11. Verb: mood

• 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, speculation, desire.

The functional opposition underlying the category as a whole is constituted by the forms of oblique mood meaning, i.e. those of unreality, contrasted against the forms of direct mood meaning, i.e. those of reality.

• Various classifications of moods

Smirnitski: /The system of 6 moods is made up of: the Indicative; the Imperative; Subjunctive I; Subjunctive II; Suppositional; Conditional. / The formal- semantic approach

Henry Sweet/ The classification is made up be 3 members: indicative, imperative and “thought” moods. The last mood is divided into subtypes depending on whether the forms synthetic or analytical .

• The analytical form with the auxiliaries should/would is called the Conditional Mood.

• The combination of may/might + Infinitive is called the Permissive Mood.

• The synthetic forms of the Past Indefinite and Past Perfect while expressing unreality are called Tense Mood.

/ The formal- semantic approach

Deutschbein / There are 16 moods different in the meaning/ Semantic approach

Barkhudarov/ There are no oblique Moods as should/would + Infinitive is not an analytical form because the second element can function independently. As for the forms of the Past Indefinite and the Past Perfect used to express unreality, these forms are of the indicative Mood used in specific syntactical environment. / Formal approach

Blokh/ The category of Mood is based on a 2-member opposition: the Indicative Mood is opposed to the Subjunctive. The Subjunctive Mood is described as an integral mood of unreality but it comprises 2 subsystems (or 2 sets of forms):

The 1st comprises the forms of the present plane of the verb. That set of forms is called The Spective mood or the Mood of Attitudes. It falls into the Pure Spective (Ex.: So be it. Happen what may. ) and the Modal Spective (such forms as may/might or should + Infinitive)‏

The 2stset of forms comprises the forms of the past plane of the verb and it is called the Conditional Mood or the mood of Appraising Casual-Conditional Relations of Process, which falls into

1) The Stipulative Conditional which is described as past unposterior

Ex.: Oh, if he were here! + should/would structures

2) The Consecutive Conditional is regarded as past posterior and can be found in the principal clause of a complex sentence expressing a situation of unreal condition where the principal clause expresses the idea of its imagining consequence.

Ex.: If the peace-loving forces had not been on the alert, the civil war in that area would have resumed anew.

/ Formal and semantic approach

• Indicative mood shows that the speaker represents the action as an actual fact. The formal markers of this mood are the flexions of a finite verb

• Imperative mood is traditionally referred to express the modal meaning of urge. In its formal characteristics it coincides with the infinitive stem . Some linguists deny this mood because of its homonymous with non-finite forms formal presentation.

• Illish points the absence of special morphological markers of imperative mood as the reason of refusal of imperative mood independent status

• Blokh considers it to coincide in meaning and in form with the spective mood (a variety of the subj. mood), which expresses suggestion, recommendation, and inducement.

e.g. “Be off” doesn’t differ from “I demand that you be off” (subjunctive mood)

“Do be careful with the papers” = “My request is that you do be careful with the papers”.