Irrealis: fact or fiction?

Language Sciences 34 (2012) 107–130

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Language Sciences

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Irrealis: fact or fiction?

Ferdinand de HaanDepartment of Linguistics, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:Available online 30 July 2011

0388-0001/$ - see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Ltddoi:10.1016/j.langsci.2011.06.016

E-mail addresses: [email protected], fe1 I am grateful to the editors of this volume, to an a

workshop on Omotic mood in Leiden for helpful comm2 A category is taken here to be a semantic notion

category of future in language X is part of the categorthis approach here is that a category such as countsemantics of the counterfactual construction that is inmake a distinction between the protasis and apodosisapproach.

This paper discusses the nature of the category of reality status, or realis/irrealis. Althoughthe terms realis and irrealis are widely used in the typological literature and in grammat-ical descriptions, there is much variation in how these terms are used. This variation meansthat the terms realis and irrealis are not easily comparable from one study to the next. Thequestion then is: is there such a category as reality status? This question is looked at via anexamination of various languages, grammatical domains and different frameworks. Theconclusion is that we may not be able to posit a typologically valid category of reality sta-tus, but we may be able to approach the matter through a bottom-up method of examiningindividual languages and language families, both synchronically and diachronically.

� 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

This paper is concerned with the status of realis (which we will define as the set of real events) and irrealis (the set ofunreal events) as valid typological categories.1 We will review a wide range of data from a number of languages in order todetermine the cross-linguistic range of (ir)realis as well as the various morphological means of expression these categories havecross-linguistically. The purpose of the study is to review the status of the category of (ir)realis as a typologically valid or usefulcategory based on an examination of categories that have been analyzed as making up the categories of realis and irrealis.2 Suchcategories include past tense, prohibitive and counterfactuality, among others.

Studies into notions such as realis and irrealis are hampered by the fact that a number of different issues are conflatedinto one set of terms, namely:

(1)
a. Notions of real and unreal actions or events, an extra-linguistic, philosophical issue. b. The grammatical distinctions of real and unreal events, a linguistic issue. c. An (a priori) assumption that it is possible to divide the notions of realis and irrealis into areas that are
comparable cross-linguistically, a typological issue.

. All rights reserved.

[email protected] referee and to the participants in the workshop on irrealis at the SLE meeting in Forlí and theents that have significantly improved the paper. All remaining errors, both real and actual, are my own.

, similar to a domain. A category can itself contain other categories. We can for instance say that they of irrealis, while the category future in language Y is part of the category of realis. One consequence oferfactuality is taken to be semantic here, rather than purely syntactic. This is justified, since it is thevolved in the reality status while the syntax takes a secondary seat. It is true that we sometimes have toof a counterfactual construction (see Section 4.6), but I take that to be evidence for justifying a bottom-up

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108 F.de Haan / Language Sciences 34 (2012) 107–130

We will see that although these points are related, they are often in conflict with each other. It is, for instance, not alwaysthe case that (1a) and (1b) are in agreement. Even if we can reach agreement on point (1a) and divide the possible real andunreal events into two sets, it is not true that the linguistic division between realis and irrealis will be identical. In fact, as wewill see, it is more often the case that they disagree. From this conflict it follows that point (1c) is doubtful as well: if there isno agreement between (1a) and (1b), it is doubtful that we can satisfy (1c).

As a first example of the problematic use of the term ‘‘irrealis’’ in grammatical descriptions we will offer two cases, Limbuand Hualapai. Grammatical descriptions of each of these two languages make mention of an irrealis morpheme, but in bothcases the morpheme is severely limited in scope; it does not cover the entire range of what is normally thought of as irrealis(namely, covering all unreal events) and is only used for one specific meaning. Note that the meanings of the Limbu andHualapai morphemes are non-overlapping.

3

behe

(2)

The sameto use the

re would b

Limbu (Tibeto-Burman; Van Driem, 1987, p. 140–142):
a. yaN kOtt-u-N-gO:ni
goes for glossing. The original glosses hlanguage-specific morpheme (or a conve detracting from the main flow of the

iN-u-N-ba.

ave been kept (albeit standardienient über-morpheme if wepresent paper, but it would be

(counterfactual)
money have-3P-1sAG-IRR buy-3P-1sAG-IPF ‘If only I had the money, I would buy it.’ (141)
b.
mO-lO:s-u-lle gO: nis-u-N-mOn (hypothetical cond.) nsAS-know-3P-SUBJ then nsAS-do-3P-COND ‘They would do it if they knew how.’ (136)
(3)
Hualapai (Pai, Yuman; Watahomigie, et al., 2001, p. 309–314)
zed to IRR for irrealisare dealing with a m

in line with the bo

a.
olo-h-ch ha: thi:-hi-k-wi horse-DEM-SUB water 3/3.drink-IRR-SS-AUX/be ‘The horse is going to drink the water.’ (311)
b.
misi’ qech-ch nyi-mi:-k-tho mi-yigo-‘ girl 3.be.little-SUB 3.SUB-cry-SS-COND 2/3-carry-IMP ‘If the baby girl cries, carry her!’ (431)
The Limbu morpheme -gO:ni is used for counterfactual conditionals only (2a) and not, for instance, to mark hypothetical con-ditionals (2b), for which a different morpheme, -mOn, is used. The irrealis morphemes in Hualapai (-h(i) after vowels, -ayafter consonants) is used to denote an action subsequent to a specific time, either the Moment of Speech or another Refer-ence time (3a). It is not used in other situations that could be said to mark unreal events, such as hypothetical conditionals(3b). Thus, in grammatical descriptions an irrealis morpheme does not necessarily correspond to a morpheme which is usedto mark all types of unreal events.

While it may be true that the examples above are extreme instances of the use of the term ‘‘irrealis’’, they are instances ofa much larger set of examples for which the same problem holds. If we can say that it is inappropriate to use the term ‘‘irre-alis’’ (or ‘‘realis’’ for that matter) in instances such as those found in (2) and (3) above, then is it more appropriate to use it incases where the irrealis morpheme covers two unreal events (such as hypothetical conditional and future)? If not, then whereis the cutoff point? Perhaps the only place in which the term ‘‘(ir)realis’’ should be used is in those cases where (1a) and (1b)are identical. However, such cases are hard to find.

This paper is built up as follows: Section 2 surveys the literature and examines the ways in which notions such as realis andirrealis have been used in various frameworks. Section 3 examines the range of morphological expressions of irrealis mor-phemes in the light of some case studies, while Section 4 is a survey of subcategories of realis and irrealis. Section 5 is devotedto a case where the term irrealis has not traditionally been used, namely English will. Section 6 returns to the questions raised inthis section and reexamines them in the light of the data of Sections 3–5. Section 7, finally, draws some general conclusions.

Finally some words on terminology. It is rather awkward to keep referring to ‘‘realis and irrealis’’ for the overall notion.Therefore, the term reality status will be used for the overall notion, following Elliott (2000), but it must be stressed that thisis a term of convenience and not an endorsement of any given notion or even an acknowledgment that there is a notion ofreality status that is relevant for typological purposes. Similarly, in Sections 3 and 4 I will be referring to realis and irrealismorphemes in individual languages. Unless otherwise stated, I am using the terms realis and irrealis as they are used in theoriginal descriptions. This is a concession to readability. The alternative would be either to use conventions that are hard onthe eyes and would become very tedious after a while (e.g., the use of scare quotes around ‘irrealis’ or the constant use ofadjectives such as so-called); this would just detract from the issue at hand and would serve no real purpose. As long asthe reader remembers that the use of these terms is just as labels or placeholders, I trust there will be no confusion. If therewere another term available then such a term would be used. But since it will be argued that there is no typologically validcategory there is also no typologically valid terminology. For these reasons it seems best (least confusing) to use the conven-tional terminology.3

and REAL for realis). One solution for the future wouldorpheme family) in a gloss. To use such a convention

ttom-up approach advocated here.

F.de Haan / Language Sciences 34 (2012) 107–130 109

2. The category of reality status in linguistic theory

The notion of reality status has been around as a rather undefined notion for countless decades, but only in recent yearshave scholars started to question the nature or realis and irrealis and have started to address the question of how best todescribe it. The relevant points of view can be found in Bybee (1985, 1998), Bybee et al. (1994), Givón (1994), Lazard(1998), Elliott (2000), McGregor and Wagner (2006), Verstraete (2006), Palmer (1986, 2001), Plungian (2005), and the papersin Lander et al. (2004), see also Cristofaro (this volume). In this section we will look at some objections to the notion of (ir)-realis, mainly coming from the works of Joan Bybee, and some possible ways to integrate reality status into a linguisticframework.

