Grammatical mood

In the grammar of many languages there is a concept of grammatical mood, which describes the relation of the verb to reality or intent in speaking. Many languages express distinctions of mood by changing (inflecting) the form of the verb. Because modern English does not have all of the moods described below and has a very simplified system of verb inflection as well, it is not straightforward to explain the moods in this language. Note too that the exact sense of each mood differs from language to language.

Grammatical mood should not be confused with grammatical tense or grammatical aspect, although these concepts sometimes overlap.

Possible moods include conditional, imperative, indicative, injunctive, negative, optative, potential, subjunctive, and more. The original Indo-European 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 Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit retain them all. Some Uralic Samoyedic languages have over ten moods.

Table of contents

1 Indicative mood
2 Imperative mood
3 Subjunctive mood
4 Conditional mood
5 Negative mood
6 Optative mood
7 Cohortative mood
8 Potential mood
9 Eventive mood

Indicative mood

The indicative mood is used in factual statements. All intentions in speaking that a particular language does not put into another mood use the indicative. It is the most commonly used mood and is found in all languages. Example: "Paul is reading books" or "Paul reads books".

Imperative mood

The imperative mood expresses commands, direct requests, prohibitions. In many circumstances, directly using the imperative mood seems blunt or even rude, so it is often used with care. Example: "Paul, read that book".

Many languages use the bare verb stem to form the imperative.

Subjunctive mood

The subjunctive mood has several uses independent clauses. Examples include discussing hypothetical or unlikely events, expressing opinions or emotions, or making polite requests (the exact scope is language-specific). A subjunctive mood exists in English but many native English speakers have not mastered it. Example: "I suggested that Paul read books". Paul is not in fact reading the book. Contrast this with the sentence "Paul reads books", where the verb read has the third person singular ending.

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.

Conditional mood

The conditional mood is used to express uncertainty, particularly (but not exclusively) in conditional clauses. In the phrase "If I were king, you would be queen", "were" is subjunctive while "would be" is conditional. The conditional mood is sometimes considered a tense rather than a mood.

Negative mood

The negative mood expresses a negated action. In most languages, this is not distinct mood; negativity is expressed by adding a particle before (as in Russian), after (as in archaic or dialectic English: "Thou remembrest not?"), or both (as in French or Afrikaans: "Je ne sais pas.".) Standard English brings in a helper verb, to do usually, and then adds not after it: "I did not go there".

In Indo-European languages, it is not customary to speak of a negative mood, since in these languages negation is originally a grammatical particle that can be applied to a verb in any of these moods. In some non-Indo-European languages, the negative mood counts as a separate mood. It could be argued that Modern English has joined the ranks of these languages, since negation in the indicative mood requires the use of an auxiliary verb and a distinct syntax in most cases.

Optative mood

The optative mood expresses hopes or wishes and has other uses that may overlap with the subjunctive mood. Few languages have an optative as a distinct mood; Ancient Greek and Sanskrit are two that do. Example: an ancient Greek might say "Would that Paul would read more!" with the words would that expressed by the placing the verb read in the optative mood.