Смирницкий, Ахманова’s system of 6 moods

6 moods are divided into 2 groups:

1) 2 direct moods (indicative, imperative)

2) 4 oblique moods (subjunctive I, subjunctive II, suppositional, conditional)

Indicative and Imperative moods don’t contradict the reality.

The indicative mood finds its expression in other gram.categories, especially with the category of tense. It hasn’t got its own form although it is a basic mood in the system.

Ex: He has written it (past tense, non-cont. aspect, perfect correlation, non-passive voice, ind, mood).

The verb in the Indicative mood has got the category of aspect, correlation, tense, voice.

The imperative mood differs from the Indicative as far as its meaning is concerned. It expresses an action as a request from the speaker’s point of view. This action doesn’t contradict reality. It still may happen,

Ex: Open the door.

Some scholars didn’t include this mood in their systems, but Смирницкий said that the Imperative mood has its own peculiarity – the absence of interrogative form.

The oblique mood is divided also into 2 groups:

1) Syntactic moods (subj. I and II)

2) Analytical moods (suppositional and conditional)

Subjunctive I.

Modal meaning – represents a problematic action which doesn’t necessary contradict reality; it coincides with the form of bare infinitive; it hasn’t got any gram.categories; its use is limited to the sphere of set expressions and colloquial speech. Ex: So we be. Long live the king.

Subjunctive II.

Modal meaning – represents as action as contradicting reality, smth that is purely imaginary. It has 2 tenses: non-past, past.

Ex: If I were you…

Suppositional.

There is no difference in meaning between Subj.I and suppositional mood. Both represent as action as a problematic but not contradict reality. The form is by means of the auxiliary “should” with all the persons, both in Sg and Pl. The form is SHOULD + Perfect INFINITIVE = present tense (He insists that we should go)/SHOULD + Non-perfect INFINITIVE = past tense (it is strange that he should have failed his exam).

Conditional.

The meaning is very much similar to the subj.II. The forms and two tenses:

Should/would + past perfect inf. (present)

Should/would + perfect infinitive (past).

Иванова’s theory.

3 moods:

- Indicative

- Imperative

- Subjunctive

Иванова wanted to simplify Смирницкий’s theory found it too complicated. But failed, because it’s impossible to unite two subjunctive moods and apply this to the theory of oppositions. (ПРО НЕЕ ООООЧЕНЬ МНОГО КАКОЙ-ТО ФИГНИ НАПИСАНО, Я ДУМАЮ ЕСЛИ ЕЕ ОПУСТИТЬ, ТО НИКТО ИЗ ЭКЗАМЕНАТОРОВ СИЛЬНО НЕ РАССТРОИТСЯ)

Бархударов criticized the system because the form “were” is thought to belong to both the Subjunctive and the Indicative moods without any reference to such a thing as homonym. He suggests that we should accept such a view: “if in 2 similar different systems of forms all the forms sound quite the same then we are dealing not with 2 systems but just one.”

Thus there’s no need to single out the indicative and the imperative moods? They are thought to fully correspond in form.

If in 2 similar different systems of forms at least one form sounds different from the corresponding form in the other system then we really deal with 2 different systems. In this case these 2 systems have a number of homonyms.

Thus he speaks of 2 systems but not the systems of the Indicative and the Subjunctive as corresponding to each other but as the system of the Indicative Mood being opposed to the system of modal phrases.

Professor Blokh made an attempt to reduce this category to a binary opposition. In his opinion it’s constituted by the oblique mood meanings which are opposed to the forms of the direct mood meanings. Tus according to this theory we can speak of 2 moods

· Indicative (unmarked)

· Subjunctive (marked)

· It is possible to eliminate the Imperative mood.

The Subjunctive mood is the mood of non-reality. It represents an action as a non-fact and finds its expression in:

· The Spective mood form (co-insides with the bare infinitive). It is a mood of attitude. We should unite this form with the traditional Imperative mood. Both have the same meaning and form. 3 equivalents:

- Should + inf.

- May/might + inf.

- Let + inf.

· The Stipulative mood form (were, Have been, Gave, have given). Used to state a condition, to stipulate. It is a mood of condition.

· Consective mood form. Would / should + inf. (perfect / no-perfect). It is a consequence of some unreal condition.

This system is simpler, but in fact it isn’t a binary opposition because there are 3 meanings of the Subjunctive mood. They form an opposition of their own.

Бархударов also tried to reduce this gr.category to a binary opposition. 2 members:

· Indicative (unmarked)

· Imperative (marked)

· There’s no place for the Subjunctive mood in the morphological system of the modern Eng. Verb.

He compared:

Imperative [Go home, Don’t go home] with Indicative [you go home, you don’t go home] and imperative [go home, don’t go home] with infinitive [to go home, not to go home].

Thus, the system of moods should be treated as a triple opposition:

· Indicative

· Imperative

· Subjunctive “were”

· grammatical homonymy: external series of signs correspond to two (or more) different meanings depending on factors lying outside the form itself, and outside the meaning of the verb, e.g. I think we should come here again to-morrow (here we should come is equivalent to we ought to come)

· grammatical synonymy: the same modal meaning will be expressed by two different series of external signs, e.g. I suggest that he go. (I suggest that he should go.)

There are other ways of indicating the reality or possibility of an action, besides the verbal category of mood, modal verbs and modal words. All these phenomena fall under the very wide notion of modality.

Modal verbs are used expressing ability, obligation, permission, advisability, etc. They also express relational probability, serving as probability predicators. e.g. Tom may stay if he will. → Tom is permitted to stay.

The modal verbs can, may, must, shall, will, ought, need, used (to), dare are defective in forms.e.g. The boys can prepare the play-ground themselves. – The boys will be able to prepare the play-ground themselves.

The verbs be and have in the modal meanings "be planned", "be obliged" and the like are considered as modal verbs.

Professor Blokh put modal verbs in a subgroup called semi-notional. Here we also face the problem of grammatical homonymy as most of the modal verbs have homonyms among the auxiliary verbs (shall, will, should, would, may, might). e.g. I think we should come here again to-morrow (modal) - If we knew that he wants us we should come to see him (auxiliary)

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