Mood is often defined as the morphological expression of modality, which includes cognitive and notional categories such as necessity, possibility, probability, conditionality etc. Both mood and modality may be manifested in various forms in a language, which affect the syntax and semantics of a sentence and are also directly linked with the performance of particular speech acts. The course examines specific questions relating to the description of these categories in English, which include the formal and functional features of the system of modal auxiliary verbs as well as the less obvious morpho-syntactic mood distinctions, such as the subjunctive and the imperative. Following the description of the English facts, a comparison is attempted with the corresponding data from the verbal systems of Greek and other languages. Students will be required to analyze linguistic facts they are already familiar with (such as the special characteristics of "modal auxiliary verbs") in terms of well-defined theoretical predictions. The number of assignments and the exact type of assessment will depend on class size.
