Theconditional mood (abbreviatedcond) is agrammatical mood used inconditional sentences to express a proposition whose validity is dependent on some condition, possibly counterfactual.
It may refer to a distinctverb form that expresses the conditional set of circumstances proper in thedependent clause orprotasis (e.g. inTurkish orAzerbaijani), or which expresses the hypothetical state of affairs or uncertain event contingent to it in theindependent clause orapodosis, or both (e.g. inHungarian orFinnish). Some languages distinguish more than one conditional mood; the East African languageHadza, for example, has apotential conditional expressing possibility, and averidical conditional expressing certainty. Other languages[which?] do not have a conditional mood at all.[citation needed] In some informal contexts, such as language teaching, it may be called the "conditionaltense".
Some languages have verb forms called "conditional" although their use is not exclusive to conditional expression. Examples are theEnglish andFrench conditionals (ananalytic construction in English,[a] butinflected verb forms in French), which are morphologicallyfutures-in-the-past,[1] and of which each has thus been referred to as a "so-called conditional"[1][2] (French:soi-disant conditionnel[3][4][5]) in modern and contemporary linguistics (e.g. Frenchje chanterais, fromLate Latincantāre habēbam, insi vous me le permettiez, je chanterais, "if you allowed me to do so, I would sing" [so-called conditional] vs.j'ai dit que je chanterais, "I said that I would sing" [future-in-the-past]). The Englishwould construction may also be used for past habitual action ("When I was young I would happily walk three miles to school every day").
This article describes the formation of the conditional forms of verbs in certain languages. For fuller details of the construction of conditional sentences, seeConditional sentence (and for English specifically,English conditional sentences).
English does not have[b] aninflective (morphological) conditional mood, except in as much as themodal verbscould,might,should andwould may in some contexts be regarded as conditional forms ofcan,may,shall andwill respectively. What is called the English conditional mood (or just the conditional) is formedperiphrastically using the modal verbwould in combination with the bareinfinitive of the following verb. (Occasionallyshould is used in place ofwould with a first person subject – seeshall andwill. Also the aforementioned modal verbscould,might andshould may replacewould in order to express appropriatemodality in addition to conditionality.)
English has three types ofconditional sentences,[6] which may be described asfactual ("conditional 0": "When I feel well, I sing"),predictive ("conditional I": "If I feel well, I shall sing"), andcounterfactual ("conditional II" or "conditional III": "If I felt well, I would sing"; "If I had felt well, I would have sung"; or "Were I well (if I were well) I would have sung"). As in many other languages, it is only the counterfactual type that causes the conditional mood to be used.
Conditionality may be expressed in severaltense–aspect forms.[7] These are the conditional simple (would sing), the conditional progressive (would be singing), theconditional perfect (would have sung), and conditional perfect progressive (would have been singing). For the uses of these, seeUses of English verb forms. The conditional simple and conditional progressive may also be called thepresent conditional, while the perfect forms can be calledpast conditional.
For details of the formation of conditional clauses and sentences in English, seeEnglish conditional sentences.
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InGerman, the following verbal constructions are sometimes referred to asconditional (German:Konditional):
For more information, seeGerman conjugation.
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The main conditional construction inDutch involves the past tense of the verbzullen, the auxiliary of the future tenses, cognate with English 'shall'.
The latter tense is sometimes replaced by the past perfect (plusquamperfect).
WhileLatin did not conjugate separately for the conditional (it used the imperfect and the pluperfect subjunctive for present and perfect conditional, respectively), most of theRomance languages developed a conditional paradigm. The evolution of those forms (and of the innovative Romancefuture tense forms) is a well-known example ofgrammaticalization whereby a syntactically and semantically-independent word becomes a bound morpheme with a highly-reduced semantic function. The Romance conditional (and future) forms are derived from the Latin infinitive, followed by a finite form of the verbhabēre. This verb originally meant "to have" in Classical Latin but inLate Latin picked up a grammatical use as a temporal or modal auxiliary. The fixing of word order (infinitive + auxiliary) and the phonological reduction of the inflected forms ofhabēre eventually led to the fusion of the two elements into a single synthetic form.
InFrench,Spanish,Portuguese,Catalan andOccitan, the conditional endings come from the imperfect of Latinhabēre. For example, in the first person singular:
| Language | Example |
|---|---|
| Late Latin | cantāre habēbam |
| Vulgar Latin | *cantar-ea |
| Old Italian | cantarìa |
| Spanish | cantaría |
| Portuguese | cantaria |
| Catalan | cantaria |
| Occitan | cantariái |
| French | chanterais |
| Old French | chantereie, -eve |
A trace of the historical presence of two separate verbs can still be seen in the possibility ofmesoclisis in conservative varieties of European Portuguese in which an object pronoun may appear between the verb stem and the conditional ending (e.g.cantá-lo-ia; seePortuguese personal pronouns § Proclisis, enclisis, and mesoclisis).
