Languages & Linguistics
Potential Mood
The potential mood is a grammatical mood that indicates possibility or potentiality. It is used to express what is possible, likely, or hypothetical. In many languages, the potential mood is formed using auxiliary verbs or specific verb conjugations to convey the idea of potentiality.
Written by Perlego with AI-assistance
Related key terms
1 of 5
10 Key excerpts on "Potential Mood"
eBook - PDF- Paul Portner, Klaus Heusinger, Claudia Maienborn, Paul Portner, Klaus Heusinger, Claudia Maienborn(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Besides verbal mood, we can cite at least the following phenomena which seem to fall under the broad definition: 1. Notional mood Philosophers and linguists sometimes speak of categories of meaning which bear some intuitive connection to the meanings associated with verbal mood, for example propositions which are taken to be necessary, possible, desired, and so forth. These can be described as “notional moods” (Jespersen 1924: 819–821). Categories divorced from any association with form are unlikely to be an appropriate topic of linguistic study, as Jespersen points out. However, sometimes we find elements or constructions, other than verbal moods, which seem to express the meanings of the same general type as are expressed by verbal moods. For example, dependent modals and infinitives have been treated this way (Palmer 1990, Portner 1997). In a context where the simple term “mood” is used to refer specifically to the indicative-subjunctive contrast, the term “notional mood” is useful to describe a wider range of gram-matical forms which are associated with (verbal) mood-like meanings. 2. Sentence mood Sentence mood (sometimes referred to as SENTENTIAL FORCE, Chierchia & McConnel-Ginet 1990, Zanuttini & Portner 2003) is the semantic side of the opposition among clause types. Thus we have declarative mood, interrog-ative mood, and imperative mood, among others. This concept of mood has roots in philosophy of language (Stenius 1967, Searle 1969), and many linguists who use the term “mood” in this way (e.g., Wilson & Sperber 1988, Lohnstein 2000, Zaefferer 2006) develop the perspective of speech act theory. In some theories, sentence mood is closely linked with verbal mood (Lohnstein 2000, Lohnstein 11 Verbal mood 371 & Bredel 2004); the distinction is easily elided in discussions of the imperative, where a verbal mood and sentence mood frequently coincide.
- Philip Baldi, Pierluigi Cuzzolin, Philip Baldi, Pierluigi Cuzzolin(Authors)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
In Latin and in many modern European languages, which have indicative, subjunctive, and imperative moods, this distinction could be handled in terms of “the formal features versus the typologically relevant semantic categories of which they are the exponents” (Palmer 1986: 21). In order to keep these concepts distinct, we use the term mood only to indicate the language-specific formal features of the verb. Roman grammarians adopted the term modus (‘manner’, ‘mode’), by which is usually meant the form that a verb assumes in order to reflect the manner in which the speaker presents the action or the state (Ernout & Thomas 1951: 183). 202 Elisabetta Magni Because there were grammatical markers for modality in their languages, the ancients assumed that there was a set of notional categories, the modes, marked by the moods. As to the nature of the modes, they developed two dif-ferent theories observing either how the moods reflect the “mental attitudes” of speakers, or the way they are used in different functions according to the various sentence types. Ever since, however, the search for a coherent set of semantic and/or functional categories characterizing the modes represented by the moods has been a difficult task, for multiple meanings and uses often characterize the moods in subordinate as well as independent clauses. Bearing this in mind, in the following discussion we try to make sense of polysemy and polyfunctionality, but we avoid the use of “mode” as a theoretical term. 3.3 The moods In Latin, the mood-forms have been reduced to three: the indicative, the sub-junctive, and the imperative. These are also called finite moods, for they allow personal endings on the verb (the imperative, however, marks distinctions of person and number to a limited extent) and may appear as the main verb of an independent clause.