Before starting, it must be remarked that it is possible to view realis and irrealis just as notional categories, that is, to usethe terms simply as an expedient label without attempting to justify its use. This would mean that one is using (1a) andapplying it to a linguistic situation. While this is certainly a valid approach, it is not an approach that lends itself tocross-linguistic research (as it would be used differently by different scholars, no comparison between studies is possible).We will not be taking this position into account here, but give just one example of how such an approach can be used.

In the Austronesian language Tsou (Zeitoun, 2005) there are various morphemes denoting voice alternations. These alter-nations have been analyzed to show a realis–irrealis opposition (2005, p. 279):

‘‘The whole system . . . is based on a modal dichotomy, where the realis contrasts with the irrealis. In the realis, situationsare viewed as having occurred or as actually taking place; in the irrealis, they are regarded as having not (yet) occurred,whether or not they may happen. Both in the realis and in the irrealis, events can be seen as ‘immediate’ . . . or ‘remote’ (intime and/or space) . . .’’

Table 1 shows the various morphemes.Due to the fact that we are dealing with a wide variety of morphological shapes, none of which form a paradigm, we are

left with the conclusion that realis and irrealis here are used as notional categories.Bybee (1985, 1998), Bybee et al. (1994) have several objections to the use of the term (ir)realis. To list but two:

� ‘Irrealis’ is seldom encoded in a language as a binary opposition between real and unreal events.� The conceptual situations encoded by an irrealis morpheme are too diverse to make it possible to define a general mean-

ing across languages.

In this paper we will not be concerned with the arguments for and against these positions as that is not the main focus ofthe paper. The reader is referred to Givón (1994), Elliott (2000), McGregor and Wagner (2006) and Cristofaro (this volume)for a discussion of the arguments. Instead we will focus on ways in which reality status has been represented in linguisticframeworks. We will discuss the two approaches that seem most fruitful, prototype analysis and scope analysis.

2.1. Prototype analysis

As argued by Bybee, Givón and others, a binary opposition for reality status is clearly wrong and a prototype approach ismore fruitful (see e.g. Givón, 1994, p. 320ff). This approach fits in with current thinking in the areas of cognitive linguisticsand typology (see for instance Croft, 2003, esp. Chapter 6) as it is an elegant way to capture data that does not lend itselfeasily to a binary feature model (see also Bybee, 1998). And if there were such a thing as a typological category of realitystatus then a prototype analysis would in all likelihood be the best way to deal with the typological variation. However,while there appears to be at least a tacit agreement in the literature that a kind of prototype analysis is called for, thereis as of yet no proposal for a prototype analysis for the category of reality status that has cross-linguistic validity. Why thatshould be the case is a mystery. The closest proposal for a prototype analysis we have can be found in Plungian (2005, p.138), who gives a table with categories divided along realis–irrealis lines.4 This table is reproduced here as Table 2.

A prototype approach entails that there is a core that is marked as the prototypical instance of a category and an area thatis outside the core, which we will refer to as the periphery. The table above can be seen as a prototype inasmuch there is acore for the irrealis (the upper-left quadrant) and a core for the realis (the lower-right quadrant). We will treat this as a pro-totype proposal and we will come back to it in Section 6 below. There we will evaluate the proposal and look at why a pro-totype model ultimately fails.

2.2. Scope approach

It has been known for quite some time that there are categories that cross-linguistically can be expressed by realis or irre-alis morphemes. For instance, in languages such as Caddo and Muyuw negative sentences are always marked as irrealis,never as realis. On the other hand, in other languages, such as Central Pomo a negation has no influence on the choice ofreality status marker. Similar remarks can be made for categories such as questions and others. On the basis of these data,

4 It is not clear to me that this is intended as a proposal for a prototype of irrealis but we will treat it as such here.

Table 1Voice oppositions in Tsou (Zeitoun, 2005, p. 279).

Immediate Remote

Realis (Actor voice) mi- mio, mo mo(h)-moso

Realis (Undergoer voice) i- o(h)-Irrealis AV/UVHabitual laPredictive te te tena, taHypothetical nteCounterfactual nto(h)-

ntoso

Table 2marking of irrealis according to Plungian (2005, p. 138).

Always marked as irrealis Less often marked as irrealisCounterfactual Indirect evidentialOptative and conjunctive NegativeIntentional and volitional InterrogativeProbabilitive and durative Imperative and prohibitive

Habitual and past imperfectiveRemote past

Most often marked as irrealis Never marked as irrealisFuture (especially remote or uncertain) Past perfectiveProspective Immediate or resultative pastConditional and concessive Present progressivePurposive


it may be thought that different languages have different (semantic) scope relations for these categories. Thus, the case ofnegation can be analyzed as follows (after Mithun, 1995, p. 381–382):

5

tre

(4)

The placeated as a m

a.

of irrealis iood in the

[NEG [±Reality Status [Proposition]]]
b. [Reality Status (Irrealis) [NEG [Proposition]]]
If the scope relation (4a) holds in a given language, then the negation is outside the choice of reality status morpheme andwe are dealing with a language such as Central Pomo. If the scope relation of (4b) holds, the presence of negation entails thepresence of the irrealis and the situation as in Caddo holds. Similar scope relations can be drawn for other pairs.

The next step is then to come up with a hierarchy of scope relations to account for these cross-linguistic differences. Therehave been a number of proposals to integrate reality status into an overall framework. We will give two examples here. Oneis a formal framework, the other is a functional approach. What both approaches have in common, however, is the fact thatreality status is conceived of as taking part in the hierarchy of syntactic features, and consequently a place must be found forit among the other features. From this brief description it can be seen that a scope approach is more syntactic in nature thana prototype approach, which is more semantic.

The formal hierarchy is Cinque’s Cartography of Features (see e.g. Cinque, 1999). It takes into account data from a rela-tively large sample of languages and is based on various types of modal elements, not only grammaticalized ones such asauxiliaries and affixes but also elements such as adverbs and particles. It also looks at fairly detailed semantic distinctionssuch as evidential, aspectual and temporal ones. The main method is: analyze the scope relations of pairs (or triplets, ormore) of elements and assign the respective places in the hierarchy according to their respective scope. The complete hier-archy, after Cinque (1999:76, ex. (96)), is shown in (5).

(5)
MOODspeechact > MOODevaluative > MOODevidential > MODepistemic > T(Past) > T(Future) > MOODirrealis > ASPhabitual >T(Anterior) > ASPperfect > ASPretrospective > ASPdurative > ASPprogressive > ASPprospective/MODroot > Voice > ASPcelerative >ASPcompletive > ASP(semel)repetitive > ASPiterative
This hierarchy is assumed to be universal, even though it is probably not attested completely in any one language. Muchhas been written about the status of the hierarchy in (5) but here we are only concerned with the way reality status is treatedin the hierarchy.

In examining the hierarchy it becomes clear that there are problems in treating reality status as a syntactic entity. It isclear that irrealis is conceived as being distinct from notions such as epistemic modality and future tense (which have scopeover the irrealis) and root modality and various types of aspects (which are under the scope of irrealis).5 The relative scope of

n the hierarchy also includes realis, based on the data set in Appendix 2 of Cinque (1999). We will leave aside the fact that irrealis ishierarchy, which is a highly problematic assumption but outside the scope of the present paper.


features is determined by examining the relative position in the sentence. For instance, the fact that Future has scope over Irre-alis is determined by the fact that in Ndyuka the future morpheme precedes the Irrealis morpheme, as in (6):

6

(6)

In (7), Cor

Ndyuka

e and periphery ar

(Creole; Cinque, 1999, p. 73, from Huttar and Huttar (1994, p. 519))
I
e not operat

ben

ors, unlike th

o

e others.

sa
poi (fu) nyan ete? 2sg PST FUT IRR can (for) eat yet ‘Would you have been able to eat already?’
This Ndyuka sentence provides evidence for the order T(Past) > T(Future) > MOOD > MOD , as that is the order in
irrealis root
which the elements occur in the sentence. This is of course a syntactic approach and it is not entirely clear what part thesemantic scope plays in this scheme.

