CLAUSE AS EXCHANGE
4.2 The Mood element
4.2.1 Structure of the Mood
‘proposition’, as in I’ve got a proposition to put to you; so we will refer to them by the related term proposal. The semantic function of a clause in the exchange of information is a proposition; the semantic function of a clause in the exchange of goods-&-services is a proposal.
These ‘fused’ tense forms are in fact the two most common forms of the English verb. When one of these occurs, the Finite did,do(es) will then make its appearance in the subsequent tags and responses, for example He gave it away, didn’t he? Yes, he did.But it is already lurking in the verb as a systemic feature ‘past’ or ‘present’, and is explicit in the negative and contrastive forms.
Examples of Subject and Finite, in the body of the clause and in the tag, are given in Figure 4-2 (p. 108). Note the analysis of the simple tense form, in the final example.
As was pointed out in Chapter 2, the term ‘Subject’ as we are using it corresponds to the
‘grammatical Subject’ of earlier terminology; but it is being reinterpreted here in functional terms. The Subject is not a purely formal category; like other grammatical functions it is semantic in origin. What it means will be discussed in Section 4.2.2 (p. 115); here, we will first describe how the Subject may be recognized.
The Subject, in a declarative clause, is that element which is picked up by the pronoun in the tag (cf. Figure 4-3). So in order to locate the Subject, add a tag (if one is not already present) and see which element is taken up. For example,that teapot was given to your aunt;
here, the tag would be wasn’t it?— we cannot add wasn’t she?. On the other hand, with that teapot your aunt got from the dukethe tag would be didn’t she?; we cannot say didn’t he?or wasn’t it?. (At the same time, the Subject is also that element of the clause that precedes the Finite in a declarative clause but follows it in a yes/no interrogative one:that teapot was / was that teapot? Such observations can be derived from the system network in Figure 4- 16 (p. 136 (cf. Figure 4-5, p. 115).)
This is not the functional definition of the Subject; it is the way to identifyit. Note that the category that is identified in this way will in fact accord with the classical conception of the Subject as ‘that noun or pronoun that is in person and number concord with the verb’:
Subjectshe,she,itgo with has, and I,you,we,theygo withhave. This formulation, however, has a rather restricted application in Modern English, because apart from the verb be, the only manifestation of person and number in the verb is the -son the third person singular present tense. The other part of the classical definition of the Subject, ‘that noun or pronoun which is in the nominative case’, is even more restricted, since the only words in English which display case are I,we,he,sheandthey(and in formal language also who). The criterion Table 4(3)Finite elements in simple present and past tenses
tense other categories in body of clause in tag
simple present negative (polarity) (he) doesn’t love does (he)?
contrastive (contrast) (he) does love doesn’t (he)?
passive (voice) (she) is loved isn’t (she)?
none of above, i.e. positive, neutral, active (he) loves [‘present’ + love] doesn’t (he)?
simple past negative (polarity) (he) didn’t give did (he)?
contrastive (contrast) (he) did give didn’t (he)?
passive (voice) (it) was given wasn’t (it)?
none of above, i.e. positive, neutral, active (he) gave [‘past’ + give] didn’t (he)?
for recognizing the Subject that we are using here — ‘that nominal group that is repeated in pronoun form in the tag’ — can be followed up in every declarative clause.* Note that it does bring in certain things that are not traditionally regarded as Subject: not only itinit’s raining but also there in there’s trouble in the shed, both of which function as Subject in Modern English. Some further examples are given in Figure 4-4.
Subject and Finite are closely linked together, and combine to form one constituent which we call the Mood.** (For the other function that can occur within the Mood,seeSection 4.3, p. 121.) The Mood is the element that realizes the selection of mood in the clause.***
It has sometimes been called the ‘Modal’ element; but the difficulty with this is that the term ‘modal’ is ambiguous, since it corresponds both to mood and to modality.
T h e M o o d e l e m e n t
Fig. 4-3 Subject and Finite
* Checking the agnate ‘yes/no interrogative’ clause will also work (cf. Fawcett, 1999), since the relative sequence of Subject and Finite distinguishes ‘declarative’ clauses from ‘yes/no interrogative’ ones: the duke has given away that teapot—has the duke given away that teapot. The general point is the Subject can be identified by reference to any system in which it appears in a realization statement.
