The Subjunctive—Indicative Opposition in Latin: A Contrastive Feature Hierarchy Approach

Abstract

The indicative—subjunctive distinction of the Latin verbal mood system
 has been subject to various analyses. The paper presents an approach relying on the concept of contrastive feature hierarchy, developing the idea
 of a featural decomposition of Latin verbal moods. A threefold distinction 
in terms of features [±realis], [±oblique] and [±irrealis] is proposed, with 
an elucidation of morphological and semantic counterparts of such features 
and combinations thereof, utilizing basic tools of the possible worlds framework. Consequences of the proposed approach for an analysis of synchronic and diachronic variation in the Latin verbal mood system are also briefly discussed.