#screamingfirehawks

Oye, xunyamwala!

The title of this article means “How do I feel about what I am saying?” because we’re going to discuss grammatical mood in Lang Belta.

And that’s what mood does, it describes the speaker’s attitude regarding what they are saying. This includes describing sentiments like “must”, “should”, “ought to”, “would”, “possibly”, “counterfactually” and others.

Previously we’ve discussed tense and aspect in detail as part of Tense-Aspect-Mood Grammar, and how Lang Belta has markers for each.

To briefly recap using showxa:

Unmarked verbs are present tense. Mi showxa. “I speak.”

Ta is the past tense marker. Mi ta showxa. “I spoke.”

Gonya is the future tense marker. Mi gonya showxa. “I will speak.”

Ando is the continuous aspect marker. Mi ando showxa. “I am speaking.”

Tili is the habitual aspect marker. Mi tili showxa. “I regularly speak.”

Finyish is the perfective aspect marker. Mi finyish showxa. “I have spoken/I had spoken.” (contextual)

Grammar in Belter is strictly subject-verb-object, and there is no passive construction; one uses the indefinite 3rd person plural imim as subject instead. “They/It” (unspecified) did/said it.

ENGLISH: “Sins were comitted”.

BELTER: Imim ta du papeka. (“They committed sins.”)

ENGLISH: “Things happened.”

BELTER: Imim ta du ting. (“It did things”)

Sentences in Lang Belta can have 1 tense (place in time) and 1 aspect (relationship to the flow of time), but multiple moods.

So, mood markers.

English uses modal verbs for words like “can” and “should”. Unlike in English, Belter mood markers are not verbs themselves, but auxiliary modifiers to a verb, just like tense and aspect markers. There still needs to be a verb for the mood marker to modify, (even if it’s the silent copula.

As far as the way mood markers in Belter behave, Nick gave the following answer regarding the mood marker fosho to a question on his Patreon:

“fosho always denotes the speaker’s belief, and modifies a verb, but it can move to emphasise the word after fosho”.

This is, I believe, an important indicator how how mood markers work in general in LB. The balance of this article will assume that this is the case (unless/until corrected by Nick).

The mood markers that Nick has mentioned publicly are:

Fosho (belief): Mi fosho ta vedi im. “I saw it (and I believe that I am right).” Fosho mi ta vedi im. “I (and not someone else) saw it.”

Fosho fosho (confidently held belief): Mi fosho fosho ta vedi im. “I saw it (and I have no doubts whatsoever).” Fosho Fosho mi ta vedi im. = “I absolutely was the one who saw it.”

NOTE: Mi pensa is both “I think” as well as “I believe”. Mi ando pensa ere is “I am thinking about”, which is how Belter describes having thoughts, contemplation.

Mogut fo (should, ought to): Mi mogut fo showxa. “I should speak.” Mogut fo mi fo showxa. “I (rather than someone else) should speak.”

Mowsh (must, have to): To mowsh showxa. “You must speak (rather than keep silent).” Mowsh to showxa. “You (rather than somebody else) must speak.“

Deng fo (would): Mi deng fo showxa, amash mi nasunte. “I would speak, but I am unwell.”

Kang (capability): Mi kang showxa. “I can speak".

Mebi (subjunctive):

To quote Nick again:

“Let’s just say that if you ever studied a Romance language and the subjunctive tripped you up, mood in #LangBelta might be a challenge”

Nick goes on in that twitter thread to give several examples of using mebi in a sentence that seem a bit confusing. But if we understand what the subjunctive mood does, and combine that with understanding of how mood markers move around a sentence explained above, how the sentences work in Belter become much clearer.

The subjunctive is an “irrealis mood”; it describes that things that are, in some sense, “unreal”; things which have not happened, things which might yet happen, counterfactuals, conditionals, things other than which the speaker knows to be “real”.

NOTE: while mebi has an etymological root in the English word “maybe”, they are not the same and mebi is used differently.

Let’s look at the examples Nick gave. In each of the following sentences, mebi

A: modifies the verb showxa (“to say”) and

B: moves around so that the word(s) following mebi are “subjunctive”, i.e. “irrealis”.

Im showxa ‘ya’”. “He says ‘yes’”

Im kang showxa ‘ya’”. “He can say ‘yes’” (is capable of)

Im mebi showxa “ya”. “He might say ‘yes’ (it is possible)”

Im mebi kang showxa “ya”. “He might be capable of saying ‘yes’”

Im mebi mebi showxa ‘ya’”. It’s possible (though unlikely) that he says ‘yes’”.

Fairly straightforward, right? But it can be subtle.

Mi pensa im ta showxa “ya” = I think he said “yes”

Mi pensa im mebi ta showxa “ya” = I think he said “yes” (but I’m not certain)

Mi pensa im ta showxa mebi “ya” = I think he said yes (but maybe he said something else)

Mi pensa mebi im ta showxa “ya” = I think it was him who said yes (but maybe it was someone else)

One thing I’ve noted is that Nick has never tweeted a sentence with the word sili (“if”) without also using mebi. Which leads me to suspect that “if” statements in lang belta might necessarily be subjunctive:

Sili im mebi kom, deng showxa mi = If he comes, then tell me. (Here the if/when he’s coming is the “irrealis” as it may it may not come to pass.)

Mi du mowteng du walowda walowda fosh wowk sili mi mebi gonya du wang wit da OPA, “I must do a lot of practice if I am possibly going to join the OPA.”

Ere Sirish na desh zakong, bera zakomang. To na sasa natim sili imim mebi kom fo leta-go to fongi fode, “On Ceres there are no laws, only cops. You don’t never know if someone will possibly come to take you away.”

Mi Fosho Fosho du mowteng vedi S4! Mi mebi gonya decho sili mi mebi na vedi im ematim! Oso, mogut fo to du wang wit milowda ere da channel da Discord da Expanse.