Grammar and semantics: case, gender, mood

12.1 Introduction
Syntax is of interest (as is morphology too) because without syntax human beings would be unable to construct
complex messages conveying information about complex situations, proposals or ideas. We touched on the
relationship between grammar and semantics in Chapter 4 on word classes; it turned out that the differences
between the major classes of words are central to the use of language. It was not so much the contrast between
reference to people, places and things and reference to actions and states as the acts that speakers carry out
with different classes of words – referring, predicating and modifying. One set of criteria for recognising word
classes has to do with morphosyntactic properties; in many languages, nouns have suffixes that signal case,
while verbs have suffixes that signal person and number (as described in Chapter 5 on the lexicon and in
Chapter 9 on syntactic linkage). In many languages, verbs also have suffixes that signal other information that
is semantically central. The verb suffixes of Latin, for example, carry information about tense, aspect, mood
and voice, ‘grammatical categories’ which we are about to introduce. As we saw when we explored word
classes in Chapter 4, many languages have a much richer system of noun and verb suffixes (inflectional
morphology) than English, whose inflectional morphology is pretty sparse. Much of the work that is done by
suffixes in Latin, say, is done by syntactic constructions in English and falls into the scope of this book on two
counts, being syntactic and being central to the connections between grammar and meaning.
12.2 Case
We have already discussed the category of case in various places, particularly in Chapter 9 on syntactic linkage
where we looked at certain key facts of case in Latin, but also in Chapter 8 on grammatical functions and
Chapter 11 on roles. The term ‘case’ was traditionally used for the system of noun suffixes typical of Indo-
European languages. For convenience, we reproduce as (1a) and (1b) below some of the Latin examples
discussed in Chapter 9.
(1) a. Latin
reks gladium point king sword put-down ‘the king put down the sword’ Gladium has the accusative suffix (see
Chapter 9 for explanations of the case terms ‘accusative’, ‘nominative’ and ‘ablative’). Any adjective
modifying gladium also has to be in the accusative case, as in (1b).
(1) b. reks magnum gladium ponit
king big sword put-down ‘the king put down the big sword’
(2) a. Latin
reks gladio utitur
king sword is-using ‘the/a king is using the/a sword’
In (2), gladio has the ablative suffix -o. Any adjective modifying gladio
also has to be in the ablative case, as in (2b), where magno is the ablative
singular form of magn-.
(2) b. Latin
reks magno gladio utitur king big sword is-using
‘the/a king is using the/a big sword’ As discussed in Chapter 9, different suffixes are required for plural nouns
– reges instead of reks, gladiis instead of gladio. Moreover, Latin nouns fall into three major classes and two
minor classes, and each class has its own set of case suffixes. The case suffixes signal the relation between the
nouns in a clause and the verb, and they signal which adjectives modify which noun and which noun modifies
a given preposition (since different prepositions assign different cases). English does not have case suffixes.
Pronouns display remnants of the earlier case system – saw me vs *saw I, to me vs to I – but no case suffixes
are added to nouns, and there is no ‘agreement’ between a noun and the adjectives that
modify it. English does have the possessive suffix ’s in John’s bike and Juliet’s spaniel. In spoken English,
with the exception of irregular nouns such as children or mice, ’s is not added to plural nouns. Possession is
signalled (in writing) by an apostrophe added to plural nouns, as in the dogs’ kennel. The apostrophe has no
spoken equivalent. The ’s suffix is also added to noun phrases rather than nouns, as in the woman next door’s
poodle and John and Juliet’s garden. An analysis of the possessive suffix goes beyond the scope of this book,
but it is clear that it behaves very differently from the case suffixes of languages such as Latin and Russian .As
explained in Chapter 11 on roles, the traditional concept of case has been extended to take in the relationships
between verb and nouns in clauses and the ways in which these relationships are signalled. In some languages,
the relations are marked by affixes added to the verb, but these would still come under the modern concept of
CASE. (It will be helpful to use capital letters when referring to the modern extended concept and small letters
when referring to the traditional concept or to affixes or, as in English, to prepositions.) CASE is relevant to
English; the relations between verb and nouns in clauses are signalled by position and by the presence or
absence of prepositions. In the basic active declarative construction (see Chapter 3), the subject is to the left of
the verb, with no preposition, and the direct object is to the right of the verb, with no preposition. In the
indirect object construction, the indirect object is immediately to the right of the verb and followed by the
direct object. All other nouns in a clause are connected to the verb by a preposition. (Note that this does not
mean that all prepositions signal verb–noun relations. They can also signal noun–noun relations, as in the vase
on the table, and adjective–noun relations, as in rich in minerals.) The key question is to what extent any
constant meaning attaches to a given preposition wherever it occurs (and, for languages such as Latin and
Russian, the extent to which a constant meaning attaches to a given case suffix). This question is discussed in
Chapter 11 on roles.