In frameworks such as Functional Grammar and Role-and-Reference Grammar (RRG) notions such as reality status, tense,aspect and modality are thought of as operators that work on the proposition. A full discussion is beyond the scope of thepaper, but some comparisons with the cartography approach are in order. In (7) the layered structure of the clause in RRG, asfar as is shown, from Foley and Van Valin (1984, p. 224), see also Van Valin and LaPolla (1997, p. 31, 40ff):

(7)
(Illoc. Force (Evidentiality (Tense (Status (Periph. (Modality (Core (Aspect (Predicate))))))))
As can be seen the hierarchy in (7) is comparable to the cartography of (5), though not quite as extensive, so some categorieshave been conflated.6 For instance, what is MODspeech act in (5) is more or less equivalent to illocutionary force in (7), the type ofutterance (assertion, wish, command, question, etc.). Reality status belongs to the layer of status, which also includes notions suchas epistemic modality (as opposed to the layer labeled modality which is limited to deontic and dynamic modality). The hierarchyin (7) is to be thought of as a combination of syntactic and semantic notions, while the cartography of (5) is purely syntactic.

While these two proposals are more elaborate, they exhibit the same basic idea as the simple scope notions in (4) above.The difference between the approach in (4) and the RRG and Cartography approach is that in (4) the order between the var-ious categories is fluid, reflecting the range of typological variation (although a fuller treatment based on this notion is yet tobe carried out), but the category of reality status occupies a fixed position in the other frameworks, making it more difficultto account for typological variation. The fact that in a framework such as (4) a strong emphasis is placed on examining thescope relations in individual languages points to the view that it is more fruitful to investigate the semantic range of mor-phemes before assigning a label to them. This approach is known as the ‘bottom-up’ approach and we will return to it inSection 6 below. This provides a nice segue into the next section, where we will investigate the semantic range of mor-phemes in a few selected case studies.

3. Expressions of reality status in case studies

The purpose of this section is twofold: one, to provide three case studies which show that the category of reality status(still assuming it exists as a grammatical category) has a wide semantic range which is not always the same across lan-guages, and two, to show the morphological means that languages have to express the notion of reality status. While thisis by no means an exhaustive study into the nature of morphological expression of reality status, it seems clear that realitystatus can express itself in a wide variety of means, and not all such means are linked to the verb.

3.1. The Latin indicative and subjunctive moods

We will start by looking at the Latin mood system. It may be thought that moods such as indicatives and subjunctives areprime, maybe even prototypical, candidates for the expression of reality status (see Givón, 1994 and Chapter 5 in Palmer,2001 for discussion). However, if it is assumed that there is a straightforward correspondence between realis and indicativeon the one hand, and subjunctive and irrealis on the other hand, then one is in for a surprise.

We will start by examining the range of the Latin Subjunctive. Examples (8)–(13) are typical examples (data from Haleand Buck (1903)).

(8)
Commands and Prohibitions (259) seced-ant improbi withdraw-3PL.SUBJ.PRES ill-disposed ‘Let the ill-disposed withdraw.’
(9)
Yes/no Questions (263) eloqu-ar? speak-1SG.SUBJ.PRES ‘Should I speak?’
(continued on next page)

7


(10)

As poi

Hypotheses

nted out by an anonymous referee, this might be interpreted as neutralizati

(264)
habe-bo ac si scrips-isses. . .
regard-1SG.IND.FUT and
if write-2SG.SUBJ.PST.PERF ‘I shall regard it as if you had written . . . .’
(11)
Wishes (269) sint beati be.3PL.SUBJ.PRES happy.PL ‘May they be happy!’
(12) Obligation and Propriety (270)
hunc ego non admirer? this I NEG admire-1SG.SUBJ.PRES ‘Ought I not to admire (a man like) this?’
(13)
Potential and Ability events (273) cuneo hoc agmen disici-as wedge this line split-2SG.SUBJ.PRES ‘With a wedge, one could split this (military) line.’
This is of course a far from complete list. We have omitted more syntactic cases, such as those in which the Subjunctiveoccurs in embedded clauses after verbs of hoping, fearing, volition, and surprise, as is still the case in the modern Romancelanguages. Such cases are not relevant for the present discussion.

What seems to unite the examples (8)–(13) is that they all describe events that have not or not yet occurred, or eventsthat may occur. In this sense, the Subjunctive in Latin can be said to describe unreal, potential or unactualized events. TheIndicative on the other hand is used for real and actual events.

(14)
Present facts
on of th

(293)

e realis/irre

quid
tac-es? why be.silent-2SG.IND.PRES ‘Why are you silent?’
(15)
Past factual events (294) quoad potu-it, resist-it as.long.as can-3SG.IND.PERF resist-3SG.IND.PERF ‘As long as he could, he resisted.’
While it would appear that we have a straightforward correspondence, the issue is clouded by looking at other areas. Fu-ture events, for instance, are always set in the Indicative mood; the Subjunctive does not even have a Future tense.7

(16)
Future of Resolve (304) non fer-am NEG bear-1SG.IND.FUT ‘I will not bear it.’
(17) Future of Indignation (304)
ded-emus ergo Hannibal-em? give.up-1PL.IND.FUT then Hannibal-ACC ‘Shall we then give up Hannibal?’
The future refers to unreal or unactualized events, just like the events in examples (8)–(13), yet the Subjunctive is notused. Sentence (17) above is a yes/no question in the Indicative mood. While yes/no questions could be considered an irrealiscategory (see also example (9) above), there is a choice of moods in Latin yes/no question and this choice does not depend onthe real or unreal status of the action in question. The same is true of other potentially unreal events, such as hypotheses.Example (18) shows an untrue hypothesis, yet the Indicative is used.

alis distinction in the future.

8


(18)

Verbs that den

Hypothetical conditional

ote actions going on at the same time, as opposed to sequential verb

si
occid-i, recte feci; if kill-1SG.IND.PERF justly do.1SG.IND.PERF sed non occid-i but NEG kill-1SG.IND.PERF (306) ‘If I killed (him), I did so justly; but I did not kill (him).’
Sentences with a negation also operate independently of mood in Latin. Sentences (16) and (18) show negative sentencesin the Indicative mood, but sentence (12) above shows a negation in a Subjunctive sentence. As negative sentences by def-inition denote unreal events, one could think that they are always expressed with irrealis morphemes, but as the examplefrom Latin shows, that is not always the case.

From this we can conclude that the choice of moods in Latin does not depend on the reality of the action described, eventhough there appears to be a high degree of correspondence between the notions of irrealis and realis, and the linguistic cat-egories of Subjunctive and Indicative, respectively. This situation of a ‘near-miss’ is one we find constantly: in many lan-guages there is a high degree of correspondence between ‘unreal events’ and ‘irrealis’ but if we look at the details we findthat the correspondence is different from language to language. From this perspective it is not surprising that scholars likeBybee reject the category while others (Givón) find it appealing for prototype studies.

3.2. Amele clause chaining

Amele is a Papuan language which marks the realis - irrealis distinction in a limited domain of the grammar (Roberts,1987, 1990). In Amele, as well as in many other Papuan languages, there exists a phenomenon known as clause chaining,in which many clauses are put together that are somehow dependent on the last clause in the sentence. Tense and moodare only marked on the final verb in the sentence. The other verbs (called medial verbs) are marked with a suffix that showswhether the subject of the chained clauses is the same subject (SS) or a different subject (DS). An example of clause chainingis shown in (19) below (all data from Roberts, 1990). The medial verb bu-busal-en is marked with the DS –en, while the finalverb qo-in is marked for tense.

(19)
Ho bu-busal-en age qo-in. pig SIM-run.out-3SG.DS.REAL 3PL hit-3PL.REM.PAST ‘They killed the pig as it ran out.’ (p. 371)
When we are dealing with a DS-morpheme in so-called simultaneous verbs,8 there is a choice between two sets of DS markers.This distinction is analyzed by Roberts as corresponding to a Realis vs. Irrealis distinction. The two sets are shown in Table 3,from Roberts (1990, p. 371).

As can be seen, the person morphemes in the respective categories are not obviously cognate. Example (19) above showsan example of a DS morpheme of Set A. An example with a DS morpheme from Set B can be seen in (A.3) below, which showsa counterfactual sentence.

