(Non)veridicality and Mood Choice: Subjunctive, Polarity, and Time

Abstract

In this paper, I consider the lexical parameters determining mood choice in Greek. The main questions to be addressed are: In what sense is the subjunctive dependent in main and embedded clauses? What is the meaning of the subjunctive itself, and how is this meaning compatible with the lexical property that licenses the subjunctive? In examining these questions we look at the patterns of mood choice in embedded clauses and adjuncts such as prin “before’ and xoris ‘without’, as well as what appears to be non-canonical “triggering” of the subjunctive, e.g. in relative clauses, and in the so-called polarity subjunctive after negation and other polarity contexts. I propose that nonveridicality allows us to capture both selection and triggering as lexical sensitivity to nonveridicality. Building on Giannakidou 2009 I further argue that we can explain the dependency of the subjunctive to nonveridicality if we assume that its tense is nondeictic, i.e. it cannot make reference to a contextually specified time, which is what ‘regular’ tenses normally do.

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