indicativeneutral

Indicativeneutral is a linguistic term used to describe a hypothetical or proposed form of the indicative mood in which verb inflection does not encode person or number. In an indicativeneutral system, the verb form remains invariant across subjects, and information about who is performing the action is carried by other means such as pronouns, context, or auxiliary words. The concept is mainly discussed in typological, theoretical, or constructed-language contexts rather than as a widely attested feature of established natural languages.

Key features commonly associated with indicativeneutral include a fixed verb stem for present, past, or future tenses, with tense or aspect often indicated analytically rather than through inflection. Subject reference may be expressed through standalone pronouns or omitted when context provides sufficient clarity. The mood remains indicative, signaling factual statements, but without person- or number-specific verb endings.

The idea is contrasted with standard inflectional systems in many natural languages, where verbs typically show person and/or number agreement. Some cross-linguistic parallels cited in discussions include languages with zero or minimal agreement, and languages that rely on auxiliary particles or word order to convey tense and aspect. Indicativeneutral is therefore often discussed as a theoretical or hypothetical construct and is not uniformly recognized as a separate, widely utilized category in mainstream grammar.

Use and debate around indicativeneutral focus issues such as potential gains in regularity, learnability, and processing efficiency, weighed against possible ambiguities in subject identification and pronoun omission. It is most commonly explored in discussions of language design, experimental grammars, or constructed languages.

See also: grammar, mood, indicative, language typology, zero-marking, impersonal construction, constructed languages.