** Note the distinction in capitalization between ‘Mood’ as the name of an element of the interpersonal structure of the clause (Mood + Residue; see below) and ‘MOOD’ as the name of the primary interpersonal system of the clause — the grammaticalization of the semantic system of SPEECH FUNCTION. This follows the general convention whereby names of structural functions are spelt with an initial capital and names of systems with all upper case.
*** Certain other languages operate with a similar Mood element consisting of Subject + Finite: the relative sequence of Subject and Finite serves to realize the selection of mood in the clause. However, around the languages of the world, this strategy is quite rare, being restricted mainly to certain languages (originally) from Europe. It is far more common for languages to use tone (as English also does) and/or special interpersonal mood particles, as in languages in East and South-East Asia (as in Chinese (seeHalliday and McDonald, in press), Vietnamese (seeThai, in press), Japanese (seeTeruya, in press) and Thai (see Patpong, in prep.˚). Such mood particles serve the interpersonal function of Negotiator, and tend to come either at the beginning of the clause or at the end — that is, at either of the junctures of the clause as an exchange, where the speaker may take over from the previous speaker, or hand over to the next speaker.
The element that is ‘bandied about’ in exchanges involving a change in polarity is often the Predicator ± polarity.
the duke has given away that teapot hasn’t he
the duke won’t give away that teapot will he
that teapot wasn’t given away by the duke was it
that teapot would hold eight cups of tea wouldn’t it
‘(past) give’
your aunt gave the teapot back didn’t she
Subject Finite
The remainder of the clause we shall call the Residue. It has sometimes been labelled
‘Proposition’, but this term is also not very appropriate; partly because, as has been mentioned, the concept of proposition applies only to the exchange of information, not to the exchange of goods-and-services, and partly because, even in the exchange of information, if anything it is the Mood element that embodies the proposition rather than the remainder of the clause. We shall return to the structure of the Residue below.
The general principle behind the expression of MOOD in the clause is as follows.* The grammatical category that is characteristically used to exchange information is the indicative; within the category of indicative, the characteristic expression of a statement is the declarative, that of a question is the interrogative; and within the category of interrogative, there is a further distinction between yes/no interrogative, for polar questions, andWH- interrogative, for content questions. (These were outlined in Chapter 3, Section 3.3, p. 71.) These features are typically expressed as follows:
(1) The presence of the Mood element, consisting of Subject plus Finite, realizes the feature ‘indicative’.
Fig. 4-4 Subject and Finite: further examples
* Note that the system of MOOD is a system of the clause, not of the verbal group or of the verb. Many languages also have an interpersonal system of the verb(al group) that has been referred to as ‘mood’: it involves interpersonal contrasts, such as indicative/subjunctive, indicative/subjunctive/optative. To distinguish these verbal contrasts from the clausal system of MOOD, we can refer to them as contrasts in mode. The subjunctive mode tends to be restricted to the environment of bound clauses — in particular, reported clauses and conditional clauses having the sense of irrealis. In Modern English, the subjunctive mode of the verb is marginal, although there is some dialectal variation.
what the was that teapot wasn’t it
duke gave my aunt
my aunt has been given a teapot hasn’t she
it ’s not going to rain is it
there won’t be a storm will there
the weather should have warned us shouldn’t they
bureau
‘(present) take’
nobody takes any notice do they
Subject Finite
(2) Within the indicative, what is significant is the orderof Subject and Finite:
(a) the order Subject before Finite realizes ‘declarative’;*
(b) the order Finite before Subject realizes ‘yes/no interrogative’;
(c) in a ‘WH- interrogative’ the order is: (i) Subject before Finite if the WH- element is the Subject; (ii) Finite before Subject otherwise.
The structure is as shown in Figure 4-5.
(a) declarative
(b) yes/no interrogative
Fig. 4-5 Structure of declarative and yes/no interrogative
For the analysis of WH- interrogatives, which involve a consideration of the Residue,see Section 4.4, Figure 4-15, p. 135, Figure 4-17, p. 136 and Figure 4-18, p. 136.