Factors that went into Lawless French classifying the Conditional as a mood in it's own right.

Scout E.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Factors that went into Lawless French classifying the Conditional as a mood in it's own right.

After all this time learning French l decide today to develop an English/French go-to chart for translation purposes. 

All of a sudden, the conditional tense sitting in the indicative mood in my little Bescherelle conjugaison book looks out of place. Why is it there, in a mood that expresses facts and certainties,  things that definitely happened?

 A little research in Bescherelle, on the web and here surface the fact that the Conditional in French is often classified as a mood unto itself (as in Lawless French) due to it's hypothetical expressions; and that more often, today, "pour des raisons de forme et de sens"(Bescherelle p.140), as a tense under the imperative. An example given for the latter  is that "aurait" , conditional present, equates the future present transposed into the past. So interesting! I had not seen this before. 

I wonder, what went into Lawless French's decision to classify the Conditional  as a mood apart instead of as under the Indicative mood? Either works , l am just curious.

Asked 1 year ago
LauraKwiziq team memberCorrect answer

Bonjour Scout - thanks for the great question.

 

In my mind, it's very simple. Tenses describe when something happens: past, recent past, present, etc.

The indicative mood talks about factual actions.

The conditional describes if something happens, hypothetical actions. I just don't see how that can possibly be considered part of the indicative.

Chris W.C1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

I can't speak for Laura and her site, but I, too, think of it as a mood. In particular, since the conditional comes in a present and past tense version.

Factors that went into Lawless French classifying the Conditional as a mood in it's own right.

After all this time learning French l decide today to develop an English/French go-to chart for translation purposes. 

All of a sudden, the conditional tense sitting in the indicative mood in my little Bescherelle conjugaison book looks out of place. Why is it there, in a mood that expresses facts and certainties,  things that definitely happened?

 A little research in Bescherelle, on the web and here surface the fact that the Conditional in French is often classified as a mood unto itself (as in Lawless French) due to it's hypothetical expressions; and that more often, today, "pour des raisons de forme et de sens"(Bescherelle p.140), as a tense under the imperative. An example given for the latter  is that "aurait" , conditional present, equates the future present transposed into the past. So interesting! I had not seen this before. 

I wonder, what went into Lawless French's decision to classify the Conditional  as a mood apart instead of as under the Indicative mood? Either works , l am just curious.

Sign in to submit your answer

Don't have an account yet? Join today

Ask a question

Find your French level for FREE

Test your French to the CEFR standard

Find your French level
I'll be right with you...