Examining Mood and Modality in Persian Language

Modality is a semantic concept which proposes the speaker's purpose and attitude toward the state of a proposition. Besides, mood is such a tool which is served by modality. In classical grammar sources, at least six types of mood are counted for verbs. All these sources accepted indicative, subjunctive and imperative moods and mentioned other moods such as infinitival, conditional, attributive and vocative. In this article, the latest classification of mood and the concept of modality are discussed and their differences in Persian language. Also, based on the definitions of declarative, subjunctive and imperative moods, it has been found out that in all moods, the speaker’s attitude is involved in the choice of mood on the occurrence or non-occurrence of the verb; because the mood basically shows the level of determination of the speaker on the implementation of the proposition, especially a verb. For all three moods, the central meaning in the "probability of occurrence" can be considered. Therefore, a continuum can be regarded for the verbal mood, in which the occurrence of the verb is certain on one side and improbable on the other side.