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This book presents the essential background for understanding semantic theories of mood. Mood as a category is widely used in the description of languages and the formal analysis of their grammatical properties. It typically refers to the features of a sentence-individual morphemes or grammatical patterns-that reflect how the sentence contributes to the modal meaning of a larger phrase, or that indicate the type of fundamental pragmatic function that it has in
conversation. In this volume, Paul Portner discusses the most significant semantic theories relating to the two main subtypes of mood: verbal mood, including the categories of indicative and subjunctive
subordinate clauses, and sentence mood, encompassing declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives. He evaluates those theories, compares them, and draws connections between seemingly disparate approaches, and he formalizes some of the literature's most important ideas in new ways in order to draw out their most significant insights. Ultimately, this work shows that there are crucial connections between verbal mood and sentence mood which point the way towards a more general understanding of
how mood works and its relation to other topics in linguistics; it also outlines the type of semantic and pragmatic theory which will make it possible to explain these relations. The book will be a
valuable resource for researchers and students from advanced undergraduate level upwards in the fields of semantics and pragmatics, philosophy, computer science, and psychology.
This book presents the essential background for understanding semantic theories of mood. Mood as a category is widely used in the description of languages and the formal analysis of their grammatical properties. It typically refers to the features of a sentence-individual morphemes or grammatical patterns-that reflect how the sentence contributes to the modal meaning of a larger phrase, or that indicate the type of fundamental pragmatic function that it has in
conversation. In this volume, Paul Portner discusses the most significant semantic theories relating to the two main subtypes of mood: verbal mood, including the categories of indicative and subjunctive
subordinate clauses, and sentence mood, encompassing declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives. He evaluates those theories, compares them, and draws connections between seemingly disparate approaches, and he formalizes some of the literature's most important ideas in new ways in order to draw out their most significant insights. Ultimately, this work shows that there are crucial connections between verbal mood and sentence mood which point the way towards a more general understanding of
how mood works and its relation to other topics in linguistics; it also outlines the type of semantic and pragmatic theory which will make it possible to explain these relations. The book will be a
valuable resource for researchers and students from advanced undergraduate level upwards in the fields of semantics and pragmatics, philosophy, computer science, and psychology.
General preface
Acknowledgments
List of figures and tables
1: Introduction
2: Verbal mood
3: Sentence mood
4: Core mood, reality status, and evidentiality
References
Index
Paul Portner is a linguist specializing in semantics and
pragmatics. As Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University,
he has served as the Head of both the Theoretical and Computational
Linguistics concentrations, and as Director of the
Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science. He has published
work across a wide range of topics in linguistics, including mood,
modality, tense and aspect, information structure, and the
semantics of imperatives and
exclamatives. His book Modality was published by OUP in 2009.
Portner has a knack for presenting clear examples that are
explained in a direct and tangible way....I would highly recommend
this book to a scholar wanting to learn more about a semantic
approach to mood. A familiarity with formal semantics would assist
the reader in understanding the plentiful formalizations presented,
but even those unfamiliar with this theoretical approach will
benefit from reading this book.
*Kathryn P Bove, LINGUIST List *
Mood is a pervasive phenomenon across languages, but a challenging
topic in formal semantics and pragmatics. This book is a highly
valuable guide to the major approaches in the area and their
considerable recent achievements. In Paul Portner, the field is
fortunate to have a leading practitioner who is also a masterful
explainer. With characteristic deftness and lucidity, he finds the
sweet spot between rigor and accessibility, breadth of coverage and
tautness of style. Mood is hands-down the best introduction and
critical survey on the topic, and will be for years to come.
*Stefan Kaufmann, University of Connecticut*
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