verbmood

Verb mood is a grammatical category that expresses a speaker's attitude toward what the verb denotes—the speaker's view on reality, possibility, necessity, or command. Mood is distinct from tense (time of action) and aspect (the structure of the action over time).

Many languages encode mood by inflection, particles, or word order. Common moods include: the indicative, used for statements of fact; the imperative, for commands; the subjunctive, used for non-real or contingent circumstances such as wishes, possibilities, or hypothetical situations; the conditional, marking outcomes that depend on a condition; the optative, for wishes in some languages; irrealis, marking non-actual states; and evidential, indicating the source or status of information.

Examples help illustrate the idea. English relies primarily on the indicative and the imperative, with a limited subjunctive in formal or subordinate clauses (as in “If I were taller,” or “It is essential that she be present”). Spanish has a distinct subjunctive in dependent clauses (como “quiera”) and a full conditional mood (hablaría). Other languages, such as Turkish, may incorporate evidential or irrealis moods with suffixes or particles.

Cross-linguistic variation means mood is a flexible concept: some languages have many moods, others only a few or none. Mood interacts with modality, discourse pragmatics, and historical change, making it a central topic in typology and the study of language expression.