(20)
Ho bu-busal-eb age qo-u-b. pig SIM-run.out-3SG.DS.IRR 3PL hit-CONTR-3PL ‘They should/would have killed the pig as it ran out.’ (p. 372)
The distribution of the individual categories of the final verb which trigger either Set A and B of the medial verb is shownin Table 4 below (Roberts, 1990, p. 375):

It would appear at first sight that we are indeed dealing with a device which marks irrealis in Amele. Note, however, thatthis is only true in a restricted domain: in clause chaining sentences in which the medial verb is marked for simultaneity andin which the medial verb has a different subject from the final verb. The analysis is further complicated by the fact that inIrrealis sentences, there is usually a marker on the final verb which marks the specific type of irrealis. In example (20) above,it was the morpheme -u which denotes the counterfactuality of the statement. Sentence (21) below shows that another irre-alis category, the future, is marked on the final verb with the suffix –an. The medial verb is as before marked with a DS mor-pheme from Set B.

(21)
Ho bu-busal-eb age qo-qag-an pig SIM-run.out-3SG.DS.IRR 3PL hit-3PL-FUT ‘They will kill the pig as it runs out.’ (p. 372)
s which denote actions that occur subsequent to each other.

Table 3DS morphemes in simultaneous verbs in Amele.

Set A: Realis Set B: Irrealis

1SG -igin -min2SG -gan -m3SG -n -b1DU -won -hul2/3DU -sin -bil1PL -qon -mun2/3PL -egin -bil

Table 4Distribution of modal meanings in Amele.

Set A Set Ba

Habitual past FutureRemote past ImperativeYesterday’s past HortativeToday’s past ProhibitivePresent Counterfactual

Apprehensive

a Set B also includes some moods which only occur in subordinate clauses, i.e., those sentences in whichthe entire clause chain is subordinate to another verb. In those cases the final verb in the subordinate clauseis inflected and the medial verbs in the subordinate clause carry the DS marker. Those moods include theintentive mood, desiderative mood, habitual desire, abilitative mood and purposive.


These examples show two things: one, irrealis categories in Amele are marked in the final verb and in the DS marker;there is therefore redundancy.9 Two, the Irrealis marker is not marked on the verb as a normal tense, aspect or mood suffix,but rather as a suffix showing primarily a grammatical relation between subjects, and only secondarily as a marker of the statusof reality. As will be discussed in Section 4 below, this is not uncommon among markers of reality status; it is very often markedon other parts of speech besides the verb.

Another problem for the theory that the two sets of DS markers encode reality status is the behavior of these markerswith modal particles, which occur sentence-finally. Many of these particles, such as da ‘‘contraexpectation/conditional obli-gation’’, fa ‘‘dubitative question’’, and ijom/om ‘‘assertive/emphatic’’ (Roberts, 1990, p. 376) can be used with final verbs inboth realis and irrealis, yet the choice of DS marker is not influenced by the presence of such particles. This choice is stilldependent on the final verb: if this verb is used as a realis verb (i.e., it has one of the categories under Set A in Table 4 above),the medial verb will be marked with a DS marker from Set A; if it is an irrealis verb, it will have a DS marker from Set B. Thus,in example (22) below, the DS marker on the medial verb has to be one from Set A, because the final verb is marked with thepresent tense morpheme -na. A DS marker from Set B is ungrammatical here. The fact that the sentence is presented as lessthan a fact through the use of the particle fa is irrelevant here. Only the status of the final verb is a factor in the choice of DSmorpheme.

9

(22)

This ‘‘doubl

Ho

e marking’’

bu-busal-en/⁄-eb

is called joint marking by Palmer (2001, p. 145

age

ff).

qo-gi-na
fa. pig SIM-run.out-3SG.DS.REAL/⁄IRR 3PL hit-3PL-PRES DUB.Q ‘Maybe they are killing the pig as it runs out?’ (p. 378)
According to Roberts, these particles are outside of the modal system because they mark illocutionary force in the sense of
Foley and Van Valin (1984) and Van Valin and LaPolla (1997). In the Role-and-Reference-Grammar framework, illocutionaryforce has indeed scope over modal meanings (recall from Section 2 that reality status falls under the category status whichscopes under illocutionary force), yet it would seem that these particles mark modality as well as illocutionary force. The par-ticles da ‘obligation’ and fa ‘doubt’ mark modality, while the assertive particle ijom can indeed be said to mark illocutionaryforce. If we look at the RRG hierarchy in (7) in Section 2 above we see that obligation falls under modality which is in thescope of the category of status. The notion of doubt is clearly part of epistemic modality and is in the same layer as realitystatus, so it is an open question how this is treated in RRG frameworks.
It would seem likely that the reason for the choice of DS marker lies in the fact that modal particles are not highly gram-maticalized and play no role in the interaction of verbs. Even though sentence (22) denotes an irrealis event (the sentence ismarked as doubtful), what counts for the choice of DS marker on the medial verb is the status of the final verb, which in thiscase is a simple present. In other words, only grammaticalized realis and irrealis markers count in the determination of med-ial DS morphemes in Amele. Optional elements such as sentence-final particles are irrelevant for this determination.

Comparing Amele to other Papuan languages spoken in the same area, some differences can be observed. Certain lan-guages show the realis - irrealis distinction in SS markers as well as DS markers (e.g., Anjam, p. 382), some languages have

Table 5Sakao irrealis and realis morphemes on verbs (Guy, 1974, p. 45).

Singular Plural Indefinite

1 2 3 1 2 3Irrealis a - cç ta cç ca tçRealis am m mV tam cçm cam tçm


the distinction in both simultaneous and sequential verbs (e.g., Nobonob, p. 379) and some languages divide the realis - irre-alis spectrum differently from Amele. In Bargam (also known as Mugil, Roberts, 1990, p. 383-4), the Habitual past is an irre-alis category, together with the Future, while the Present and regular Past tense are part of realis. In (23) the Habitual past isshown (p. 384)10:

10

(23)

On the

miles-eq

status of habituals see Secti

leh-id

on 4.4.

teq
anamren aholwaq-ad in return-SS.IRR go-DS.IRR then owner see-
SS.SIM.REAL
3SG
didaq
tu-ugiaq food PFV-
give.HAB.PST.3SG
‘‘When (the pig)would return and gothen the owner, onseeing it, used togive it food.’’
Another language where clause linkers have a realis – irrealis distinction is Central Pomo (Pomoan; Mithun, 1995, p. 368).This distinction would appear to be present in all parts of the clause linking system, not just in one area as is the case inAmele.

3.3. Sakao reality status morphemes on verbs and nouns

Sakao is a Melanesian language spoken on the Vanuatu Island of Espiritu Santo (Guy, 1974; Crowley, 2002). In this lan-guage, reality status morphemes can be present on nouns as well as verbs. The Irrealis morphemes are in the shape of per-sonal prefixes (as is common in the area). They are shown in Table 5.

The use of these Realis and Irrealis morphemes is slightly idiosyncratic, if one holds on to the belief that there is a con-nection with real and unreal events. The Realis prefixes are used, according to Guy (1974, p. 45ff), when dealing with normalpresent or past events (24a), with verbs of saying, regardless of reality status of the verb, hypotheticals (25) and habituals.Irrealis morphemes are used with counterfactuals and imperative/jussives (no data on prohibitives).

(24)
Realis prefixes (Guy, 1974, p. 62, glosses mine) a. cam- cœð
3PL.REAL-see.PST
‘They saw it.’
b.
cam-stat œjœm 3PL.REAL-start work.GER ‘They start work.’
(25)
we m-narço sümp t-œnœð ite. if 2SG.REAL-thirsty drink IRR-coconut one ‘If you are thirsty, drink a coconut.’
(26)
ce cyan cç-hüp o 2SG 2SG.IRR.go 2SG.IRR-shoot that ‘You go and shoot that one.’ (Crowley, 2002, p. 606)
Negation seems to have no influence on the choice of reality status morpheme. Both choices are possible, depending on thecriteria listed above. Example (27), from Crowley (2002, p. 607), shows the combination of the Negation ab- and a Realismorpheme. The choice of Realis is due to the past tense interpretation of the sentence.


(27)

11 A possibility is (range of the prefix tmake any mention

12 Guy (1974, p. 613 The emphatic p

ma-ab-cœðheri

an ancestor of) the indefinite article te wh- seems to correspond to indefiniteness, buof the origins of the Irrealis prefix t-. (i)2) remarks that some speakers inflect thearticle bo can occur with realis, irrealis an

we

ich follows the nount it must be stressed

aac kar teverb we with 3SG Rd unmarked forms.

me-neð
3SG.REAL-NEG-know that 3SG.REAL-die ‘He did not know that she was dead.’
The use of reality status morphemes extends to nouns as well as verbs. Irrealis nouns are formed by adding t- to the (un-marked) realis stems, as shown in (28) below. Note the morphophonemic changes to the stem.