12.3 Gender
In Chapter 9 on syntactic linkage, we mentioned that Latin nouns fall into various classes called ‘genders’ and
that they are misleadingly named ‘masculine gender’, ‘feminine gender’ and ‘neuter gender’. The different
classes of noun are grammatically important because which class a noun belongs to determines which case
suffixes it takes and which case suffixes any modifying adjectives take. This is exemplified in (1)–(3) in
Chapter 9. English nouns fall into classes that are more closely linked to natural gender. There is a major split
between animate and inanimate nouns, linked to the use of it as opposed to he and she. The animate nouns split
into male and female, which governs the use of he as opposed to she. The labels ‘masculine’ and so on applied
to classes of Latin noun can be seen as not entirely arbitrary if we take into account the fact that nouns
denoting women, in whatever capacity, are typically female: mater (mother), filia (daughter), femina (woman)
are feminine; pater (father), filius (son), vir (man) are masculine; servus is ‘male slave’, serva is ‘female slave’
and so on. Neuter nouns appear at first sight to offer no generalisation, but an important one can be made: no
nouns denoting animate beings are neuter. That generalisation does not apply as neatly to Indo- European
languages as a whole, but it remains true that relatively
few neuter nouns denote animate beings. The ones that are usually mentioned are the neuter German nouns
Kind (child), Weib (woman), Madchen (girl), Fraulein (young woman), Tier (animal), Pferd (horse), Krokodil
(crocodile).
Current thinking on gender is that there is always a semantic core to gender systems, but the degree of
semantic justification can vary from almost complete to very little. There are languages, such as the Bantu
language Luganda, spoken in areas of Uganda and Kenya, which have classes of nouns based on such
properties as whether they denote humans, animals, round objects, thin rigid objects, thin flexible objects, and
so on. There are many nouns that fit the pattern, but the language has a general class into which go all new or
borrowed nouns. Work on the Australian language Dyirbal (North Queensland) has shown that the working of
a gender system might require knowledge of a society’s myths. In Dyirbal myth, the moon and the sun are
husband and wife; the words for moon and husband are together in one class and the words for wife and sun
are together in another class. Nouns to do with fire and light go in the same class as the noun for sun. The satin
bird brought fire from the clutches of the rainbow snake, and the noun denoting the bird is in the same class as
the words for sun and fire. The bite of the hairy mary grub has the same effect as bad sunburn, and the noun
denoting that grub is also in the same class as the noun for sun.

12.4 Mood
Throughout this book we have described speakers using syntax in order to talk about situations, adopting
different perspectives on a given situation. This was a central part of the discussion of roles in Chapter 11 and
continues to be a central part of mood, tense, aspect and voice. It would be very pleasing and appropriate if
‘mood’ as a technical term in grammar derived from or was historically associated with ‘mood’ as a term
applied to psychological states. Unfortunately it is not, since the latter is cognate with a German word and the
former derives from the Latin word which has also survived in Modern English as ‘mode’. The central point is
that speakers have different modes of presenting situations.
12.4.1 Statements, questions, commands
1. Speakers can make statements about situations – This is happening, That happened.
They can ask questions about situations and about participants in situations – Is this happening?, Did that
happen? They can require or request that a particular situation be created or
not created – Do this, don’t do that.
2. They can present situations as factual – This happened, This did happen. They can present situations as
possible – This might happen. They can present situations as necessary – This has to happen, That must
happen.
3. They can state their authority for making a statement – Evidently, she has decided to change jobs, I know for
a fact that this plane is unsafe.
