Realis mood: Difference between revisions

A '''realis mood''' is a [[grammatical mood]] which is used principally to indicate that something is actually the case (or actually not the case) – in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in [[declarative sentence]]s. TheMost mostlanguages commonhave a single realis mood iscalled 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.

However, since mood is a [[grammatical category]], referring to the form a verb takes rather than theits purpose for which it is usedmeaning in a given instance, a given language may use realis forms for a number of purposes other than their principal one of making direct factual statements. For example, many languages use indicative verb forms to ask questions (this is sometimes called [[interrogative mood]]) and in various other situations where the meaning is in fact of the irrealis type (as in the English "I hope it works", where the indicative ''works'' is used even though it refers to a desired rather than real state of affairs).