Indicative Mood

English language consists of various moods and forms. The grammatical moods in a language are very important to understand the tone and correct meaning of a sentence. One such mood is indicative mood.

Today we will discuss about indicative mood of the sentence in English language. We will talk about what mood really is, what is indicative mood and how to identify a sentence with indicative mood.

If you want to know about the other moods that exist in English language, refer to my other articles with names Imperative Mood and Subjunctive Mood.

Mood

The nature of a sentence is termed as its mood. The only thing that the nature or mood of a sentence depends on is the verb of a sentence. The form that a verb takes in a sentence helps establish its mood weather it is a query, request or a command.

Example:

She is going abroad.

The above example shows the mood of the sentence to be simple indicative i.e. that it is stating a fact or giving some information. The verb is going helps us determine that.

Indicative Mood

When in a sentence, the verb takes such form that it states some fact, the sentence is known to be in indicative mood.

Indicative mood is the simplest and most basic mood of all verbs of English language.

Example:

She studied all day long.

In the above sentence, the verb studied is the simple past form of study and it indicates the indicative mood of the sentence as the sentence is giving simple information about the subject and/or stating a simple fact i.e. she studied all day long.

One thing to know is that indicative mood is not defined by the tense that the verb is in in a sentence. In simple terms, an indicative verb can exist as a present, past or future tense. The only thing that makes it indicative is its ability to state facts.

Example:

She studied all day long. (Past)

She studies all day long. (Present)

She will study all day long. (Future)