Seminar 7 The verb: The category of mood

1. The category of mood. Definition. Mood and modality. Mood and tense. Mood and other verb categories.

Хаймович/Роговская:

MOOD is the grammatical category of the verb reflecting the relation of the action denoted by the verb to reality from speaker’s point of view.

Blokh:

The category of MOOD is the most controversial category of the verb.

The category of MOOD expresses the character of connection between the process denoted by the verb and the actual reality, either presenting the process as a fact that really happened, happens or will happen, or treating it as an imaginary phenomenon, i.e. the subject of a hypothesis (предположение), speculation (размышление), desire.

OPPOSITION

Strong member	Weak member
Forms of oblique mood meaning, i.e. those of unreality	Forms of direct mood meaning, i.e. those of reality

The verbal time proper is neutralized with these forms and, considering their relation to the present-order pure spective, they can also be classed as “present” in this sense. As to the actual expression of time, it is rendered relatively, by means of the aspective category of retrospective coordination: the imperfect denotes the relative present (simultaneity and posteriority), while the perfect denotes the relative past (priority in the present and the past).

The present subjunctive is a system of verbal forms expressing a hypothetical action appraised in various attitudes, namely, as an object of desire, wish, consideration, etc. The 2 parallel sets of manifestations of the present subjunctive, i.e. the pure spective and the modal spective, stand in variant functional inter-relations, conveying essentially identical basic semantics and partially complementing each other on the connotative and structural lines. The past subjunctive is not a mood of attitudes. It is a mood of reasoning by the rule of contraries, the contraries being situations of reality opposed to the corresponding situations of unreality, i.e. opposed of thinking in different, imaginary connections with one another.

Ilyish:

The category of MOOD in the present English verb has given rise to so many discussions, and has been treated in so many different ways, that it seems hardly possible to arrive at any more or less convincing and universally acceptable conclusion concerning it.

V.Vinogradov: MOOD expresses the relation of the action to reality, as stated by the speaker.

Division of moods:

1. indicative (actually taking place)

2. conditional (merely imaginary)

MOOD and tense.

There is the use of the future tense to denote an action referring to the present and considered as probable (not certain).

e.g. The House will know that… (= it will appear afterwards that you know)

In a similar way the future perfect can be used to denote an action which is thought of as finished by the time of speaking and represented as probable.

e.g. You’ll not have spoken to her mother yet? (= probably you have not spoken to her mother yet?; = it will appear afterwards that you have not spoken)

The future-in-the-past and the future-perfect-in-the-past: e.g. I made for my lodgings where by now Melissa would awake, and would have set out our evening meal on the on the newspaper-covered table. The adverbial modifier by now makes the meaning perfectly clear.  In this way both the future and the future perfect can acquire a peculiar modal coloring.

Since the basic meaning of the imperative mood is an appeal to the listener to perform an action it is obviously incompatible with the past tense. A difference might exist between present and future.

As to the moods expressing condition, desire, etc. the problem of tense is somewhat more complicated.

1. If he knew this, he would come.

2. If he had known this, he would have come.

1. Indicative mood:

Knew – is an unreal action in the present  would come - an unreal consequence in the present.

Had known – an unreal condition in the past  would have come – unreal consequence in the past.

2. Special mood forms:

Knew – had known Would come – would have come Knows – has known Will know – will have known

 opposition is based on the category of correlation  no tense category

Хаймович/Роговская: One of the important differences between the indicative and the other moods is that the meaning of “tense” does not go with the meanings of subjunctive mood and imperative mood. “Tense” reflects the real time of a real action. The imperative and the subjunctive moods represent the action as real, but as desired or imagined, and the notions of real time are discarded.

2. Problem points:

• the number of moods and their names;

• different approaches to the category of mood: meaning-form; form-meaning;

• homonymy and polysemy;

• mood and modal phrases.

Number of MOODS:

• Ilyish (L.P.Vinokurova, V.N.Zhigadlo, I.P.Ivanova, L.L.Iofik): 3 MOODS (indicative, subjunctive, imperative);

• M.Deutschbein: 16 MOODS;

• Prof. Smirnitsky (+ O.S.Akhmanova, M.Gashina, N.Vasilevskaya): 6 MOODS (indicative, imperative, subjunctive I, subjunctive II, suppositional, conditional);

• L.S.Barhudarov, D.A. Shteling: 2 MOODS (indicative, subjunctive);

• G.N.Vorontsova: 4 MOODS (indicative, optative (a)imperative, b)desiderative, c)subjunctive), speculative (a)dubitative, b)irrealis), presumptive.

Ilyish:

1. Indicative MOOD  the speaker represents the action as real.

• The mention of the speaker who represents the action as real is most essential. Grammar does not deal with the ultimate truth or untruth of a statement with its predicate verb in the indicative mood. What is essential from the grammatical point of view is the meaning of the category as used by the author of this or that sentence.

• Some doubt about the meaning of the indicative MOOD may arise if we take into account its use in conditional sentences such as the following: I will speak to him if I meet him. The conditional meaning is expressed by the conjunction, and of course it does alter the modal meaning of the sentence, but the meaning of the verb form as such remains what it was (Indicative). “Will speak” expresses the action bound to follow the fulfillment of the condition laid in the subordinate clause, it is no more uncertain than an action belonging to the future generally is  a question of a peculiar modal character of the future indicative, as distinct from the present or past indicative. E.g. If he was there I did not see him – action is hypothetical as the action of the main clause is stated as certain, in spite of the fact that the subordinate clause is introduced by “if”.

2. Imperative MOOD – is represented by one form only, without any suffix or ending.

It differs form all other moods in several important points – it has no person, number, tense, or aspect distinctions, it is limited in its use to one type of sentence only. It is used without pronoun, but sometimes the pronoun is added in emotional speech.

e.g. You leave me alone!

 These peculiarities have given rise to doubts as to whether the Imperative MOOD can be numbered among all other moods at all.

A serious difficulty connected with the Imperative is the absence of any specific morphological characteristics.

Blokh:

The mood of attitudes (“subjunctive one”)  “spective” mood (morphemically coincides with the imperative mood, the same infinitive stem, but with relation to the 2^nd person only).

Be off!

Don’t be blue!

Do as I ask you!

Types of attitude:

1. may/might + Infinitive  used to express wish, desire, hope in the contextual syntactic conditions similar to those of the morphemic spective forms.

e.g. May it be as you wish! May success attend you! May our friendship live long.

2. should + Infinitive  used in various subordinate predicative units to express supposition, speculation, suggestion, recommendation, inducement of different kinds and degrees of intensity.

e.g. Orders were given that the searching group should start out at once.

Whatever they should say of the project, it must be considered seriously.

3. let + Objective Substantive + Infinitive  used to express inducement in relation to all persons, but preferably to the 1^st person plural and 3^rd person both numbers.

e.g. Let’s agree to end this wait-and-see policy. Let our military forces be capable and ready.

All the 3 of constructions are characterized by a high frequency of occurrence, by uniformity of structure, by regularity of correspondence to the “pure”, native morphemic spective form of the verb. They are more universal stylistically than the pure spective form, in so far they are less bound by conventions of usage and have a wider range of expressive connotations of various kinds.

??? Modal spective:

1. “desirative” series (may-spective, the form of desire);

2. “considerative” series (should-spective, the form of considerations);

3. “imperative” series (let-spective, the form of commands).