Re: Implosive consonants, dynamism, moods

On Tue, Feb 03, 2004 at 10:41:32AM -0500, Trebor Jung wrote:
> Merhaba!
>
> I have a few questions as usual:
And I only have a few answers, so I'll leave unanswered questions to the
rest of the list. :-)

[snip]
> 3. Could someone give me a list of moods with sample sentences? I'm not
> sure how many and what they are, and would like to use a whole bunch in
> one of my conlangs, but the Wikipedia, How to create a language, and LCK
> don't have much information about them.
[snip]

I assume you're referring to verbal moods? There are several possible
moods, and not all languages have all of them, although normally there's a
way to express them somehow in any language. The common moods are:

1) Indicative - all languages have this. This means that the sentence is a
   statement of fact (as far as the speaker is concerned). For example:
        I am tired.
        She saw him walk across the lawn.
        Dogs bark.

2) Imperative - all(?) languages also have this. This indicates that the
   sentence is a command, rather than just a statement of fact. For
   example:
        Go away!
        Stop writing now.
        Go to Jane's house and ask her to come here.

3) Hortative - almost the same as the imperative (and in many languages,
   it is the same):
        Let's go to the garden!
        Let's not go there again.
        Let him come and talk to me directly.

4) Optative - expresses the speaker's wish, usually not a fact:
        I wish I had a million dollars.
        If only he would help me.

5) Subjunctive - expresses a hypothetical situation, not necessarily true:
        If he had talked to her first, this would not have happened.
        I would go downtown, but ...
        I wouldn't have done it even if he did.

There are many other possible moods, but these are the most common.

Among the more interesting ones I've come across are moods that indicate
how sure the speaker is about a statement he's making. I'm not sure what
the "official" names of these moods are, but they allow you to express a
range of confidence you have in something. Eg:
        I'm not sure if he will go inside.
        Perhaps he will go inside.
        He might go inside.
        He will go inside.
        He will definitely go inside.

In English, we use different auxilliary words ("I'm not sure", "perhaps",
"definitely") to indicate our confidence about the statement; but in some
languages, you can simply use a different inflection of the verb to
indicate this.  The conlang Laadan takes this to the extreme: it has a
mood to indicate a rumor you heard from somebody you trust, another mood
to indicate a rumor you heard from somebody you don't trust, another mood
to indicate that something is your gut feeling, yet another mood to
indicate that something is what you think is true but you're not sure,
etc..

Of course, moods don't have to be just indicating how confident you are in
something. For example, my conlang Tamahi has two different imperatives:
one for indicating a command, and another for indicating a strong command.
I.e., there's a difference between "do this now" and "do this now or
else!". Other possibilities are multiple optatives to indicate how
confident you are that your wish will come true, etc..


T

--
Lawyer: (n.) An innocence-vending machine, the effectiveness of which depends
on how much money is inserted.

Reply