Feature GB519: Can mood be marked by a non-inflecting word ("auxiliary particle")?

Patrons: Hedvig Skirgård

Description ⇫

Summary

This feature covers all grammatical moods (the relationship between the referred event/state/action and reality and/or speakers' attitude toward what they are saying) and aims to capture phonologically free elements that do not inflect (i.e. do not change form depending on person, number and other categories of the core arguments). These markers are often described as ‘particles' in the literature, but are also analyzed under other labels. We are interested in grammatical marking, i.e. dedicated, productive and obligatory marking.

There are instances where TAM can be expressed by a combination of an affix and auxiliary or particle. For example, some grammarians state that a mood is expressed by a certain form on the verbal root and an auxiliary. If this is a productive and obligatory way of expressing mood then such a construction triggers 1 for both this feature (GB519) and the feature on bound mood marking (GB312). If not all parts of the discontinuous marking are necessary for expressing a mood, then only consider the marking that is obligatory.

While negation or interrogation can be considered as grammatical moods, they are not included in this feature.

Procedure

  1. Look up the section on mood marking in the grammatical description.
  2. Consider all marking of mood, e.g. not only conditional.
  3. If you do not find any non-inflecting phonologically free mood markers, code as 0.
  4. If there is a non-inflecting phonologically free marker that clearly marks mood, code the language as 1.
  5. If it is not clear whether the marker marks mood, code the language as ?.

Examples

Hawai'ian (ISO 639-3: haw, Glottolog: hawa1245)

Hawai'ian marks imperative/intentive mood with e/ø, ō and i. When used with the second person it denotes imperative mood (see example a), but when used with the first or third persons the meaning denotes a vague desire, need, purpose, necessity or probability (see example b, Elbert & Pukui 1979: 61). The glossing in the examples is done by the patron.

a. E hele 'oe
IMP/INT go 2sg
‘You must go!’ (Elbert & Pukui 1979: 61)

b. Malia ō hele au
Perhaps IMP/INT go 1sg
‘Maybe I'll go’ (Elbert & Pukui 1979: 61)

Hawai'ian is coded 1.

Further reading

Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins & Pagliuca, William. 1994. The evolution of grammar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Dahl, Östen. 1985. Tense and aspect systems. Oxford: Blackwell.

Narrog, Heiko. 2012. Modality, subjectivity, and semantic change: A cross-linguistic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Palmer, Frank R. 2001. Mood and modality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

References

Elbert, Samuel H. & Mary Kawena Pukui. 1979. Hawaiian grammar. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.


To display the datapoints for a particular language family on the map and on the classification tree, select the family then click "submit".

You may combine this variable with a different variable by selecting on in the list below and clicking "Submit".

Customize map markers:
0 absent 956
1 present 645
? Not known 297
reload

Map ⇫


Values ⇫

Name Glottocode Family Macroarea Contributor Value Source Comment