4. They can present situations as the objects of wishes, hopes, fears – I wish he had better manners, She’s
afraid he’s going to make a fool of himself. In Chapter 3 on constructions we looked at two of the constructions
in (1), the declarative construction and the yes–no interrogative construction. There we described the
arrangements of words into phrases and the syntactic differences between the two; here we are interested in the
uses to which speakers put the constructions, and add the imperative construction which can be used to issue
instructions and requests. (But in many situations, speakers do not use the imperative; see the exercises at the
end of the chapter.) The examples in (3) are not normally discussed under the heading of mood, but the
concept of mood should be extended to take them in. One reason is that the distinction between making a
statement, asking a question and issuing a command is not sufficient, because speakers make assertions with
different degrees of certainty and authority. In English, these degrees are signalled by means of adverbs such
as evidently or apparently, and by phrases such as for a fact. There is some controversy as to whether a given
speaker makes a stronger assertion by means of That’s the guy who attacked the policemen or That must be the
guy who attacked the policemen. An earlier view was that the former was the stronger assertion, but another,
more recent, view is that the former is neutral and that it is the speaker who utters must be who expresses the
stronger commitment to the proposition [THAT GUY ATTACK THE POLICEMEN]. A second reason for
extending the discussion is that there are languages, such as Turkish, in which degrees of certainty are
obligatorily expressed; speakers who have seen an event with their own eyes must use one set of verb forms
while speakers who have not witnessed it but merely heard about it from others must use another set of verb
forms.
12.4.2 Subjunctive mood
Any general investigation of mood must deal with the business of speakers making assertions with different
degrees of certainty or authority, but the topic is not of central concern here. We are going to focus on (4) and
(2) above. The examples in (4) relate to what is called the subjunctive mood. It is unfortunate that ‘mood’ is
applied to this concept, although it is a very old usage and difficult to change. It also has some justification
because it is connected with the mode in which speakers choose to present a situation. The term ‘subjunctive
mood’ relates to special sets of verb forms. English used to have such forms; indeed, in a sense it still does
have them, but they have fallen into disuse and are now almost archaic. They occur in examples such as If I
were in such difficulties, I would take to my bed, where were occurs with the singular subject. Most
speakers and writers nowadays use was. Another example, even more unusual, is be in If this be true, the plan
should be abandoned. The subjunctive forms were used in order to present a situation as remote from reality –
the speaker being in difficulties – or as possibly remote from reality – this being true. The technical term is
‘non-factual’. Why the mysterious term ‘subjunctive’? The examples just given involve subjunctive forms in
subordinate clauses – if I were in such difficulties and if this be true. Subordinate clauses were said to be
‘subjoined’ to the main
clause in a sentence, or to be ‘subjuncts’. Hence ‘subjunctive’. This brings us back to (4.) and the presentation
of situations as the objects of hopes, fears and wishes. To present a situation thus, speakers have to construct a
main clause containing a verb such as hope or wish with a subordinate complement clause expressing the
hoped-for situation. This type of construction has disappeared from English but is found in French, as shown
in (3).
(3) French
a. Sa fille est première en tout His daughter is first in everything
b. Il veut que sa fille soit première en tout
He wants that his daughter is first in everything The relevant contrast is between est (is)
in (3a) and soit (is) in (3b). In the latter, the speaker states that someone has a wish – il veut (he wants) – and
states the content of the wish by means of the complement clause que sa fille soit premiere en tout (that his
daughter is first in everything). The wished-for situation does not exist at the moment, and this is signaled both
by the verb veut and by the subjunctive mood. Est in (3a) is said to be in the indicative mood. The speaker
indicates or refers to a situation which does exist.
12.4.3 Epistemic and deontic modality
The presentation of situations as possible or necessary, point (2.) above, is achieved in English by modal verbs.
The essential distinction in this area is between epistemic and deontic modality. ‘Epistemic’ derives from the
Greek episteme (knowledge), and epistemic modality relates to the way (the mode) in which speakers know a
situation; do they know that it exists, do they consider it as merely possible or do they treat it as necessarily
existing (although they have not seen it themselves) on the basis of evidence? ‘Deontic’ derives from the
Greek verb deo (tie). Deontic modality relates to whether speakers present a situation as possible because
permission has been given, or as necessary because circumstances require it, for example because someone
with authority has issued a command o because the situation is such that other actions are ruled out. Epistemic
possibility is expressed by could, may or might, as in (4).
(4) She could/might/may be in the library (= It is possible that she is in the library)
May is neutral but might and could express more remote possibility. Note that can is not excluded in principle
from expressing epistemic possibility but occurs very rarely with this interpretation. In addition to asserting
that propositions are epistemically possible, speakers assert that they are epistemically not possible, as in (5).