(28)
REALIS IRREALIS GLOSS ara t-ara pig né té axe noð toð fowl mðob tçmðob breadfruit
The use of a noun with the Irrealis morpheme is to mark the noun as ‘‘doubted, or negated, or regarded as a mere prospect.’’(Guy, 1974, p. 29–30). An example is shown in (25) above, from Guy (1974, p. 30), segmentation and glosses from Crowley(2002, p. 601) where the form t-œnœð signifies that we are dealing with a non-specific, non-referential coconut. As the Irre-alis prefix t- is so different from the verbal Irrealis prefixes it is possible that we are dealing with a vestigial morpheme thathas taken on irrealis-type properties in Sakao.11 Finally, we must mention some strange behavior of the choice of reality statusprefixes in constructions involving the verb we ‘say’ (Guy, 1974, p. 62). Such constructions show an interesting reversal in thechoice of reality status morphemes. The verb we in certain cases (unclear from the description) is used to mark temporal sub-ordination (translated by English when). When the temporal reference is past or present (as in (29a) below) then the verb we isinflected for person (coreferent with the subject of the subordinate verb) and realis.12 The subordinate verb is marked irrealis. Ifthe temporal reference is future, as in example (29b) then the verb we is uninflected and the subordinate verb is marked asrealis.

(29)
Sakao constructions with the verb we ‘say’
in modern Sakao, as in (i) below, from Crowley (2002, p. 603). The semathat this is simply suggested here. Neither Guy (1974) nor Crowley (2

‘a red boat’ealis forms, regardless of the subject of the subordinate clause.It is used to mark greater certainty on the part of the speaker.

a.
abé a-jan 1SG.REAL.say 1SG.IRR-go ‘When I go/when I went.’
b.
wé am-jan say 1SG.REAL-go ‘When I will go.’
This is an interesting reversal of the usual patterning of past and present with realis on the one hand, and future with irrealison the other. It is a potential counterexample to the thought of linking reality status with real and unreal events. However,much more work is needed to substantiate such claims.

3.4. Muyuw

Finally we will take a look at Muyuw, a Austronesian language from Woodlark Island, Papua New Guinea (Lithgow,1976, Bugenhagen, 1994). This language has a three-way split between a realis prefix n(i)-, an irrealis prefix b(i)-,and azero morpheme. There are no tense morphemes, but there is an aspectual correspondence between ‘completed actions’and the realis, and ‘intended actions’ with the irrealis (Lithgow, 1976, p. 486). This may provide clues as to the origin ofthese prefixes.

Muyuw differs from the languages discussed above in that the three formal means of expressing reality status overlap inpresent and past tense. Based on the description, the Realis morpheme n(i)- only occurs in sentences with a past tense mean-ing and is apparently in free variation with an unmarked form. Examples are shown in (30). Present tense sentences areeither unmarked or marked as irrealis, again apparently in free variation, as exemplified in (31) below.

(30)
a. nov i-weiy buluk Yesterday 3SG-kill pig ‘Yesterday he killed a pig.’
b.
buluk nov bo n-ei-weiy13
Pig yesterday
EMPH REAL-3SG-kill ‘(I know) he really killed the pig yesterday.’
ntic002)

14


(31)

This w

a.

ould

i-ni-nou-n

seem to be the only place

b-ei-n

in the grammar o

wa-ven

f Muyuw where the unmarke

3SG-RED-RED-go
IRR-3SG-go to-village ‘He is traveling and will go to the village.’
b.
bo b-ei-n wa-ven EMPH IRR-3SG-go to-village ‘Right now he is leaving for the village.’
Negation is split between irrealis and unmarked forms. When a negation is present in the sentence, there can never be arealis prefix. So, negative sentences with past tense meaning are either unmarked or marked as irrealis, with apparent freevariation:

(32)
nag i-n/b-ei-n
d form is not in free

wa-ven
NEG 3SG-go/IRR-3SG-go to-village ‘He is not going to the village (now).’ or ‘He did not go to the village.’
Habituals, like present tense sentences, can be either unmarked or marked as irrealis, while future events are obligatorilymarked as irrealis (see the second part of example (31a) above), as are counterfactual and hypothetical conditionals:

(33)
kukin wag b-ei-m, b-a-touw b-a-n If boat IRR-3SG-come IRR-1SG-embark IRR-1SG-go ‘If the boat comes, I will go.’
Imperatives are always unmarked while prohibitives are marked with the form awoum plus the irrealis morpheme (seeexample (53) in Section 4.7).14 Finally, notions such as desire and modal notions like ability and permission are always markedirrealis plus an element showing the desired modality. from this point of view, prohibitives have more in common with modalnotions than with imperatives: they share the same sentence structure and are both marked with the Irrealis prefix.

(34)
sivina-g b-a-n Lae want-1SG IRR-1SG-go Lae ‘I want to go to Lae.’
Muyuw offers a number of interesting elements for the notion of reality status. There is not a two-way but a three-way oppo-sition in reality status morphemes, and there is apparent free variation in past and present tense sentences.

3.5. Other categories

There are other ways in which reality status can be marked. A full typological study into the nature of morphologicalmarking of reality status is still lacking, so the following remarks are tentative.

In the case studies above we have seen that reality status is attracted to the verb, that is, a morpheme marking realitystatus is most commonly found on the verb. This is, however, not a universal truth. Because reality status is a category whichnormally has the proposition in its scope, it should come as no surprise that it is occasionally found on other lexical catego-ries at the edges of a sentence. In this respect reality status is similar to a category like evidentiality which also occurs mostlyon verbs, but can occasionally manifest itself on other lexical categories as well.

In Section 2 above we discussed Tsou (Zeitoun, 2005) which has been analyzed as marking reality status in the voice sys-tem, although the morphemes themselves would appear to be auxiliary verbs. Another example of auxiliary verb and realitystatus is English will, and we discuss this verb in Section 5 below.

Another method is to mark reality status via person prefixes. We have seen that Sakao is such a language, as example (35)(=(24)) shows:

(35)
a. cam- cœð 3PL.REAL-see.PST ‘They saw it.’
b.
cam-stat œjœm 3PL.REAL-start work.GER ‘They start work.’
variation with either a Realis or Irrealis morpheme.

Table 6possible means of expression reality status.

Expression Example

Moods Latin indicative/subjunctiveModal affixes Maung, NyulnyulanModal verbs English willClause linkers Amele and related languages; Central PomoVoice markers TsouNominal affixes SakaoSubject affixes Caddo; Nias Selatan; SursurungaParticles and adverbs Italian magari ‘maybe’; Mangseng aro


This is not uncommon cross-linguistically. Languages with a reality status distinction in pronominal prefixes include Cad-do (Caddoan; Chafe, 1995) and Nias Selatan (Austronesian; Brown, 2005).

These are various types of verbal affixes, all with a different grammatical function. Most of these morphemes appear tohave a primary meaning that is quite distinct from the marking of reality status: the Sakao prefixes mark person and gram-matical functions, the Amele suffixes mark same/different subject status, and the Latin moods have non-modal functions aswell. From this it might be concluded that reality status is a secondary development in languages, as other material is co-opted into the service of reality status marking. This would account for the wide variety of linguistic means that is employedand for the wide semantic range of reality status morphemes between languages.

Finally we show some reality status markings that are not linked to the verb, but are independent linguistic material,namely particles and adverbs.15 In Mangseng, an Austronesian language from New Britain (Bugenhagen, 1994, p. 21–24) irre-alis is marked with a particle aro while realis is unmarked.16 Two examples are shown in (36), from Bugenhagen (1994, p. 22).Example (36a) shows a past/present tense case, (36b) a hypothetical conditional.

15

16

(36)

It is notAs is co

a.

clearmmon

I

that we can make a cross-linguistic distinctiocross-linguistically, the prohibitive in Mangs

es

n betweeeng is ma

a

n particlesrked separ

rebo

and adverbsately, with t

, hence theihe particle

r conflatmothoNto

ion in thva.

3SG
go to village ‘He went/is going to the village.’
b.
aro ve wok i velpol aro tho es IRR thus canoe 3SG arrive IRR 1SG go ‘If the boat comes, I will go.’
Another case is Italian magari ‘maybe’, for which see Pietrandrea (this volume). Table 6 summarizes the various means ofexpression.

