Irrealis Mood

Irrealis moods (abbreviated IRR) are the main set of grammatical moods that indicate that a certain situation or action is not known to have happened as the speaker is talking.

Every language has a formula for the unreal. The Indigenous languages of the Pacific Northwest have as many as five levels of "unreality."

Famous quotes containing the word mood:

    “Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of Nature themselves, are often in a more favorable mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation. She is not afraid to exhibit herself to them.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)