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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grammatical mood | 3/3 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_mood | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T08:11:41.638208+00:00 | kb-cron |
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. 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.
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 Balkan languages, the same forms used for the inferential mood also function as admiratives. When referring to Balkan languages, it is often called renarrative mood; when referring to Estonian, it is called oblique mood. 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 Welsh, Nenets, and Eskimo languages such as Greenlandic.
=== Deontic mood vs. epistemic mood === Linguists also differentiate moods into two parental irrealis categories: deontic mood and epistemic mood. Deontic mood describes whether one could or should be able to do something. An example of deontic mood is: She should/may start. On the other hand, epistemic mood describes the chance or possibility of something happening. This would then change our example to: She may have started. To further explain modality, linguists introduce weak mood. A weak deontic mood describes how a course of action is not recommended or is frowned upon. A weak epistemic mood includes the terms "perhaps" and "possibly".
== Moods in Oceanic languages ==
=== Pingelapese === Pingelapese is a Micronesian language spoken on the Pingelap atoll and on two of the eastern Caroline Islands, called the high island of Pohnpei. e and ae are auxiliary verbs found in Pingelapese. Though seemingly interchangeable, e and ae are separate phonemes and have different uses. A Pingelapese speaker would choose to use e when they have a high degree of certainty in what they are saying and ae when they are less certain. This therefore illustrates that e and ae are mood indicators. They have no effect on the direct translation of a sentence, but they are used to alter the mood of the sentence spoken. The following example shows the difference between e and ae when applied in the same sentence.
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 Reo Rapa was created as a result of the introduction of Tahitian to the Rapa monolingual community. Old Rapa words are still used for the grammar and structure of the sentence or phrase, but most common content words were replaced with Tahitian. The Reo Rapa language uses Tense–Aspect–Mood (TAM) in their sentence structure such as the imperfective TAM marker /e/ and the imperative TAM marker /a/. For example:
=== Mortlockese === Mortlockese is an Austronesian language made up of eleven dialects over the eleven atolls that make up the Mortlock Islands in Micronesia. Various TAM markers are used in the language. Mood markers include the past tense hortative (marking encouragement or to urge) aa, the hortative kɞ which denotes a polite tone, min or tin to stress the importance of something, and the word tɞ to denote warning or caution. Each of these markers is used in conjunction with the subject proclitics except for the aa marker.
== See also == Articles on specific grammatical moods Grammatical conjugation Grammatical modality Polarity item Nominal TAM
== References ==
== External links ==
Mood in Biblical Greek From SIL International:
Deontic modality Volitive modality: imprecative mood, optative mood Directive modality: deliberative mood, imperative mood, immediate imperative mood, jussive mood, obligative mood, permissive mood, precative mood, prohibitive mood Epistemic modality judgment modality: assumptive mood, declarative mood, deductive mood, dubitative mood, hypothetical mood, interrogative mood, speculative mood Irrealis modality: subjunctive mood