A unitary account of indicative/subjunctive mood choice

Abstract

In some finite clauses only one of the subjunctive and indicative moods might occur, while in others there is option between these two moods. This is the basic distinction between intensional and polarity subjunctive. This paper questions the sustainability of such division in Portuguese, providing a critical analysis of the major arguments sustaining that those two types of subjunctive need to be considered. Instead, it is shown that a semantic analysis of the indicative and subjunctive moods accounts for the distribution of these moods in European Portuguese (EP), no different explanations being needed for the cases of lexical selection and those of mood choice. In both cases Indicative signals that only p-worlds are taken in account, while Subjunctive signals the consideration of non-p worlds. This allows a comprehensive account of the EP data: Subjunctive or Indicative occurs depending on whether the meaning of the sentence leads to the consideration of non-p worlds or not. However, in other varieties of Portuguese, Indicative occurs in some sentences whose meaning involves the consideration of non-p worlds. Such is the case of Brazilian Portuguese (BP), where, in colloquial speech, the use of Indicative is common in complement clauses of querer (‘to want’), a paradigmatic domain of Subjunctive. The conjecture is made that in this variety resorting to one or another mood is used as a pragmatic, discursive, strategy, even if the meaning of the sentence leads to the other mood.