Mood: mood
Definition
Mood is a feature that expresses modality and subclassifies finite verb forms. Its an inflectional verb feature in Estonian, including indicative, conditional, imperative and quotative. According to some authors (e.g Erelt 2003), Estonian also has jussive mood. However, in Estonian UD, these usages are regarded as quotatives.
Ind: indicative
The indicative can be considered the default mood. A verb in indicative merely states that something happens, has happened or will happen, without adding any attitude of the speaker. Indicative mood combines with all persons and tenses and both voices in Estonian.
Examples
- Sa ei tule. “You are not coming.”
Imp: imperative
The imperative expresses the speaker’s request, order or prohibition to the listener or call for a joint action.
In the imperative mood, there is no first person singular form. The first person plural forms belong to the high style.
The second person singular form is unmarked. Some authors separate third person forms as jussive mood (e.g. Erelt 2003).
Imperative mood combines both with active and passive voice.
Examples
- [cs] Studuj na univerzitě! “Study at the university!”
- [de] Studiere an der Universität! “Study at the university!”
Cnd: conditional
The conditional mood is used to express the speaker’s opinion that an action or an event would have taken place under some circumstances but it actually did not / do not happen. Conditional mood is also used to express politeness.
A verb in conditional mood may inflect for person, but alternatively, non-inflected forms are also widely used.
Conditional mood combines with two tenses: present and preteritum (compound past) In the latter case, only the auxiliary is tagged using the feature cond.
Conditional combines with both voices (active and passive) in Estonian.
Examples
- [tr] eve gittiyse “if she went home”
- [tr] eve gidiyorsa “if she is going home”
- [tr] eve giderse “if she goes home”
- [tr] eve gidecekdiyse “if she was going to go home”
Qot: quotative
The quotative is used when the speaker wants to point out that s/he is not responsible for the accuracy of a statement but acts only as an intermediary or reporter.
Verb in quotative mood does not inflect for person. Like conditional, it combines with two tenses – present and preteritum (compound past). In the latter case, only the auxiliary is tagged using the feature quot.
Quotative combines with both voices, active and passive.
Examples
- [et] Sa ei tulevat. “You are reportedly not coming.”
Erelt 2003 = Estonian language. Edited by Mati Erelt. Linguistica Uralica Supplemenatry series vol 1. Tallinn: Estonian Academy Publishers.
Mood in other languages: [ab] [akk] [arr] [bej] [bg] [bm] [cs] [cy] [el] [eme] [en] [es] [ess] [et] [fi] [fr] [ga] [gd] [gn] [gub] [hbo] [hu] [hy] [it] [jaa] [ka] [ky] [mdf] [myv] [pcm] [ps] [qpm] [qtd] [quc] [ru] [say] [sl] [sv] [tpn] [tr] [tt] [u] [ug] [uk] [urb] [urj] [xcl]