eBook - ePub- W. Leo Wetzels, Sergio Menuzzi, João Costa, W. Leo Wetzels, Sergio Menuzzi, João Costa(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
22 Mood and Modality RUI MARQUES AND ROBERTA PIRES DE OLIVEIRA“Hypotheticals, ‘imaginaries’, conditionals, the syntax of counterfactuality and contingency may well be the generative centres of human speech”(George Steiner, After Babel (1998), 226)1. This chapter
Mood and modality are closely intermingled and play a fundamental role in our lives: through them we express knowledge, and beliefs, about the world, as well as desires, conjectures, etc. These are important tools for surviving, as Hockett (1960) stressed. Languages vary greatly with respect to the ways they express the relations to the factual, the hypothetical, the counterfactual. This is a vast territory. In this chapter, our aim is twofold: empirically, we want to compare European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP) with respect to mood and modality and show some of their differences; and we want to show that the relevant properties of Portuguese can be insightfully discussed with the tools provided by possible world semantics, in which semantic accounts of mood have appeared for different languages (cf. e.g., Farkas 1992, Portner 1993, Marques 2009, Giannakidou 2013).1We begin with mood in Portuguese, that is, the verb inflectional category associated with the expression of an attitude towards the proposition. Empirically, we will show that BP and EP differ with respect to the complement of some evaluative expressions, and of fiction verbs like imaginar (“to imagine”); moreover, we will show that the “future in the past” ( futuro do pretérito in BP grammatical terminology, and condicional in EP terminology) do not have the same interpretation in the two varieties. We also discuss why some tenses traditionally taken to belong to the indicative mood seem problematic under this classification: the futuro do pretérito/condicional itself, the pretérito imperfeito (“imperfect past”), and the futuro do presente
eBook - ePub- Goold Brown(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Perlego(Publisher)
Some of these auxiliaries convey other ideas than that of power in the agent; but there is no occasion to explain them severally here. The Potential Mood, like the indicative, may be used in asking a question; as, " Must I budge ? must I observe you? must I stand and crouch under your testy humour?"— Shakspeare. No question can be asked in any other mood than these two. By some grammarians, the Potential Mood has been included in the subjunctive, because its meaning is often expressed in Latin by what in that language is called the subjunctive. By others, it has been entirely rejected, because all its tenses are compound, and it has been thought the words could as well be parsed separately. Neither of these opinions is sufficiently prevalent, or sufficiently plausible, to deserve a laboured refutation. On the other hand, James White, in his Essay on the English Verb, (London, 1761,) divided this mood into the following five: "the Elective," denoted by may or might ; "the Potential," by can or could ; "the Determinative " by would ; "the Obligative," by should ; and "the Compulsive," by must. Such a distribution is needlessly minute. Most of these can as well be spared as those other "moods, Interrogative, Optative, Promissive, Hortative, Precative, &c.", which Murray mentions only to reject. See his Octavo Gram., p. 68. OBS. 4.—The Subjunctive mood is so called because it is always subjoined to an other verb. It usually denotes some doubtful contingency, or some supposition contrary to fact. The manner of its dependence is commonly denoted by one of the following conjunctions; if, that, though, lest, unless. The indicative and Potential Moods, in all their tenses, may be used in the same dependent manner, to express any positive or potential condition; but this seems not to be a sufficient reason for considering them as parts of the subjunctive mood. In short, the idea of a "subjunctive mood in the indicative form," (which is adopted by Chandler, Frazee, Fisk, S. S
eBook - ePubVoice and Mood (Essentials of Biblical Greek Grammar)
A Linguistic Approach
- David L. Mathewson, Porter, Stanley E., Stanley E. Porter(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Baker Academic(Publisher)
There has been much discussion in the grammars regarding the semantics of the subjunctive mood form. The subjunctive mood has been variously described as the mood of probability, desirable action, or intentionality, or as representing an action as uncertain but probable (see the survey of grammars above). These various semantic approaches and labels, however, not only reflect only some of the usages of the subjunctive, but also sometimes confuse reality with the author’s conception of reality, do not consider the relationship between the subjunctive and other mood forms, and do not get at the semantics of the mood that accounts for its various realizations in its contexts. Two proposals offer a more fruitful way forward. In his work on the moods in Indo-European languages, Gonda argues that the primary function of the subjunctive mood is visualization. “Its general function may, if I am not mistaken, have been to indicate that the speaker views the process denoted by the verb as existing in his mind or before his mental eye, or rather: as not yet having a higher degree of being than mental existence. The subjunctive, in other words, expresses visualization. A process in the subj[unctive] represents a mental image on the part of the speaker which, in his opinion, is capable of realization, or even awaits realization.” 29 Building off the work of Gonda, Porter suggests that the semantic feature that best characterizes the subjunctive mood is projection. Porter thinks that Gonda’s notion of visualization too closely suggests the creating of an image of the process in the mind. Therefore, Porter proposes the term projection as more adequately capturing the semantics of the subjunctive mood. The subjunctive thus could be defined as “the form. .