(5) She may/might not be in her room just now (= It is possible that she is not in her room) Can/could and
may/might derive historically from different verbs and diverge in meaning to the extent that can and could can
be used to refer to physical or mental ability, whereas may and might cannot. Example (6a) is quite different in
meaning from (6b).
(6) a. Margaret can/could multiply large numbers in her head (= is/ was able to)
b. Margaret may/might multiply large numbers in her head (= it is possible that Margaret will multiply large
numbers in her head if you ask her nicely) When negated, can and could behave very differently from may and
might.
Example (7) expresses a stronger commitment to the impossibility of a situation. The gloss is ‘it is not
possible that such and such’, as opposed to ‘it is possible that not such and such’ for (5). (7) She can’t be in her
room just now. (= It is not possible that she is in her room just now.) Speakers may also present situations as
epistemically necessary, that is, they can convey the message ‘I conclude from the evidence that this event
happened/is going to happen’. Must is typically used, as in (8).
(8) That must be the worst joke I’ve ever heard.
Speakers also use have to and have got to, which express necessity but are not modal verbs because they do not
have the typical syntax of modal verbs: That’s got to be the worst joke I’ve ever heard. Many examples of
epistemic necessity can be glossed by means of I conclude that, as in (9), which could be uttered as the speaker
looks at piles of empty beer cans.
(9) You must spend a lot of money on beer. [= I conclude that you spend …]
Speakers can also conclude that something is necessarily not the case. They can’t be going to tell us used to be
the standard British English construction, but They mustn’t be going to tell us is the regular construction for
speakers of Scottish English and speakers of American English and is moving into standard English English.
Deontic possibility has to do with giving or withholding permission. Grammar books used to assert that may is
used in this sense, but the bulk of speakers both in the UK and in North America use can. Permission can be
given to do something or not to do something; the latter is typically expressed by verbs other than may. Having
permission not to do something is equivalent to not being obliged to do something, and the typical expressions
are, for example, You don’t have to come to work tomorrow and You don’t need to come to work tomorrow. In
contrast, not having permission to do something is expressed by may not [the standard story] or can’t/cannot:
You may not/can’t/cannot hand in your dissertation late. Deontic necessity is expressed by must, have to and
have got to. The typical account in grammars of English is that must expresses an obligation placed on
individuals by themselves (I must read that new novel because I enjoyed all her other novels) as opposed to an
obligation placed on individuals by others or by circumstances (I have to read that novel because there’s an
obligatory question on it in the exam, or I have to go to the dentist because the toothache keeps waking me up).
This analysis of must and have to does not fit the facts of usage. Speakers recognise have got to as expressing
obligations placed on individuals by others or by circumstances. Have to is neutral, and must is peripheral for
many speakers (as opposed to writers). As mentioned in the paragraph following example (8) above, have and
have got to are used for the expression of epistemic modality. The original meaning of have and have got to
was and is deontic, that is, some action is necessary because circumstances make it so. The use of these verbs
in examples such as That has to be the worst joke I’ve ever heard is more recent. Similarly, the use of ought
and should has changed. Their original meaning is one of moral obligation, as in He should help his friends,
not laugh at them. Another use, possibly derived from the moral-obligation interpretation, is exemplified in
The computer desk should hold together now that I’ve put in extra screws. A moral obligation is weaker and
more easily avoided than an obligation imposed by circumstances, and this difference between ought and
should on the one hand and have and have got to on the other is reflected in the epistemic uses. Speakers who
say That book should be in the library draw conclusions from whatever evidence is available to them, such as
patterns of book-borrowing or the fact that they returned the book to the library just twenty minutes before. But
they draw a much weaker conclusion than speakers who say the book must be in the library. The latter
statement indicates that no other conclusion is possible, whereas should leaves room for the conclusion to be
wrong.

Mood
Mood in Malayalam is realized by the addition of inflectional suffixes to the verb~stem or by modifying the
verbs by using auxiliary verbs. Mood is used to express the manner or form in which the action or state
denoted by the verb is performed, or exists. Mood also denotes the ~sychological attitude of the speaker
towards an event. The notion of Mood is distinguished from the notion of Tense and Aspect by its non-factual
nature. There are four Moods in Malayalam, namely, Indicative (nirdheeSakam), Potential (vidhaajakam),
Imperative (nijooJakam) and Permissive (anu0naajakam). V. R. Prabodhachandran Nair describes seven 1
types of Moods. (i) Permissive Verb-stem + -aam 1 "Aspectual System in Malayalam," Lll&, Vol. VIII (1979),

289-
n linguistics, grammatical mood (also mode) is a grammatical feature of verbs, used for
signaling modality.[1][2]:p.181;[3] That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express
their attitude toward what they are saying (e.g. a statement of fact, of desire, of command, etc.). The
term is also used more broadly to describe the syntactic expression of modality – that is, the use of
verb phrases that do not involve inflection of the verb itself.
