Re: "can" "able to" mood

Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...>:

> On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:08:23 +0100, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
>
> >Quoting "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>:
> >
> >> I think the difference is syntactic rather than semantic.  In English
> >> et sim, you construct it with helper verb + inf, so it's clearly not a
> >> mood.  But logically, the function seems more moodlike than aspectual,
> >> so I see no reason why it couldn't be a mood in some other lang...
> >
> >I don't see why analytic construction would exclude moodhood?
>
> I'd say it's similar to the distinction between aspect and aktionsart: All
> languages will have means
> of expressing aktionsart, but not all languages have a morpho-syntactic
> category of aspect.
> Likewise, all languages will have means of expressing "semantic moodhood",
> but not all
> languages will have a morpho-syntactic category of mood.
One is tempted to say that the auxiliary+infinitive construction IS such a
morpho-syntactic category of mood, particularly as the English grammar I was
taught systematically ignored the subjunctive and never called the imperative a
mood - before I started to self-study linguistics I never heard of "mood" but
with reference to this construction. But I get your point.

 Andreas