eBook - ePub- Geoffrey N. Leech(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Chapter 8 Mood: Theoretica and Hypothetical Meaning161 mood: factual, theoretical and hypothetical meaning, THE SUBJUNCTIVE: 162 Present and Past Subjunctive, THEORETICAL MEANING: 163 factual and theoretical meaning, truth-commitment and truth-neutrality; 164 grammatical markers of factual and theoretical meaning; 165 putative should and the mandative subjunctive, CONDITIONAL SENTENCES: 166 real and unreal conditions; 167 real conditions; 168 constructions expressing theoretical meaning in if-clauses; 169 unreal conditions, HYPOTHETICAL MEANING: 170; 171 hypothetical meaning in dependent clauses; 172 in main clauses (implied conditions); 173 grammatical markers of hypothetical meaning; 174 relation between real and unreal conditions; 175 negative truth- commitment (‘contrary to assumption’ and ‘contrary to expectation’). HYPOTHETICAL USE OF MODAL AUXILIARIES: 176 indicated by Past Tense form; 177 regularities and exceptions; 178 past hypothetical meaning; 179 signs of fluctuating usage, SPECIAL HYPOTHETICAL USES OF MODAL AUXILIARIES: 180–83; 181 permission; 182 volition; 183 possibility; 184 three uses of might have; 185 ‘pure hypothesis’; 186 seven meanings of could.161Historically, the verbal category of Mood was once important in the English language, as it still is today in many European languages. By distinct forms of the verb, older English was able to discriminate between the Indicative Mood – expressing an event or state as a FACT, and the Subjunctive – expressing it as a SUPPOSITION . Further, the Present Subjunctive – conveying a REAL supposition (such as a plan for the future), was distinct from the Past Subjunctive – conveying an UNREAL
eBook - PDFThe Second Glot International State-of-the-Article Book
The Latest in Linguistics
- Lisa Cheng, Rint Sybesma(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Should the se-mantic theory incorporate prototypical features of those contexts as-sociated with each mood, and then allow for borderline cases and a cer-tain degree of arbitrariness, or should it define each language's system in detail? 5. Current theories disagree about the theoretical importance of relating mood to two other empirical domains, tense and polarity. Are the con-nections which we see the result of parallels across independent sys-tems, or do they show that the semantics of mood markers may involve temporal or polarity notions? These open issues, among many others, represent the abxmdance of prom-ising areas of research that have developed within the literature on mood over the last ten or fifteen years. Acknowledgement I'd like to thank Raffaella Zanuttini for comments and help with the Ita-lian data. A Semantics of Mood Bibliography Abusch, Dorit (1988). Sequence of tense, intensionality, and scope. In The Proceedings ofWCCFL 7,1-14. Stanford: CSLI. Abusch, Dorit (1997). Sequence of tense and temporal de re. Linguistics and Philosophy 20,1-50. Adams, Emest (1975). The Logic of Conditionals. Dordrecht: Reidel. Anderson, Alan Ross (1951). A note on subjimctive and counterfactual conditionals. Analysis 11, 35-38. Asher, Nicholas (1993). Reference to Abstract Objects in Discourse. Dor-drecht: lüuwer. Austin, J. (1962). How to do Things with Words. New York: Oxford Univer-sity Press. Baker, Mark and Lisa Travis (1997). Mood as verbal definiteness in a tenseless language. Natural Language Semantics 5, 213—269. The semantics of Mood 73 Barwise, Jon (1981). Scenes and other situations. Journal of Philosophy 78, 369-397. Beghelli, Filippo (1997). Mood and the interpretation of indefinites. Manuscript, University of Pennsylvania. Bell, A. (1980). Mood in Spanish: A discussion of some recent proposals. Hispania 63, 377-390. Bolinger, Dwight (1968). Postposed Main Phrases: An English rule for the Romance subimctive.
