Finally, without the support of our spouses, Daniel and Elliott, this book would have been even longer in the making than it was. For their love and encouragement, we express heartfelt thanks. | Chapter 2 Grammatical Metalanguage 21 Sentence Moods English sentences are said to display three main moods declarative sometimes called indicative interrogative and imperative and two minor moods exclamatory and subjunctive. Mood conveys the speaker s attitude toward the factual content of the sentence. For instance the subjunctive mood can indicate a speaker s uncertainty or the hypotheticality of the propositional content or meaning of the clause. In the following sentence the subjunctive mood is signalled by the use of the base form of the be verb rather than the inflected form is. If that be so I ll leave now. It can also indicate that something is contrary to fact or counterfactual here signalled by the use of the be verb in its third person plural past tense form If I were a bird I wouldn t eat worms. Four of the five moods have sentence type counterparts see below but the subjunctive in English can be marked only by using a different form of the verb from the form ordinarily called for. Usually the subjunctive uses either the uninflected base form or were declarative statement sentence type Today is Tuesday. interrogative question sentence type What are you going to wear to the party imperative command sentence type Pass the milk please. exclamatory exclamation sentence type What a beautiful autumn it is subjunctive here realized with the were form I wish I were going with you. It has been said that the three main options in the English mood system correspond to the three main communicative functions of language telling someone something asking someone something and getting someone to do something Allen and Widdowson 1975 75 . We should not lose sight of the fact however that a sentence type docs not necessarily match its function. It is possible to ask someone to do something using any of the following three types even though the first is a more indirect way than the other two statement I am thirsty. I wonder what is in the refrigerator to drink. question
