Realis mood

In Modern English, the indicative mood is for statements of actuality or strong probability, and in addition acts as a default mood for all instances which do not require use of a specific mood: • The spine-tailed swift flies faster than any other bird in the world. (present indicative) • The Missouri and Mississippi Rivers rose to record heights in 1993. (past indicative) • Mid-westerners will remember the flooding for many years to come. (future indicative) Some forms of the indicative can be used with do, does, or did, either for emphasis, or to form questions or negatives. See do-support. Distinctions between indicative and other moods such as the subjunctive were marked inflectionally to a greater extent in historical forms of the language than in Modern English. The following table shows the indicative suffixes used on regular verbs in Old English, Middle English and early and present-day Modern English. Other moods existing in English besides the indicative are the imperative ("Be quiet!") and the conditional ("I would be quiet") (although this is not always analyzed as a mood) and in some dialects, the subjunctive (as in "I suggest you be quiet"). For some further information, see English verbs and Uses of English verb forms. == Other ==

Although the indicative is generally the main or only realis mood, certain other languages have additional forms which can be categorized as separate realis moods. Arabic and various other Semitic languages have two kinds of energetic moods, which express something which is strongly believed or which the speaker wishes to emphasize. Their exact meanings are dependent upon the prefix that is attached to them. For example, is in the long energetic mood and has strong obligation meanings; it means "he certainly writes" and if it is preceded by , , it will have the meaning of "he must write". The short energetic expresses weak obligation, e.g., which means "he almost writes"; if it is preceded by a prefix like , , it means "he should write". The declarative mood (abbreviated ) indicates that a statement is true, without any qualifications being made. For many languages this is just an alternative name for the indicative mood, although sometimes distinctions between them are drawn. It may contrast with inferential mood. Reference is sometimes made to a "generic mood", for making general statements about a particular class of things; this may be considered to be an aspect rather than a mood. See gnomic aspect. ==See also==