Mood is distinct from grammatical tense or grammatical aspect, although the same word patterns
are used for expressing more than one of these meanings at the same time in many languages,
including English and most other modern Indo-European languages. (See tense–aspect–mood for a
discussion of this.)
Some examples of moods are indicative, interrogative, imperative, subjunctive, injunctive, optative,
and potential. These are all finite forms of the verb. Infinitives, gerunds, and participles, which are
non-finite forms of the verb, are not considered to be examples of moods.
Some Uralic Samoyedic languages have more than ten moods; Nenets[4] has as many as sixteen.
The original Indo-European inventory of moods consisted of indicative, subjunctive, optative, and
imperative. Not every Indo-European language has all of these moods, but the most conservative
ones such as Avestan, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit have them all. English has indicative,
imperative, and subjunctive moods; other moods, such as the conditional, do not appear as
morphologically distinct forms.
Not all of the moods listed below are clearly conceptually distinct. Individual terminology varies from
language to language, and the coverage of (e.g.) the "conditional" mood in one language may
largely overlap with that of the "hypothetical" or "potential" mood in another. Even when two different
moods exist in the same language, their respective usages may blur, or may be defined by syntactic
rather than semantic criteria. For example, the subjunctive and optative moods in Ancient
Greek alternate syntactically in many subordinate clauses, depending on the tense of the main verb.
The usage of the indicative, subjunctive, and jussive moods in Classical Arabic is almost completely
controlled by syntactic context. The only possible alternation in the same context is between
indicative and jussive following the negative particle lā.

Subjunctive
Main article: Subjunctive mood
The subjunctive mood, sometimes called conjunctive mood, has several uses in dependent clauses.
Examples include discussing imaginary or hypothetical events and situations, expressing opinions or
emotions, or making polite requests (the exact scope is language-specific). A subjunctive mood
exists in English, though it is used in English much less than in many other Indo-European
languages. In English, this mood has, for some uses, become something of a linguistic fossil. An
example of the subjunctive mood is "I suggest that Paul eat an apple". The sentence refers to an
event which may or may not take place. Contrast this with the indicative verb of the sentence "Paul
will eat an apple", in which the verb "will eat" states an unambiguous fact. Another way of expressing
the suggestion is "I suggest that Paul should eat an apple".
Other uses of the subjunctive in English are archaisms, as in "And if he be not able to bring a lamb,
then he shall bring for his trespass..." (KJV Leviticus 5:7). Statements such as "I will ensure that he
leave immediately" often sound archaic or overly formal, and have been almost completely
supplanted by constructions with the indicative, like "I will ensure that he leaves immediately".
Some Germanic languages distinguish between two types of subjunctive moods, for example,
the Konjunktiv I and II in German or the present and past subjunctive in English. Note that the latter
distinction is not about the actual time at which something happens (or does not happen).
The conditional version of “John eats if he is hungry” is (subjunctive part boldfaced):
English: John would eat if he were hungry.
French: Jean mangerait s’il eût faim. (note: in modern usage, the imperfect indicative
usually replaces the imperfect subjunctive in this type of sentence.)
German: Johannes äße, wenn er hungrig wäre.
Italian: Giovanni mangerebbe se avesse fame.
Latvian: Jānis ēstu, ja būtu izsalcis.
Polish: Jan jadłby, gdyby zgłodniał.
Portuguese: João comeria se tivesse fome.
Russian: Иван поел бы, если бы был голоден.
Spanish: Juan comería si tuviera hambre.
Swedish: Johan skulle äta, om han vore hungrig.
The subjunctive mood figures prominently in
the grammar of the Romance languages, which require this
mood for certain types of dependent clauses. This point
commonly causes difficulty for English speakers learning
these languages.
In certain other languages, the dubitative or the conditional
moods may be employed instead of the subjunctive in
referring to doubtful or unlikely events (see the main
article)