The category of Mood. Definition

Proceeding from the accepted definition of the grammatical category, the verbal category of Mood is a set of opposed form classes, which express modality by grammatical (morphological) means (Jespersen, Cмирницкий, Иванова; Palmer). Mood is a morphosyntactic category, because it is characteristic of finite forms only.

However, the number of opposed form classes (moods), their semantics and means of expressing modality (synthetic and analytical) remain obstacles for grammatical theories. These obstacles generate numerous debates. The reasons for this have been mentioned above.

Before describing different approaches to the category of mood in English, let us make our view of the problems under discussion clear.

First, a clear distinction between mood and modality has been made; then, the semantic scope of modality has been defined. Next, a grammatical category is viewed as a unity of form and meaning; hence, a combination of approaches could be consistently applied to all the members of the opposition. Moreover, since combinations of modal verbs with the infinitive are not characterized by a discontinuous morpheme, they cannot be regarded as analytical mood forms. Next, we study the present state of the mood system in English, which means that analogies with Latin, Greek and even Old English are not valid, unless they are substantiated with proper linguistic data. Finally, we proceed from the assumption that homonymy in the language system should be avoided.

Let’s look now at different interpretations of the mood system in Modern English and choose the one, which would meet our requirements for the grammatical category.

Different approaches to the system of Moods in English