Generic mood
- Generic mood
The generic mood, in
linguistics , is a mood used to make generalized comments about a class of thing. In English, genericverb s are not morphologically distinct from indicative. In most cases, generic statements can only be recognized by context and linguistic experience.For instance, the sentence "
Elephant s are gray" could, strictly, be either generic or indicative. However, it is generally recognized as generic, because the word "elephants" is not preceded by an article. If the sentence were reframed as "The elephants are gray", then it would seem to be an indicative statement, describing the nature of certain individual elephants. However, it could, in a strict sense, be a generic sentence as well, meaning what would generally be expressed as "Certain" elephants are gray". The sentence "Elephants are white", if referring to certainwhite elephant s, could be technically accurate. However, since it follows the pattern of a generic sentence, it would seem to be incorrect.Certain formations are less ambiguous, however. The sentence "A
mother can always tell", for example, would never be regarded as an indicative sentence describing the nature of a particular mother, but as a generic sentence describing the intuitive abilities of mothers "in general". To communicate the former concept, one would have to use the circumlocutive "A "particular" mother can always tell", or "This" mother can always tell", etc.ee also
*
Generic antecedents
*Gnomic
*Grammatical mood
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
Look at other dictionaries:
Generic — means pertaining or appropriate to large classes or groups as opposed to specific members of the group. It may refer to:* Generic mood, a grammatical mood used to make generalized statements like Snow is white * Generic antecedents, referents in… … Wikipedia
Generic antecedent — Generic antecedents are representatives of classes, indicated by a reference in ordinary language (most often a pronoun), where gender is typically unknown or irrelevant. [Mark Balhorn, [http://eng.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/32/2/79 The… … Wikipedia
Realis mood — Realis moods (abbreviated real) are a category of grammatical moods which indicate that something is actually the case (or actually not the case); in other words, the state of which is known. The most common realis mood is the indicative mood, or … Wikipedia
Grammatical mood — Grammatical categories Animacy Aspect Case Clusivity Definiteness Degree of comparison Evidentiality Focus … Wikipedia
Necessitative mood — The necessitative mood (abbreviated nec) is a grammatical mood found in languages such as Armenian and Turkish, which combines elements of both the cohortative (which is typically used in only the first person) and the jussive moods (which is… … Wikipedia
Interrogative mood — In linguistics and grammar, the interrogative mood (abbreviated int) is an epistemic grammatical mood used for asking questions by inflecting the main verb.[1] Its occurrence is rare. Contents 1 Examples of languages with an interrogative mood … Wikipedia
Bupropion — drugbox IUPAC name = (±) 2 ( tert butylamino) 1 (3 chlorophenyl)propan 1 one width = 200 CAS number = 34841 39 9 ChemSpiderID = 431 ATC prefix = N07 ATC suffix = BA02 PubChem = 444 smiles = CC(NC(C)(C)C)C(=O)c1cccc(Cl)c1 DrugBank = APRD00621 C =… … Wikipedia
Economic Affairs — ▪ 2006 Introduction In 2005 rising U.S. deficits, tight monetary policies, and higher oil prices triggered by hurricane damage in the Gulf of Mexico were moderating influences on the world economy and on U.S. stock markets, but some other… … Universalium
Major depressive disorder — For other depressive disorders, see Mood disorder. Major Depressive Disorder Classification and external resources … Wikipedia
Deontic modality — (abbreviated deo) is a linguistic modality that indicates how the world ought to be,[1] according to certain norms, expectations, speaker desire, etc. In other words, a deontic expression indicates that the state of the world (where world is… … Wikipedia
