Re: ideas and questions

I'm rather dubitative about your definitions for
moods. To me, mood is a syntactic notion, the use of
such or such mood being very dependant from the
language you consider. It would be easy to show for ex
that subjunctive and conditional are not used the same
way in French as you describe it. The right use of the
subjunctive in French is particularly refined and
vicious, but anyway, few people master it and
understand the slight differences one can express with
it. Then they are very strange idiomatic expressions,
like 'Je ne sache pas que...' meaning something like
'je ne pense pas qu'il soit vrai que...' Etc.

Indicative can be used to express an order. Ex: Demain
matin, a huit heures, tu es ici = I order you to be
here tomorrow morning at 8:00. Etc, etc.

So to me, the thing is clear: mood is syntactic, dot.
The concepts various moods can refer to, in various
languages, this is something different, but it
shouldn't be called moods.

--- "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:
>
> I'll take a shot, 'cause I like to explain stuff,
> and I think I
> understand this, and if I screw it up, there are
> plenty of folk on here
> who are smarter than me and will correct my errors.
> :)
>
> Mood essentially describes the purpose of the
> sentence containing the
> verb.  Aspect tells you whether the action
> is/was/will be completed or
> in progress at whatever point in time is indicated
> by the tense.  Both
> are independent of tense.
>
> If the verb is in the indicative mood, the sentence
> is making a
> statement (or asking a question whose answer is a
> statement):
>
>         - You ARE late.
>         - Sorry, traffic WAS terrible.
>         - Well, we HAVE to hurry or we WILL MISS the
> start of the show.
>
> If the verb is in the imperative mood, the sentence
> is issuing a
> command.
>
>         - DOn't be late!
>
> If the verb is in the subjunctive mood, the sentence
> is talking about
> something that is (or may become) contrary to
> reality.
>
>         - If I WERE you, . . .  (but I'm not)
>         - Though he ARRIVE on time, . . .  (but he
> might not)
>
> If the verb is in the conditional mood, the sentence
> is  making a
> statement, like in the indicative, but the statement
> is predicated on an
> assumption which may or may not be true.  The
> assumption is often in the
> subjunctive.
>
>         - If I were a rich man, all day long I WOULD
> DIDDY-DIDDY-DUM.
>         - Ouch, bad move!  I WOULDn't HAVE done that
> (if I had been in
>           your situation).
>
> If the verb is in the infinitive mood, then it's not
> really acting as a
> verb at all, but more like a noun, representing the
> abstract idea of the action
> normally represented by the verb.
>
>         - I really wanted TO GO with her.
>
> Aspect is orthogonal to mood, but aspect
> distinctions most commonly show
> up in the indicative, subjunctive, and conditional.
> Aspect tells you
> whether the action is ongoing or completed or
> indeterminate at the point
> of discussion.
>
> Verbs in the "perfect" aspect indicate that the
> action was completed
> at the time under discussion:
>
>         - I woke up to find that I HAD OVERSLEPT.
>         - I HAVE CALLED him twice already.
>         - By the end of the week I WILL HAVE LEFT 5
> messages on his
>           voicemail.
>
> Verbs in the "imperfect" or "progressive" aspect
> indicate that the
> action was in progress:
>
>         - While you WERE OVERSLEEPING, I was making
> breakfast.
>         - I AM CALLING him right now.
>         - Saturday morning I WILL BE FISHING.
>
> In English, the simple tenses are indeterminate as
> far as aspect goes;
> if you want to be explicit, you have to use one of
> the perfect or
> progressive forms.   Other languages have no
> indeterminate aspect and
> force you to pick an explicit one.
>
> Also, in many languages the same form of the verb
> (the imperfect) is
> used to refer to ongoing action, like the
> progressive above, and
> habitual action, as in "I USED TO OVERSLEEP every
> day."
>
>
> -Markas in "I USED TO OVERSLEEP every day."

=====
Philippe Caquant

"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

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