4. Semantic categories and reality status

In this section we will have a look at the various subcategories of the realis–irrealis domain. We will see that most, if notall of these subcategories can be either marked as realis or irrealis, depending on the language. This means that this domainis very different from a domain like aspect, where the various subcategories (such as perfective and imperfective aspect) havea well-defined core which does not vary from language to language. Of course, that does not mean that there are no differ-ences in the morphemes analyzed as (say) perfective aspect from language to language (see Comrie, 1976; Dahl, 1985, 2000),but in contrast to reality status morphemes we can be more or less assured that perfective aspect morphemes have ‘com-pleted action’ as its core meaning, regardless of any other language-specific meaning such morphemes may have. The listof categories presented here is not exhaustive, but it does cover the major categories around which the current debate iscentered. Again, it must be remembered that when we are talking about languages with realis or irrealis morphemes, weare using the terms realis and irrealis as used by the authors of the respective grammars or linguistic descriptions. Theuse of these terms here is not meant as endorsement of the term or notion, but is used for ease of reference (see Section 1).

4.1. Past tense

At first sight it would seem strange that there should be doubt about the past tense. Events that happened in the past areimmutable and fixed; therefore, there should be little doubt about past events. Indeed, in most languages with a past tenseand a separate (ir)realis morpheme, a past tense is used either with an over realis morpheme or with a zero marker denotingthe absence of an overt irrealis morpheme. There are some languages in which the past tense occurs with an overt irrealismorpheme (for instance in certain Austronesian languages, see Bugenhagen, 1994) and there exists a link between past tense

is section.

Table 7Uto-Aztecan past-irrealis morphemes.

Set A Set B

Tarahumara ra dubitative S. Paiute ca recent pastClassical Aztec a: if/polite request O’odham t punctual

Serrano ta dubitative Tübatulabal t presentTübatulabal tan counterfactual Mono hti neutral timeLuiseño te: if Yaqui taiti inceptive

Serrano ÷ pastTarahumara re perfective

preteritLuiseño il past


and unreal events that goes a step further: past tense has been argued to be an expression of irrealis in and of itself. For in-stance, in English the past tense is used in conditionals in a way that is reminiscent of irrealis marking in other languages17:

17

them

18

(37)

It muse past tephasis iThis fa

If I said you have a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?

This is a well-studied phenomenon and it can be found in many languages. Steele (1975) and James (1982) mention Garo(Tibeto-Burman, Chipewyan (Athabaskan), Russian, Old Marathi (Indo-Aryan), as well as French, Latin and Classical Greek,among others. It would appear to be a common cross-linguistic pattern in need of an explanation.

The first study to provide comparative data and a possible explanation for the link between past tense and irrealis isSteele (1975). She concluded from an examination of Uto-Aztecan languages that the proto language had a morpheme ⁄-ta which combined the notions of irrealis and past. There are two cognate sets, called Set A and Set B, both of which aretraced back to a Proto-Uto-Aztecan morpheme ⁄-ta. The cognates of Set A are traced back to an original irrealis meaningwhile those of Set B are traced back to a past meaning. The sets are shown in Table 7, from Steele (1975, p. 202).

Apart from certain problems and speculative assumptions in the reconstruction, which are mentioned by Steele herself(see 1975, p. 201ff), there are a number of problems in the analysis.

First, the meanings of the morphemes in Set A, dubitative, if/hypothetical, polite request, and counterfactual, do not repre-sent the full spectrum of irrealis meanings. Some categories are missing from the list, such as future and imperative. Thegiven meanings of Set A form a nice semantic field, namely the conditional field, consisting of hypothetical and counterfactualconditionals plus the related meaning of doubt. However, the leap from the meanings of Set A to a general irrealis meaning inthe proto-language is not insubstantial and not entirely warranted.

The second problem is the fact that the meanings of Set B include several meanings that are not part of the past/irrealissphere, most notably the Tübatulabal morpheme -t which is used for the present tense, rather than the past. Steele (1975, p.210) addresses this by hypothesizing that Proto-Uto-Aztecan had a future/non-future distinction. Under this hypothesis, thePUA non-future could have developed into a past tense in some languages and a present tense in others. The analysis be-comes more tentative, however.

Notwithstanding these possible objections it is clear that there is a connection between (some) irrealis categories andpast tense and the value of Steele’s paper is to recognize the typological connection and to provide a possible explanation.She suggests that the connection between past events and unreal events is the semantic feature of dissociation, i.e., the eventdescribed in the sentence is in both cases removed from the present reality. This explanation echoes similar explanationsfrom other scholars: most scholars that have noted the connection have tried to explain it by means of ‘remoteness’, ‘distal’or similar notions (similar arguments can be found in James, 1982).

Palmer (1986, p. 211, 2001, p. 219) considers this argument to be a circular one: it gives a label to the problem, not anexplanation for the problem. Although he discusses the above explanation and similar ones, he does not offer any plausibleexplanation either. The only answer offered is a variant of the politeness argument: ‘‘. . . the use of the past leaves open thepossibility that the willingness does not extend into the present, though it may imply that it does.’’ (1986, p. 211). Politenessis of course itself a variant of the dissociation hypothesis.

The distancing argument also does not account for the fact that it is the past rather than the future that marks distance.18

One could expect that the future would do just as well to mark distance, but this does not seem to happen. It is of course notalways true that past tense is used for irrealis purposes. So it is still an open question why the past tense is used to mark irrealis.However, it seems clear that the answer should be sought in the notion of distancing. It may not be a universal solution, how-ever, based on the observation that it is not valid cross-linguistically. This is another argument against treating reality status as amonolithic category.

t be emphasized here that this phenomenon is different from the phenomena discussed elsewhere in this section. Here the focus is on the fact thatnse takes on the characteristics of the irrealis category, a common diachronic pattern. In the other parts of this section (future, habitual, etc.), thes on how these categories interact with realis and irrealis morphemes on the synchronic level.ct is noted by Palmer (1986, p. 211).


4.2. Future tense

The category of future tense is another category which could be thought of as belonging purely to the irrealis side of thingsbut the data shows otherwise. Actions happening in the future are by definition unreal but there is a large set of languagewhere the future is combined with a morpheme analyzed as realis, showing that there is much ambiguity in this area.

4.2.1. Future as a realis categoryThis is the case in Latin, Maung and Caddo, among others:

19

(1sta

(38)

It is uncl974, p. 27)ys’, which

Latin (Romance; Hale and Buck, 1903, p. 304)

ear from the description whether there is free choice between uncite a paradigm of the verb sesu- ‘stay’ which has the Realis precontrasts with b-i-sés (IRR-3SG-stay) ‘he will stay’.

(=(16))
non fer-am NEG bear-1SG.IND.FUT ‘I will not bear it.’
(39)
Maung (Capell and Hinch, 1970, p. 67) Ni-wan-udba 1SG-FUT-put ‘I shall put.’
(40)
Caddo (Caddoan; Chafe, 1995, p. 358) ci-yibahw-÷a÷ ci-yi=bahw-cah 1.AG.REAL-see-FUT ‘I’ll look at it.’
4.2.2. Future as an irrealis categoryThe future is considered irrealis in Amele ((41) = (21)) above, and in many other languages.

(41)
Amele (Roberts, 1990, p. 372) Ho bu-busal-eb age qo-qag-an pig SIM-run.out-3SG.DS.IRR 3PL hit-3PL-FUT ‘They will kill the pig as it runs out.’
4.2.3. Future as either realis or irrealisThe future can be divided further into several subcategories depending on whether the speaker is confident about the

chance of occurrence of the event or not. The distinction between the two can be marked as a realis–irrealis distinction. Thisis the case in Central Pomo (Mithun, 1995), where clause linkers are used to mark reality status.

(42)
Central Pomo (Mithun, 1995, p. 370, 378–379) a. té�nta=lil wá-�n-hi ÷a� qó=be-w=÷khe
town=to
go-IPF-SS.IRR 1.AG toward=carry-PFV=FUT ‘I’ll bring it back on my way to town.’
b.
ma÷á qa�-wá-�c’-in hlá-�÷w-ac’=khe food bit-go-IPF.PL-SS.SIM.REAL walk.PL-around-IPF.PL=FUT ‘We’ll go around eating.’
The choice between the realis and irrealis clause linker is fully dependent on the level of confidence the speaker has in theaction actually occurring (i.e., whether the speaker believes that the event will be actualized or not). The speaker judged thatthe action in (42b) was certain to occur, hence the use of the realis linker. This shows that the underlying factor determiningthe choice of realis or irrealis is not [±Real], but more akin to [±Potential], as (42b) is more likely hence more potentially realthan (42a). That this is a valid analysis for the irrealis in a language such as Central Pomo does not mean that it is valid cross-linguistically, however.

