Realis mood: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|Set of grammatical moods indicating facticity of assertions}}
{{more citations needed|date=December 2018}}
A '''realis mood''' ([[list of glossing abbreviations|abbreviated]] '''{{sc|real}}''') is a [[grammatical mood]] which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in [[declarative sentence]]s. Most languages have a single realis mood called the '''indicative mood''', although some languages have additional realis moods, for example to express different levels of certainty. By contrast, an [[irrealis mood]] is used to express something that is not known to be the case in reality.
 
An example of the contrast between realis and irrealis moods is seen in the [[English grammar|English]] sentences "He works" and "It is necessary that he work". In the first sentence ''works'' is a [[present indicative]] (realis) form of the verb, and is used to make a direct assertion about the real world. In the second sentence ''work'' is in the [[English subjunctive|subjunctive mood]], which is an irrealis mood – here ''that he work'' does not necessarily express a fact about the real world (he could be rejecting necessity and refusing to work), but refers to what would be a desirable state of affairs.