Prof. Barchudarov’s approach to the category of Mood

Let’s look now at L.S. Barchudarov's approach to the category of mood. L.S.Barchudarov offers a twofold system, in which the opposition lies between the Indicative Mood and the Imperative Mood.

The Imperative Mood is the marked member of the opposition. Meaning is intensive, as it expresses inducement (command, request, etc). L.S.Barchudarov refers to the Imperative Mood the form " come’ the following cases:

· Come here!

· I suggest that you/he come here tomorrow.

His reasons for interpreting the form "come" in the second example as Imperative are as follows: 1) the form "come" is the same in both sentences; 2) the semantics of both sentences is the same, namely that of inducement (direct in the 1" case and indirect in the 2^nd). This means that "come" in both cases is Imperative.

The form of the Imperative is intensive: it is marked by the zero morpheme and special contexts. In this way it shows once again that mood is a morphosyntactic category.

The Indicative Mood is the unmarked member of the opposition: its meaning is extensive and is realized in different contexts. For example: He is President (reality) - He looks as if he is President (unreality-non-factuality) - Perhaps he is President. The chances are he is President (unreality-supposition). Its form is extensive too, as the third person singular of the verb takes the morpheme -s.

It is important to note that the Indicative and the Imperative Moods are opposed to each other within the time sphere of the non-past.

As for the past tense forms, they are used to express different modal meanings (modality) in different contexts. They are not mood forms, but basically tense forms. For example: He knew it (past reality) -1 wish he knew it (present unreality-non-factuality) - Perhaps he knew it (past unreality-supposition). The tense shift is seen as a secondary meaning of the categorial form of the past tense.

Combinations of should/would/ with the infinitive, which are traditionally regarded as analytical mood forms, as well as combinations of all the other modal verbs with the infinitive are excluded by L.S.Barchudarov from the sphere of mood. He shares the view that these are free word combinations (Joos, Zandvoort, Quirk, Lyons, Palmer). Besides, they do not have a discontinuous morpheme.

According to L.S.Barchudarov, the Subjunctive "were" is extinct in Modern English and may not be considered as a form class, but rather as a lexical unit expressing unreality.

The theory of mood put forward by L.S.Barchudarov seems most logical and free of controversies. The reasons for this are as follows. First, it makes a clear distinction between mood and modality. Then, it specifies the meanings expressed by mood forms, as well as tense and phase forms, and other means of expressing modality. Next, it analyzes the present state of the language and is not oriented towards dead languages. Then, it treats combinations with Modalverbsas free lexical-syntactic means of expressing modality. And finally, it avoids homonymy in language structure.

Thus, LS.Barthmlarov's theory may be considered quite successful attempt to reveal the true nature of the category of mood in Modern English.

To sum up LS, Barchudarov’s theory, the category of mood in Modern English is an opposition of (the Indicative mood and the Imperative mood. This opposition lies in the sphere of the non-past only. The form "were" of the Subjunctive mood is extinct and does not form a class. Past tense forms and combinations of modal verbs with the infinitive are considered to be non-morphological means expressing modality, which are outside the category of mood.

Now let's look at the problem of mood and modality from a different angle.

Since the main point of difference in all existing classifications of moods is the treatment of verbal means used to express modality of unreality (non-factuality, Inducement and supposition), it might be useful to give a brief overview of each of these means in particular.