4.3. Present tense

While the present tense is usually considered to be realis in nature, it can happen that it can be expressed with an irrealismorpheme in certain languages. Such a language appears to be the New Guinean language Muyuw (Bugenhagen, 1994, p.17–21, see Section 3.4 for more details). Present tense actions are either unmarked or take the Irrealis morpheme (43) whilepast actions are unmarked or take the Realis morpheme (44).19

marked and marked forms. To confuse matters even more, Lithgow and Lithgowfix n- in a present tense conjugation. An example is n-i-sés (REAL-3SG-stay) ‘he

20

(Foob


(43)

It musrtescue

ligation

Muyuw (Bugenhagen 1994, p. 18)

t be mentioned that –ssa is not the only morpheme denoting h, 1984, p. 279-81) and future tense morphemes, such as ni> future change is a well-known grammaticalization path.

(=(31))
a. i-ni-nou-n b-ei-n wa-ven
3SG-RED-RED-go
IRR-3SG-go to-village ‘He is traveling and will go to the village.’
b.
bo b-ei-n wa-ven EMPH IRR-3SG-go to-village ‘Right now he is leaving for the village.’
(44) a. nov i-weiy buluk (=(30))
yesterday 3SG-kill pig ‘Yesterday he killed a pig.’
b.
buluk nov bo n-ei-weiy pig yesterday EMPH REAL-3SG-kill ‘Yesterday he really killed the pig.’
The use of the Irrealis morpheme b- in (43b) would appear to be typologically rare. Based on the one example given itcould be the case that we are dealing with an imminent future rather than with a present tense situation. As future tenseis always marked with the Irrealis morpheme in Muyuw, that might solve the problem, but data is sparse. In any case, pres-ent tense actions are never marked with the Realis morpheme (apart from the case cited in Footnote 15), which means thereis a clear difference between present and past actions. Nevertheless, the existence of an apparent language with reality statusmorphemes in which the present tense is not marked with the realis means that we cannot conclude that present tense isalways marked realis, if the distinction is available and that connecting present tense with real events is not entirelywarranted.

4.4. Habitual aspect

Habitual aspect is perhaps a strange category to discuss in a section about realis and irrealis. As this category denotes thatan action is or was done habitually, there would seem to be little doubt that such actions are real and any marker of habitualaspect would fall into the realis camp. Nevertheless, there are languages in which habitual aspect is marked either identicalto other irrealis categories or has a separate irrealis morpheme attached. An example is shown in (45), from West Greenlan-dic. The morpheme –ssa is used for (past) habitual aspect but also for obligation and future.20

(45)
W. Greenlandic (Fortescue, 1984; Cristofaro, 2004) a. mulu-guni
abitual aar (1984,

tiki-ssa-aq

spect and future. There are op. 274–275), which do no

atisa-i
stay.away-4SG.COND come-HAB-3SG.IND clothes-his.PL ataniiruti-vis-sima-llutik be.without.connection-really-PERF-4PL.CONT ‘(after) staying away for ages, he would arrive home, his clothes all falling apart.’
b.
inna-ja-ssa-atit go.to.bed-early-OBL-2SG.IND ‘you must go to bed early.’
c.
tuqu-ssa-atit die-FUT-2SG.IND ‘you will die.’
Note that, as is the case with irrealis morphemes in general, -ssa does not cover the whole range of irrealis functions butonly a subset. For instance, the Imperative is marked with the forms –git (2SG) or -gitsi (2PL).

A habitual morpheme can have in fact a wide variety of meanings associated with the irrealis. Table 8, based on Table 3 inCristofaro (2004, p. 263), exemplifies the wide range of meaning associated with past habitual morphemes in a number oflanguages.

As can be seen, the number of irrealis meanings hardly makes up the full spectrum of possible irrealis meanings. The mostcommon are future and obligation, which is no surprise from a grammaticalization point of view, as the two are linked inmany languages. Note also the link between habitual aspect and questions, a connection which has not been analyzed asfar as I am aware.

We need to make a distinction between past and present habituals, referring to habitual actions which are going on in thepresent (and have started in the past) and to actions that were habitual in the past, but no longer hold in the present, respec-tively. In many languages, there is only a past habitual. For instance, the English habitual morpheme used to can only be used

ther habitual aspect morphemes, such as –sart overlap in these two areas. Note that the

Table 8Past habitual morphemes also mean.

Language Meanings

Dahalo RequestEtsako FutureGurr-Goni Possibility, negated events, failed attemptsKarimojong FrustrativeKayardild Possibility, obligation, questionsMalayalam Future, possibilityTamil Future, desireW. Greenlandic Future, obligationXakas Obligation, questions


for habitual actions that no longer hold. The sentence John used to walk to school every morning entails that he no longer walksto school every morning. The Present habitual is unmarked in English and the regular present tense is used: John walks toschool every morning.21 This is true for a number of languages. In Amele, the Past habitual is marked by the morpheme -lo,but for present habitual the regular present tense is used (Roberts, 1987, p. 248; Cristofaro, 2004, p. 257).22

In Xakas, a Turkic language (Anderson, 1998; Cristofaro, 2004), there are distinct morphemes for past and present hab-ituals. The Past habitual is –caN, while the Present habitual morpheme is –adır. The morpheme –caN is also used for obligationand questions, but the morpheme –adır is only used for present habituality.

21

a m22

hasp

23

(1

(46)

Alternaodal coIt woul

bitualityeech, wh

As men994, p. 1

Xakas (Turkic; Anderson, 1998)
a.
tively, asmponentd seem tois part ofich is inctioned in

9) for det

andada

mentioned band is not qbe the casethe meaning

ompatible wSection 3.4,

ails.

min,

y Bybee et al.uite as neutrathat there areof the prese

ith the meania Muyuw ver

kIcIg

(1994, p. 158), the verb will canl. See, however Section 5 belowno languages with a separate m

nt tense, but not so for past tensng of habituality in the past, whb can also be unmarked for rea

pala

be used, as.orpheme

e. The pasich thereflity status

cIli,

in Peop

for prest tenseore need. This is

ılca-pcat-caN-mın
then I little child like cry-PRES.I-HAB.PST-1SG ‘At those times I would cry like a little child.’
b.
ol pIs-te xon-adır he we-LOC spend.night-HAB.PRES ‘He usually spends the night at our place.’
Based on Cristofaro (2004) it would appear the case that if a language has separate habitual morphemes, it can choosewhether to treat them as realis or irrealis. Moreover, if a language has separate morphemes or constructions for past andpresent habituals, it can choose whether to mark one or both of them as realis or irrealis. However, the typological gener-alization seems to be that if a language with separate past and present habituals chooses to mark the present habitual asirrealis, then it must also do so for past habituals.

Languages that mark habituals as irrealis would seem to have a different underlying meaning than [±real], given that hab-ituals are [+real] but marked as [-realis]. It has been proposed (see Cristofaro, 2004; McGregor and Wagner, 2006, amongothers) to give an underlying meaning of [-actualized] (or [+unactualized], as is done in McGregor and Wagner, 2006). This,however, may be true but it creates a new problem, since we now have two possible underlying features for reality status.This problem will be addressed in Section 6 below.

4.5. Negation

In certain languages the presence of a negative element automatically triggers the irrealis. This is for instance the case inMuyuw (Bugenhagen, 1994, p. 19) where the Negation nag automatically triggers the Irrealis morpheme b(i)-, even in casesthat require the Realis morpheme in other cases, such as past tense events. Given that the present and past are only distin-guishable by means of a reality status morpheme (see examples (30b) and (31b) above), this means that negative sentencesare ambiguous23:

(47)
nag b-ei-n
le wi

ent his typ

s atrue

wa-ven
NEG IRR-3SG-go to-village ‘He is not going to the village (now)’ ‘He did not go to the village.’
ll insist on giving me books. But this entails the addition of

abitual, but not for past. The explanation for this is thatically used for completed actions before the moment of

special morpheme or construction.for sentences with a negation as well. See Bugenhagen


Other languages in which negation automatically triggers the irrealis include Caddo (Chafe, 1995) and Mangseng (Bugen-hagen, 1994).

