Mood
From UniLang Wiki
Purpose of moods
Verbs are inflected in moods according to the "connection to reality" of the action described.
Technically and roughly:
- Subjunctive mood is used to indicate a possible, conditional, imagined or wished action or situation.
- Indicative mood is used when we talk about what actually happens. This is the most common mood, and can be thought of as "normal mode" for the verb.
- Imperative mood is used for direct instructions or commands.
Technically, because instructions in polite form may be expressed in the subjunctive mood, and often the indicative mood is allowed (varying from language to language) for all uses of the verb.
Roughly, because this is not "the universal set" of moods. Some variations on the subjunctive:
German has two distinct forms of "konjunktiv" (numbered I and II), K~ I for indirect speech ("possible") and K~ II indicating a conditional/imagined situation.
Finnish has several moods falling into the subjunctive classification above: conditional, optative, potential and eventive mood.
Current Norwegian has no subjunctive (i.e. it is not part of the grammar any more, although it is kept in some fixed expressions.)
Time conjugation in different moods
Time conjugation (tense) defines the verb action's position in time. With the subjunctive mood, the time dimension is often undefined and/or irrelevant. The imperative mood implies an action in "near" (overseeable) future. Hence, such conjugation of verbs in the subjunctive mood is often limited, and in imperative nonexistent.
Some grammars define the imperative and the subjunctive(s) as "times" in the time conjugating sequence.
Translations
- Danish: måde c
- Faroese: háttur m
- Swedish: modus n
- Italian: modo m
- Portuguese: modo m
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