Mood and Modality Flashcards
What are mood and modality related to?
The speaker’s POV on a proposition and its truth value
Define mood
A grammatical expression of a speaker’s purpose or intention in speaker (wish? desire)
What are the two types of mood?
realis and irealis
When is realis mood used?
When the speaker is asserting the truth
-actual factual events
(can be used if the proposition is negated)
What are common types of tenses used to indicate realis mood?
Indicative and generic
When is irealis mood used?
when the speaker is not asserting the truth
- not an actual event
- not occurred yet
- unlikely to occur
- far removed from a real course of events
Give mood categories expressing irealis
conditional imperatives hortatives (softened commands - lets do X) optative (wish for X) contrafactual (not confirmed)
How is irealis marked?
subjunctive or irealis marker
What is modality?
Grammatical expression of a speakers attitude and opinion OR a speakers state of knowledge/belief
(certainty, possibility)
Explain the scale of modality
dubitative (shoudn’t be)
possibilty (could have)
probability (might have)
certainty (must have)
How does English indicate modality
Adv: likely
Adj: it is possible
Verbs: I think, I doubt, I know
How does latin indicate modality?
Distinct morphological markers for each function
What does evidential modality indicate?
evidence the speaker has about their proposition
What are the types of evidence?
direct (eye witness) auditory hearsay inference general knowledge Quechua has morphemes for each
