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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grammatical mood | 2/3 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_mood | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T08:11:41.638208+00:00 | kb-cron |
The conditional mood is used for speaking of an event whose realization is dependent upon another condition, particularly, but not exclusively, in conditional sentences. In Modern English, this type of modality is expressed via a periphrastic construction, with the form would + infinitive, (for example, I would buy), and thus is a mood only in the broad sense and not in the more common narrow sense of the term "mood" requiring morphological changes in the verb. In other languages, verbs have a specific conditional inflection. In German, the conditional mood is identical to one of the two subjunctive moods (Konjunktiv II, see above).
In the Romance languages, the conditional form is used primarily in the apodosis (main clause) of conditional sentences, and in a few set phrases where it expresses courtesy or doubt. The main verb in the protasis (dependent clause) is usually in the subjunctive or in the indicative mood. However, this is not a universal trait and among others in German (as above), Finnish, and Romanian (even though the last is a Romance language), the conditional mood is used in both the apodosis and the protasis. A further example is a sentence "I would buy a house if I earned a lot of money".
Irish has conditional marking in both clauses: d'íosfadh 'would eat, would have eaten' and beadh 'would be, would have been', along with a specific irrealis conditional dá 'if', which contrasts with the realis conditional má 'if' (i.e. Ithfidh sé má bhíonn ocras air. 'He'll eat if he is hungry'). In Finnish, both clauses likewise have the conditional marker -isi-: Ostaisin talon, jos ansaitsisin paljon rahaa. In Polish (as well as in eastern and other western Slavic languages), the conditional marker -by also appears twice: Kupiłbym dom, gdybym zarabiał dużo pieniędzy. In Hindi, the conditional markers -ता (tā), -ती (tī), -ते (te) and -तीं (tī̃) (agreeing in gender and number with the subject and the direct object) comes twice: मैं घर खरीदता अगर बहौत पैसे कमाता। (maiṁ ghar kharīdatā agar bahaut paisē kamātā). The conditional (or contrafactual) form in Hindi corresponds to perfect conditional of Romance and the Germanic languages. So, the sentence literally translate to "I would have bought a house if I earned a lot of money." Due to English's status as a lingua franca, a common error among second-language speakers is to use "would" in both clauses. For example, *"I would buy if I would earn...". In Dutch, for instance, inserting zouden "would" in the if-clause is not considered grammatically incorrect: ik zou een huis hebben gekocht, als ik veel geld zou verdienen.
=== Optative ===
The optative mood expresses hopes, wishes or commands and has other uses that may overlap with the subjunctive mood. Few languages have an optative as a distinct mood; some that do are Albanian, Ancient Greek, Hungarian, Kazakh, Japanese, Finnish, Nepali, and Sanskrit.
=== Imperative ===
The imperative mood expresses direct commands, prohibitions, and requests. In many circumstances, using the imperative mood may sound blunt or even rude, so it is often used with care. Example: "Pat, do your homework now". An imperative is used for telling someone to do something without argument. Many languages, including English, use the bare verb stem to form the imperative (such as "go", "run", "do"). Other languages, such as Seri, Hindi, and Latin, however, use special imperative forms.
In English, the second person is implied by the imperative except when first-person plural is specified, as in "Let's go" ("Let us go"). In Romance languages, a first person plural exists in the imperative mood: Spanish: Vayamos a la playa; French: Allons à la plage (both meaning: Let's go to the beach). In Hindi, imperatives can be put into the present and the future tense. Imperative forms of Hindi verb karnā (to do) are shown in the table belowː
The prohibitive mood, the negative imperative, may be grammatically or morphologically different from the imperative mood in some languages. It indicates that the action of the verb is not permitted. For example, "Don't you go!" In English, the imperative is sometimes used for forming a conditional sentence: for example, "go eastwards a mile, and you'll see it" means "if you go eastwards a mile, you will see it".
=== Jussive ===
The jussive, similarly to the imperative, expresses orders, commands, exhortations, but particularly to a third person not present. An imperative, in contrast, generally applies to the listener. When a language is said to have a jussive, the jussive forms are different from the imperative ones, but may be the same as the forms called "subjunctive" in that language. Latin and Hindi are examples of where the jussive is simply about certain specific uses of the subjunctive. Arabic, however, is a language with distinct subjunctive, imperative, and jussive conjugations.
=== Potential === The potential mood is a mood of probability indicating that, in the opinion of the speaker, the action or occurrence is considered likely. It is used in Finnish, in Japanese, in Sanskrit (where the so-called optative mood can serve equally well as a potential mood), in Northern Wu, and in the Sami languages. (In Japanese, it is often called something like tentative, since potential is used for referring to a voice indicating capability to perform the action.) In Finnish, it is mostly a literary device, as it has virtually disappeared from daily spoken language in most dialects. Its affix is -ne-, as in *men + ne + e → mennee "(he/she/it/they(sg)) will probably go". In Hungarian, the potential is formed by the suffix -hat/-het and it can express both possibility and permission: adhat "may give, can give"; Mehetünk? "Can we go?" In English, it is formed by means of the auxiliaries may, can, ought, and must: "She may go."
=== Presumptive ===