Mood

mood

the grammatical category of the verb that expresses the relationship of the content of an utterance to reality. The number of moods varies in different languages. The unmarked (not formally expressed by specific mood markers) mood, which signifies that a speaker regards an action or state as positive or negative and as real, is called the indicative.

The most noteworthy of the marked moods is the subjunctive, which is used to express the relationship of a denoted action or state to reality, and the feasibility or desirability of an action or state; in the subjunctive mood, denoted actions or states may be unreal, potential, conditional, or desirable. Moods used by a speaker to arouse some other participant in the speech situation to perform or refrain from an action include the imperative mood, the optative mood, and the prohibitive mood.

Mood may be expressed by special verb forms, affixes, prosodic means (stress or tone), and combinations with particles. In a number of languages, there is agreement according to mood.

in music, the quality of a mode that is determined by the kind of third—major or minor—that is formed between the first and third steps. There are two basic kinds of mood: major (having a major third as the interval between the first and third steps) and minor (minor third).

The mood of a mode is associated with a specific emotional character: the major mood gives the mode a bright coloring suitable for conveying a happy, cheerful condition; the minor, on the contrary, imparts to the mode a gloomy coloring and is used to convey a sad, melancholy feeling, a tragic spiritual state.

The distinction in moods pertains not only to the two basic modes of European music but also to a number of other diatonic and nondiatonic modes. For example, the Lydian and Mixolydian modes are modes of the major mood; modes of the minor mood include the Phrygian and the Dorian. Mood can be retained and remain dominant in the modern chromatic mode, with its typical mixing of different modal features.

a person’s general disposition toward life at a particular moment; his emotional state or the tendency of his spirits. In a person’s mood, his attitude toward life and his specific way of reconciling the life situation with his personal needs find their profoundest expression and realization in unique, “symptomatic” form.

Mood is a broad concept that extends from a person’s undifferentiated experience of a general life “tone” (”elated” or “depressed” disposition) to specifically expressed forms of response, such as boredom, sadness, sorrow, melancholy, fear, and despair or, on the contrary, enthusiasm, rejoicing, happiness, delight, hope, and cheerfulness. Seemingly acting as the general meaningful context of the entire emotional life and conscious activity of the individual, mood deeply penetrates and determines all of an individual’s actions and emotional experiences.

In spite of its importance, for example, in the psychopathology of the individual, mood has received little attention in contemporary psychology.