The Category of Mood

Mood is a grammatical category expressing the relation of the action to reality as stated by the speaker.

Mood is a designation of how an act is conceived whether as a fact, a possibility, a desirability, or a command. Different moods represent different degrees of reality of an action. One mood represents it as actually taking place, while another represents it as merely conditional or desired, etc.

The problem of mood is one of the must controversial problems of English theoretical grammar. There are three reasons for that:

1. the existence in modern English of both synthetic and analytical forms of the verb with the same grammatical meaning of irreality (I suggest that be go/ showed go there);

2. the existence of homonymous forms expressing reality and irreality (He lived here 10 years ago – “lived” expresses reality. If he lived here, he would help us – “lived” expresses irreality);

3. the existence of homonymous form V modal + Infinitive and V aux. + Infinitive, the letter being a form of an oblique mood:

He would come to us un Sundays (V modal + Infinitive);

If he knew that, he would come (V aux. + Infinitive, conditional mood);

You should go and visit him (V modal + Infinitive);

I suggest that he should go there (V aux. + Infinitive, suppositional mood).

In different theories the number of moods in modern English varies from 2 to 16. For instance, A.I. Smirnitsky finds 6 moods in English (indicative, imperative, subjunctive I, subjunctive II, suppositional and conditional), B.A. Ilyish – only 3 moods (indicative, imperative and subjunctive), L.S. Barkhudarov – only 2 moods (indicative and imperative).

As its name shows, the indicative mood refers to an active or state conceived as fact; it indicates. It is the mood in which verbs must commonly occur. The use of the indicative mood shows that the speaker presents the action as real is most essential here because what is stated by the speaker need not necessarily be true but the speaker presents it as being so.

The imperative mood is conventionally analyzed as being in the 2^nd person singular or plural and expressing a command or a request.

The Imperative mood differs from all other moods in several points. As to its form, it has no grammatical categories. It is limited in its use to one type of sentence only – to imperative sentences. As to its meaning, it does not give any information as to the reality of an action. That’s why some linguists do not consider the Imperative farm to be a mood form at all.

The Subjunctive mood represents an action as something imaginary, desirable, problematic.

As it was mentioned, prof. Smirnitsky suggested the system of 6 moods, four of them (Subjunctive I, Subjunctive II, Suppositional, Conditional) are called oblique moods.

The main difficulty of the analysis here is the absence of a straightforward mutual relation between meaning and form. On the one hand, one and the same form may have different meanings:

He said they would come.

If they knew that, they would come.

On the other hand, different forms may have the same meaning:

I suggested that he go (or should go) there.

We will arrive at different systems of English moods as we make our classification depend on meaning or on form. If our classification is based on meaning, then the first “would come” will find its place under one heading, and the second “would come” – under another, whereas “go” and “should go” will find their place under the same heading. If our classification is based on form, then both “would come” will fall under one heading, no matter in what context they may be used, while “go” and “should go” will fall under different headings.

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