses likewise have the conditional marker -isi-: Ostaisin talon, jos ansaitsisin paljon rahaa.
- In Polish (as well as in eastern and other western Slavic languages), the conditional marker -by also appears twice: Kupiłbym dom, gdybym zarabiał dużo pieniędzy.
- In Hindi, the conditional markers -ता (tā), -ती (tī), -ते (te) and -तीं (tī̃) (agreeing in gender and number with the subject and the direct object) comes twice: मैं घर खरीदता अगर बहौत पैसे कमाता। (maiṁ ghar kharīdatā agar bahaut paisē kamātā). The conditional (or contrafactual) form in Hindi corresponds to perfect conditional of Romance and the Germanic languages. So, the sentence literally translate to "I would have bought a house if I earned a lot of money." [7][8]
Because English is used as a lingua franca, a common error among second-language speakers is to use "would" in both clauses. For example, *"I would buy if I would earn...".[citation needed]
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
.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: "Pat, do your homework now". An imperative is used for telling 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, Hindi, and Latin, however, use special imperative forms.
- In English, the second person is implied by the imperative except when first-person plural is specified, as in "Let's go" ("Let us go").
- In Romance languages, a first person plural exists in the imperative mood: Spanish: Vayamos a la playa; French: Allons à la plage (both meaning: Let's go to the beach).
- In Hindi, imperatives can be put into the present and the future tense.[9] Imperative forms of Hindi verb karnā (to do) is shown in the table belowː
2nd
Person |
Formality | Present | Future | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Intimate | tū | kar | kariyo | |
Familiar | tum | karo | karnā | |
Formal | āp | kariye | kariyegā |
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. For example, "Don't you go!"
In English, the imperative is sometimes used for forming a conditional sentence: for example, "go eastwards a mile, and you'll see it" means "if you go eastwards a mile, you will see it".
English | John, do your homework! |
French | Jean, fais tes devoirs ! |
German | Johannes, mach deine Hausaufgaben! |
Russian | Иван, делай домашнее задание! |
Jussive
The jussive, similarly to the imperative, expresses orders, commands, exhortations, but particularly to a third person not present. An imperative, in contrast, generally applies to the listener. When a language is said to have a jussive, the jussive forms are different from the imperative ones, but may be the same as the forms called "subjunctive" in that language. Latin and Hindi are examples of where the jussive is simply about certain specific uses of the subjunctive. Arabic, however, is a language with distinct subjunctive, imperative, and jussive conjugations.
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
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 "(she/he/it) will probably go".
In Hungarian, the potential is formed by the suffix -hat/-het and it can express both possibility and permission: adhat "may give, can give"; Mehetünk? "Can we go?"
In English, it is formed by means of the auxiliaries may, can, ought, and must: "She may go."
Presumptive
The presumptive mood is used to express presupposition or hypothesis, regardless of the fact denoted by the verb, as well as other more or less similar attitudes: doubt, curiosity, concern, condition, indifference, and inevitability. It is used in Romanian, Hindi, Gujarati, and Punjabi.
In Romanian, the presumptive mood conjugations of the verb vrea are used with the infinitive form of verbs. The present tense and the past tense infinitives are respectively used to form the present and the past tense of the presumptive mood.[11][12]
In Hindi, the presumptive mood conjugations of the verb honā (to be) are used with the perfective, habitual, and progressive aspectual participles to form the perfective presumptive, habitual presumptive, and the progressive presumptive moods. The same presumptive mood conjugations are used for present, future, and past tenses.[13][14][15]
Person | Singular | Plural | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st | 2nd | 3rd | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | ||
Romanian | oi | o | om | oți | or | ||
Hindi | ♂ | hūṁgā | hogā | hoṁgē | hogē | hoṁgē | |
♀ | hūṁgī | hogī | hoṁgī | hogī | hoṁgī |
Tense | Sentence | Translation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Romanian | Present | tu oi face | You might do. | |
Past | tu oi fi făcut | You might have done. | ||
Progressive | tu oi fi făcând | You might be doing. | ||
Aspect | Tense | Sentence | Translation | |
Hindi | Habitual | Present | tū kartā hoga abhī | You must/might be doing it now. |
Past | tū kartā hogā pêhlē. | You must/might have done it before (habitually in the past). | ||
Perfective | Present | tūnē kiyā hogā abhī. | You must/might have done now. | |
Past | tūnē kiyā hogā pêhlē. | You must/might have done it before (in the past). | ||
Progressive | Present | tū kar rahā hogā abhī | You must/might be doing it now. | |
Past | tū kar rahā hogā do din pêhlē | You must/might have been doing it two days ago. | ||
Future | tū kar rahā hogā do din bād | You must/might be doing it two days from now. |
Note:
- The translations are just the closest possible English approximations and not exact.