eBook - PDFModality and Mood in Romance
Modal interpretation, mood selection, and mood alternation
- Martin G. Becker, Eva-Maria Remberger, Martin G. Becker, Eva-Maria Remberger(Authors)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter(Publisher)
Naturally, this generalisation, principally concerning the infinitive, is only tenable if other contexts where this mood can occur are taken into consideration, particularly complement clauses. Nevertheless, the kinds of adverbial clauses that were considered suggest that the context change potential plays a role in the choice between the infinitive and a finite mood. The observation of the semantic or pragmatic contribution of the infinitive in other kinds of clauses might give rise to a reformulation of the hypothesis outlined in this paper, or it might lead to the conclusion that the context change potential plays a role in the selection of the infinitive together with other factors. References Ahern, Aoife (2005): “Mood choice and sentence interpretation in Spanish.” − In: Bart Hollebrandse, Angeliek van Hout & Co Vet (eds.): Crosslinguistic Views on Tense, Aspect and Modality , 201–214. Amsterdam: Rodopi (Cahiers Chronos 13). Bell, Anthony (1990): “El modo en español. Consideración de algunas propuestas recientes.” − In: Ignacio Bosque (ed.): Indicativo y subjuntivo , 81–105. Madrid: Taurus. Bybee, Joan & Terrell, Tracy D. (1990): “Análisis semántico del modo en español.” − In: Ignacio Bosque (ed.): Indicativo y subjuntivo , 145–163. Madrid: Taurus. Modality, context change potential and mood selection in European Portuguese 161 Farkas, Donka (1992): “On the semantics of subjunctive complements.” − In: Paul Hirschbühler & Konrad Koerner (eds.): Romance Languages and Modern Linguistic Theory , 71–104. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Giannakidou, Anastasia (1999): “Affective dependencies.” − In: Linguistics and Philosophy 22 (4), 367–421. Guitart, Jorge M. (1984): “On the use of the Spanish subjunctive among Spanish English bilinguals.” − In: Word 33, 59–67. Heim, Irene (1992): “Presupposition Projection and the Semantics of Attitude Verbs.” − In: Journal of Semantics 9 (3), 183–221.
eBook - PDFAcquisition of Romance Languages
Old Acquisition Challenges and New Explanations from a Generative Perspective
- Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes, Maria Juan-Garau, Pilar Larrañaga, Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes, Maria Juan-Garau, Pilar Larrañaga(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
This very brief overview of indicative/subjunctive mood uses in Spanish shows what have often been considered to be the two basic kinds of semantic triggers of the subjunctive: on one hand, expressions that entail the potentiality 144 Aoife Ahern, José Amenós-Pons and Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes or possibility of the proposition that they introduce; and on the other hand, as in the case of factive-emotive predicates, presuppositional environments (Ahern and Leonetti 2004; Ahern 2004, 2006). Still, there is no overall one-to-one rela-tionship between the type of interpretation that the subjunctive receives, and the type of linguistic environment; in this sense, mood integrates semantic, syntactic and pragmatic features. As will be seen in detail, certain types of linguistic environment allow both kinds of interpretation (potential and presuppositional), while discourse or extralinguistic contextual conditions determine which is more adequate. In the present study, we focus on one of those environments, namely, although (aunque) concessive clauses, in which the subordinate adjunct clause in sub-junctive can obtain either of these two types of readings. Thus, interpreting mood in concessives is clearly an interface matter, in which semantic, syntactic and pragmatic factors must be taken into account. 2.2 The pragmatics of mood interpretation Given the apparently diverse nature of semantic and syntactic properties that are involved in mood selection and in mood alternation in Spanish, it has often been concluded that the subjunctive must be understood as a grammatical element that is not amenable to any unitary semantic or syntactic account (Fábregas 2014).
- Dana Kratochvílová(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Karolinum Press, Charles University(Publisher)
An opposite tendency can be observed in the texts by Mario Vargas Llosa (Latin America – Peru) who uses the indicative after quizá(s) with the frequency of 29.4%, after tal vez the indicative appears in 68.7% of cases. This confirms the above presented theory that the choice of mood is secondary with respect to the selection of a concrete modalizer. The level of potentiality is not the same in different LPs and it is precisely this level of potentiality that (dis)favours the use of the subjunctive. However, even the level of potentiality of one single LP 2. modal meaning real → modal meaning potential 57 need not to be perceived in the same way by different speakers (this being the only possible explanation for major discrepancies in the choice of mood among different authors). The above presented axis can, therefore, be understood not only as a gen-eralizing instrument that helps us to determine the level of potentiality of a concrete LP, it could also be used to represent the perception of the MMP inside an idiolect of a concrete speaker. Such axes would differ slightly in the same way the preference for the subjunctive or the indicative after an LP differs among concrete speakers. However, the main goal of the analysis was to find out which LPs prefer the congru-ential mood and which are those that make its use harder, eliminating, if possible, the influence of the idiolect of those authors that have more extensive texts in the corpus. From this point of view, we consider the weighted average the most reliable indicator for the comparison of different LPs. We expressed in per cent the frequency of the use of the indicative and the subjunctive after one LP with those authors that used it at least in 15 relevant cases. Consequently, we calculated the weighted average from these results.
Index pages curate the most relevant extracts from our library of academic textbooks. They’ve been created using an in-house natural language model (NLM), each adding context and meaning to key research topics.
