Abstract
Every clause is associated with a specific expressive intention and bears a specific mood: declarative, interrogative, imperative or exclamative. Different moods are combined with the juxtaposition of clauses. A compound sentence has a homogeneous mood combination between its constituent clauses, while the mood in a complex sentence is usually counted on its main clause with the mood in its subordinate clause(s) drowned. Clauses in a Chinese sentence, however, are independent in terms of mood; that is to say, the mood of the whole sentence is the combination of moods of each clause. Tendency for mood combination of two-clause composite sentences in modern Chinese is demonstrated as follows: 1) Homogeneous mood combinations greatly exceed heterogeneous ones; the “declarative + declarative” type outnumbers other types; and there are more combinations with a declarative mood than those without; 2) The more convincing the meaning of a particle indicates, the more frequently the corresponding mood appears in the first part of the combinations; and the mood realized by a modal adverb appears in the second part if another mood is not realized by a modal adverb; 3) A conjunction highly restricts the mood combination; and the frequency of mood combination in coordinate and causal clauses is approximately equal, much higher than that in adversative clauses.
Highlights
Mood and Mood CombinationThe Latin and French based word “mode” entered English in the late Middle English period, meaning “measure, manner”, quite similar to “mood”
Every clause is associated with a specific expressive intention and bears a specific mood: declarative, interrogative, imperative or exclamative
Tendency for mood combination of two-clause composite sentences in modern Chinese is demonstrated as follows: 1) Homogeneous mood combinations greatly exceed heterogeneous ones; the “declarative + declarative” type outnumbers other types; and there are more combinations with a declarative mood than those without; 2) The more convincing the meaning of a particle indicates, the more frequently the corresponding mood appears in the first part of the combinations; and the mood realized by a modal adverb appears in the second part if another mood is not realized by a modal adverb; 3) A conjunction highly restricts the mood combination; and the frequency of mood combination in coordinate and causal clauses is approximately equal, much higher than that in adversative clauses
Summary
The Latin and French based word “mode” entered English in the late Middle English period, meaning “measure, manner”, quite similar to “mood”. There is no inflectional change in Chinese verbs when declarative, interrogative, exclamative, imperative and other moods are involved in a sentence. Chinese language does have semantic distinctions of declarative, interrogative, exclamative, imperative and other moods, expressed by a tone, a word, a phrase, a clause or even a sentence. Mood in the traditional Chinese grammar has four major types: declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamative, the same as those listed by Halliday Speaking, there are four types of homogeneous mood combination and twelve types of heterogenous mood combination in two-clause composite sentences in modern Chinese, which are listed in the following. You go Beijing, and MOD as soon as possible go Beijing. You go to Beijing, and you must go to Beijing as soon as possible
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