LINGUIST List 2.320

Sunday 23 June 1991

Disc: Mood

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. David J. Camp, Desirative Mood
2. Monica Macaulay, Mood

In Reply to this Note From: <Linguist Mailing List>
>Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1991 9:19:04 EDT
>From: SULLIVAN%MARIE.MIT.EDURICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Jim Sullivan (617)253-7537 :FAX
> -0700)
>Subject: General term for moods.
>
><ffjal1alaska.bitnet (??)> is looking for a term which unambiguously refers
>to moods that express a desire for something to happen.
>
>Perhaps a new term -- why not just "hopeful" or the somewhat awful "expective"
I like "wanton" for this category. -David-

This is a belated response to the discussion of mood initiated
by Jeff Leer some weeks ago... I've been working with a student
of mine on almost identical issues in Dangme (a Kwa language of
Ghana), and I've got a question and a reference for you.
First, you used the term "schetic," and said "i.e. TMA" -- this is a
term I'm unfamiliar with -- could you give us a more extensive definition
and/or some references?
Second, someone just referred us to a very useful and illuminating
chapter from Shopen's Language Typology and Syntactic Description, vol
3. It's Chung and Timberlake's article, "Tense, Aspect, and Mood" (pp.
202-258). What you call "status" (realis vs. irrealis) they call "mood."
Incidentally, what we're finding in Dangme is a subcategory of irrealis
mood which contains imperative, optative, hortative, and "obligative"
("must/should/ought") -- almost exactly the list of categories you gave
for Tlingit. Drawing from Chung & Timberlake, it looks like a group of
deontic categories (in the obligation, rather than permission, sense).
How does "deontic" seem to you as a term for your data?
Monica Macaulay (macaulayj.cc.purdue.edu)