Hypothetical mood

Hypothetical mood (abbreviated HYP) is an epistemic grammatical mood found in some languages (for example Lakota) which indicates that while a statement is not actually true, it could easily have been.[1] For instance, in English, "You know you shouldn't play with knives! You could have hurt someone!" conveys a meaning that would be expressed with the hypothetical mood in Lakota.

References

  1. ^ Loos, Eugene E.; Anderson, Susan; Day, Dwight H. Jr.; Jordan, Paul C.; Wingate, J. Douglas. "What is hypothetical mood?". Glossary of linguistic terms. SIL International. Retrieved 2009-12-28.


Stub icon

This linguistic morphology article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.