- Only masculine conjugations are shown for Hindi.
Hypothetical
A few languages use a hypothetical mood, which is used in sentences such as "you could have cut yourself", representing something that might have happened but did not.
Inferential
The inferential mood is used to report unwitnessed events without confirming them. Often, there is no doubt as to the veracity of the statement (for example, if it were on the news), but simply the fact that the speaker was not personally present at the event forces them to use this mood.
In the
The inferential is usually impossible to be distinguishably translated into English. For instance, indicative Bulgarian той отиде (toy otide) and Turkish o gitti will be translated the same as inferential той отишъл (toy otishal) and o gitmiş — with the English indicative he went.[1] Using the first pair, however, implies very strongly that the speaker either witnessed the event or is very sure that it took place. The second pair implies either that the speaker did not in fact witness it take place, that it occurred in the remote past or that there is considerable doubt as to whether it actually happened. If it were necessary to make the distinction, then the English constructions "he must have gone" or "he is said to have gone" would partly translate the inferential.
Interrogative
The interrogative (or interrogatory) mood is used for asking questions. Most languages do not have a special mood for asking questions, but exceptions include
Deontic mood vs. epistemic mood
Linguists also differentiate moods into two parental irrealis categories:
Moods in Oceanic languages
Pingelapese
Ngaei rong pwa Soahn e laid.
‘I heard that John was fishing (I am certain about it).’
Ngaei rong pwa Soahn ae laid.
‘I heard that John was fishing (but I am not certain about it).’
The use of ae instead of e can also indicate an interrogative sentence. This is a form of non-declarative speech that demonstrates the speaker has no commitment to the statement they are saying. The following sentence is an example.
Soahn ae laid?
‘Does John fish?’
Reo Rapa
The language we know as
For example:
- e hina’aro na vau tō mei’a ra
Mortlockese
See also
- Articles on specific grammatical moods
- Grammatical conjugation
- Grammatical modality
- Polarity item
- Nominal TAM
References
- ^ Palmer, F. R., Mood and Modality, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986 (second edition 2001).
- ^ Bybee, Joan; Perkins, Revere; and Pagliuca, William. The Evolution of Grammar, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1994.
- ^ Loos, Eugine Erals; Anderson, Susan; Day, Dwight H. Jr.; Jordan, Paul C.; Wingate, J. Douglas, eds. (2004), What is mood and modality?, SIL International, retrieved 6 February 2014
- ^ "Tundra Nenets grammatical sketch". www.helsinki.fi.
- doi:10.4000/rsp.897.
- ISBN 978-0521431460.
- ^ a b Hong, Sungok; Bhatt, Sunil Kumar; Ranjan, Rajiv; Gusain, Lakhan, "Grammar Notes 8.2: Conditional Sentences", Hindi-Urdu (in Hindi), retrieved 7 August 2020
- ^ S2CID 52831898.
- ^ "A Door Into Hindi: Lesson 11 - Future Imperatives". taj.oasis.unc.edu. Retrieved 7 August 2020.
- ^ Qian, Nairong (錢乃榮) (2010). "《從〈滬語便商〉所見的老上海話時態》 (Tenses and Aspects? Old Shanghainese as Found in the Book Huyu Bian Shang)". Journal of Chinese Linguistics. 24. Shanghai: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press.
- ^ Mihoc, Teodora (2012). The Romanian Presumptive Mood: Inferential Evidentiality and Upper-End Degree Epistemic Modality (PDF) (MA thesis). University of Ottawa. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
- ^ Irimia, Monica-Alexandrina. "The Romanian Presumptive and Its Evidential Nature" (PDF). Retrieved 11 March 2024.
- ^ "Hindi: Presumptive Mood". hindilanguage.info. 20 April 2012. Retrieved 19 August 2020.
- S2CID 189777303.
- S2CID 45974532.
- ^ Hooper, Robin (1994). Studies in Tokelauan syntax. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International. pp. 283–284.
- ^ Hattori, Ryoko (2012). Preverbal Particles in Pingelapese. pp. 76–79.
- ^ .
- hdl:10125/51004.
External links
From SIL International: