§ 73. The meaning of this category is the attitude of the speaker or writer towards the content of the sentence, whether the speaker considers the action real, unreal, desirable, necessary, etc. It

21. The category of mood

§ 73. The meaning of this category is the attitude of the speaker or writer towards the content of the sentence, whether the speaker considers the action real, unreal, desirable, necessary, etc. It is expressed in the form of the verb.

There are three moods in English - the indicative mood, the impera­tive mood and the subjunctive mood. The indicative mood

form shows that what is said must be regarded as a fact, as something which has occurred or is occurring at the moment of speaking or will occur in the future. It may denote actions with different time-reference and different aspective characteristics. Therefore the indicative mood has a wide variety of tense and aspect forms in the active and passive voice. The imperative mood

expresses a command or a request to perform an action addressed to somebody, but not the action itself. As it does not actually denote an action as a real act, it has no tense category; the unfulfilled action always refers to the future. Aspect distinctions and voice distinctions are not characteristic of the imperative mood, although forms such as, be writing, be warned sometimes occur. The imperative mood form coincides with the plain stem of the verb, for example: Come here! Sit down. The negative form is built by means of the auxiliary do + the negative particle not (the contracted form is don’t). This form is always addressed to the second person.

Do not take it away.

Don’t worry about the child.

Don’t be a fool.

Note:

Do is also used in commands or requests to make them more emphatic: Do come and stay with us. Do be quiet.

In commands and requests addressed to a first or third person (or persons) the analytical form let + infinitive without the particle to is used. The verb let functions as an auxiliary, and it partly loses its lexical mean­ing. The person addressed is expressed by the personal pronoun in the objective case.

Let us go together.

Let him finish his dinner first.

Let Andrew do it himself.

In negative sentences the analytical forms take the particle not without an auxiliary.

Let him not overestimate his chances.

Let her not go any further.

The subjunctive mood- The subjunctive mood is the category of the verb which is used to express non-facts: unreal or hypothetical actions or states. A hypothetical action or state may be viewed upon as desired, necessary, possible, supposed, imaginary, or contradicting reality.

Different forms of the verb are employed for this purpose.

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