OldItalian had originally three different forms of conditional:[10]
Only the Tuscan form survives in modern Italian:
The second and third types have slowly disappeared remaining until the 19th century in some poetic composition for metric needs.[10]
Romanian uses a periphrastic construction for the conditional, e.g. 1sgaș, 2sgai, 3sg/plar, 1plam, 2plați +cânta 'sing'. The modal clitic mixes forms of Latinhabēre:
Old Romanian, on the other hand, used a periphrastic construction with the imperfect ofvrea 'to want' + verb, e.g.vrea cânta 'I would sing',vreai cânta 'you would sing', etc.[13] Until the 17th century, Old Romanian also preserved a synthetic conditional, e.g.cântare 'I would sing',cântarem 'we would sing', anddarear 'he would give', retained from either the Latinfuture perfect orperfect subjunctive (or a mixture of both).[14]Aromanian andIstro-Romanian have maintained the same synthetic conditional:
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In Portuguese, the conditional is formed by the imperfect form ofhabēre affixed to the main verb's infinitive. However, in the spoken language, the periphrastic form is also extremely common.
| Grammatical person | falar 'to speak' | comer 'to eat' | rir 'to laugh' |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eu | Falaria / Iria falar / Ia falar | Comeria / Iria comer / Ia comer | Riria / Iria rir / Ia rir |
| Tu | Falarias / Irias falar / Ias falar | Comerias / Irias comer / Ias comer | Ririas / Irias rir / ias rir |
| Ele/Ela | Falaria / Iria falar / Ia falar | Comeria / Iria comer / Ia comer | Riria / Iria rir / Ia rir |
| Nós | Falaríamos / Iríamos falar / Íamos falar | Comeríamos / Iríamos comer / Íamos comer | Riríamos / Iríamos rir / Íamos rir |
| Vós | Falaríeis / Iríeis falar / Íeis falar | Comeríeis / Iríeis comer / Íeis comer | Riríeis / Iríeis rir / Íeis rir |
| Eles/Elas | Falariam / Iriam falar / Iam falar | Comeriam / Iriam comer / Iam comer | Ririam / Iriam rir / Iam rir |
The Portuguese conditional is also called past futurefuturo do pretérito, as it describes both conjectures that would occur given a certain condition and actions that were to take place in the future, from a past perspective. When the conditional has the former purpose, it imperatively comes along with a conditional subordinate clause in the past subjunctive.
The conditional is also one of the two Portuguese tenses that demandmesoclisis whenproclisis is forbidden sinceenclisis is always considered ungrammatical.
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InSpanish, the conditional is formed by theinfinitive of the verb with a postfix (-ía) for all verbs. Forirregular verbs, the stem is modified.
| Grammatical person | comprar 'to buy' | vender 'to sell' | dormir 'to sleep' | tener 'to have' | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| yo | compraría | vendería | dormiría | tendría | I would ... |
| tu | comprarías | venderías | dormirías | tendrías | you would ... |
| él/ella/usted | compraría | vendería | dormiría | tendría | he/she/you would ... |
| nosotros | compraríamos | venderíamos | dormiríamos | tendríamos | we would ... |
| vosotros | compraríais | venderíais | dormiríais | tendríais | you would ... |
| ellos/ellas/ustedes | comprarían | venderían | dormirían | tendrían | they would ... |
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InRussian, the conditional mood is formed by the past tense of the verb with theparticleбы,by, which usually follows the verb. For example:
This form is sometimes also called thesubjunctive mood. For more information on its usage, seeRussian verbs.
Polish forms the conditional mood in a similar way to Russian, using the particleby together with the past tense of the verb. This is anenclitic particle, which often attaches to the first stressed word in the clause, rather than following the verb. It also takes the personal endings (in the first and second persons) which usually attach to the past tense. For example:
The clitic can move after conjunctions, e.g.:
Note that the clitic can not form a single verb with certain conjunctions, nor start the subordinate clause, as it would change the meaning to thesubjunctive,[16] e.g.
There is also a past conditional, which also includes the past tense of thecopular verbbyć, as inbył(a)bym śpiewał(a) ("I would have sung"), but this is rarely used.
For details seePolish verbs.
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Hungarian uses a marker for expressing the conditional mood. This marker has four forms:-na, -ne, -ná and-né. In the present tense, the marker appears right after the verb stem and just before the affix of the verbal person. For example: 'I would sit':ül (sit) +ne +k (referring to the person I) =ülnék. (In Hungarian, when a word ends with a vowel, and a suffix or a marker or an affix is added to its end, the vowel becomes long.) When making an if-sentence, the conditional mood is used in both apodosis and the protasis:
In Hungarian, the past tense is expressed with a marker as well, but two verbal markers are never used in sequence. Therefore, the auxiliary verbvolna is used for expressing the conditional mood in the past. The wordvolna is the conditional form of the verbvan (be). The marker of past is-t/-tt, and is put exactly the same place as the marker of conditional mood in the present.
Expressing a future action with the conditional mood is exactly the same as the present, although an additional word referring to either a definite or indefinite time in the future is often used:majd (then),holnap (tomorrow), etc.
The conditional mood is often used with potential suffixes attached to the verb stem (-hat/-het), and the two are therefore often confused.
In Finnish the conditional mood is used in both the apodosis and the protasis, just like in Hungarian. It uses the conditional marker-isi-:
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