4.6. Conditionals

There is a large body of work on conditionals in a variety of frameworks.24 Many studies focus on the relationship betweenconditionals and logic while others highlight the logical connections between conditionals and modality. Hypothetical condi-tionals can be expressed in terms of possibility and this is especially attractive for those theories that advocate a possible worldsapproach to modality. An in-depth study of conditionals is beyond the scope of this paper and we will restrict ourselves here toexamining the relationship between reality status and conditionals. We will focus on two types of conditionals that have inter-esting interactions with reality status, namely hypothetical and counterfactual conditionals. Other types of conditionals, e.g. con-cessive conditionals, will be omitted from the discussion, mainly for lack of cross-linguistic data.

It would appear that these categories would belong to the irrealis domain due to the fact that they describe events thatare almost by definition not real. Neither hypothetical nor contrary to fact events belong to the real world. An example fromHaya is shown in (48). The connective ká marks the sentence as a hypothetical conditional one and this requires the use ofthe Irrealis affix –ku-. The Irrealis morpheme appears in both the protasis and apodosis of the conditional sentence.

24

fra

(48)

See formework

Haya (Central Bantu; Saloné 1979; James, 1982, p. 380)

good overview studies Traugott (1986), Athanasiadou and Dirven (1997) as, both functional and formal.

nd Xrakovskij (1998). There are of cou
rse many other stu
ká
n-a-ku-bona éfaresy’ ein’ ámabába if 1SG-REC.PST-IRR-see horse having wings ti-n-á-ku-amini NEG-1SG-REC.PAST-IRR-believe ‘If I saw a horse with wings, I wouldn’t believe it.’
While it is true that conditionals belong overwhelmingly to the irrealis domain cross-linguistically, there are notableexceptions. In languages with irrealis morphemes it is possible that either type (or both) is marked as realis. In the Oceaniclanguage Sinaugoro, hypothetical conditionals are marked with Realis morphemes (49a) while counterfactuals are markedwith Irrealis morphemes (49b).

(49)
Sinaugoro (Oceanic, Papua New Guinea; Tauberschmidt, 1999, p. 27, 31) a. bema bo daroa-
ni
nai tu kurabo
if
2SG.REAL.REM sweep-IPF
when
TOP floor
citacita-na
be namo-ni. sight-3SG 3SG.REAL.REM good-IPF ‘If you clean the floor it willlook nice.’
b.
bere namo mo numa mainai bocoro raga-ia. if good that house here 2PL.IRR.REM build-3SG ‘It would have been good if you had built that house here.’
A possible explanation might be that hypothetical conditionals have a chance of becoming real while counterfactual con-ditionals are always hypothesized and thus never real. This would account for the Sinaugoro data (albeit in a rather ad hocway). However, this explanation is invalidated by the fact that there are languages in which counterfactual conditionals aremarked with realis morphemes. Such a language is Sursurunga, another Oceanic language. In Sursurunga, both the protasisand apodosis of hypotheticals are marked with an Irrealis pronoun (50a) while in counterfactuals the apodosis is marked asIrrealis but the protasis as Realis (50b).

(50)
Sursurunga (Oceanic, Melanesian; Bugenhagen 1994) a. hypothetical
dies in

ngo
na hut i kar ki i-na-k han if 3SG.IRR arrive SUB car then 1SG-IRR-DEF go ‘If the car comes then I willgo.’
(continued on next page)

various


b.
counterfactual ngo á-k-te han balbal ux i ráin if 3SG.REAL-DEF-
EMPH
go again.RED blow SUB rain
na
han kopkom kuluk á namnam 3SG.IRR go grow good SUB food ‘If it had kept on raining regularly, the crops would have grown well.’
A similar example comes from Nyikina, a Nyulnyulan language from Australia (McGregor and Wagner, 2006, p. 361). Theprotasis is marked as realis, the apodosis as irrealis. In other Nyulnyulan languages both the apodosis and protasis aremarked as irrealis.

(51)
Nyikina (Nyulnyulan; McGregor and Wagner, 2006, p. 361, citing Stokes, 1982, p. 321) Yim-bula-ny-jarri nga-la-ba-na. 3.MIN.NOM-come-PAST-SUBJ 1.MIN.NOM-IRR-see-PAST ‘If he had come, I would have seen (him).’
There seems to be a link between the protasis and realis of counterfactuals but for the purposes of this paper it is suffi-cient to point out that this means that it cannot be automatically assumed that counterfactuals are always marked as irrealis,and hence that it would be rash to assume that counterfactuals can function as an invariant core of the irrealis.

4.7. Imperatives and prohibitives

Imperatives are admonitions to perform future actions and as such might be considered unreal events and hence part ofthe irrealis side of the continuum. However, as was the case with future tense (Section 3.3), the situation is more complex(see Mauri and Sansò, this volume). It is also true that a prohibitive is not simply a negated imperative (see Van der Auweraand Devos, this volume). The fact that there are real differences between the two is reflected in the choice of reality statusmorphemes. It is possible for the two categories to have different types of morphemes.

In Sio, an Oceanic language from Northern Papua New Guinea, the irrealis is expressed via the preverbal particle ma(Bugenhagen, 1994, p. 27–30). It can be frequently omitted in future constructions, but it is obligatory in desiderative andlest-constructions (see example (52a) below), as well as in hypothetical and counterfactual constructions. There is no corre-sponding realis morpheme, which is therefore unmarked. When it occurs with imperatives (which otherwise do not have aspecial imperative morpheme, see example (52b) below), it has the effect of softening them. It cannot occur in prohibitives atall as the first clause of example (52a) shows. The Prohibitive morpheme ndimo is incompatible with the Irrealis morphemema.

(52)
Sio (Western Oceanic; Bugenhagen 1994, p. 29) a. ku-veta mine ndimo, tia ma pata-na
2SG-do
like.this PROH NEG IRR fall.down-2SG ‘Don’t do that, you might fall.’ (. . ., lest you fall)
b.
(ma) ku-veta IRR 2SG-do ‘(You should) do it.’
In Muyuw, the situation is reversed. Imperatives are expressed by unmarked second person verbs while prohibitives havethe Prohibitive morpheme awoum plus the Irrealis prefix (see 3.4 above).

(53)
Muyuw (Bugenhagen, 1994, p. 19) awoum b-i-vag PROH IRR-3SG-do ‘He must not do it.’
There are a number of ways in which one can analyze the discrepancy between reality status marking in imperatives andprohibitives. If imperatives are marked as irrealis and prohibitives as realis, it is possible to argue that imperatives involve achange in status, while prohibitives involve a status quo of a realis situation. If one says do that!, there will be a new statewhich is not real (or actual) at the moment, whereas if one says don’t do that!, there will be no change in an already existing(real or actual) situation. If the situation is reversed, if imperatives are marked as realis and prohibitives as irrealis, it is pos-


sible that there is a connection between negation and irrealis morphemes in the language. This is the case in Muyuw: theIrrealis morpheme is used whenever there is a negation present in the sentence (Bugenhagen, 1994, p. 19). But such solu-tions again have an ad-hoc ring to them.

There are a number of languages in which there is a choice of reality status morpheme within imperatives. In Jamul Die-gueño, a Yuman language of Southern California, there is a choice between a basic imperative and a polite imperative. Thebasic imperative consists of the verb stem plus the special second person imperative prefix k- (54a). The polite imperative(54b) consists of the verb stem and the normal second person prefix m- plus the irrealis affix -x (Mithun, 1995, p. 377–378):

25

26

27

28

(54)

See Roberts (1For an exampSee also CoateSee Bhat (199

Jamul Diegueño (Yuman; Mithun, 1995, p. 378, citing Miller, 1990, p. 119)
a.
990, p. 390le with quess (1983) an9, p. 13ff, 65

k-naw

) and Mithun (1995, p. 378) for additionaltions, see Section 2.2 above.d Ziegeler (2006).ff) for details on notions of tense-promine

2.IMP-run
‘run!’
b.
nya-m-mápa-pu m-rar-x-s INDEF-2-NOM.want-DEM 2-do-IRR-EMPH ‘Do whatever you want!’
This distinction is also found in the Sepik language Alamblak and resembles the English construction would you do that whichis often used as a polite command. It contains the form would which frequently occurs in irrealis contexts.25

4.8. Miscellaneous categories

There are a number of other categories that play a role in the determination of reality status morphemes. They includeability, volition, purpose, doubt, questions (both yes/no and content) and desire. All these are known to sometimes take rea-lis, sometimes irrealis morphemes. While more research in this area is definitely needed, it is clear that these categories be-have just like the ones discussed in detail in the previous sections. One example of a language in which (some) epistemicparticles take a realis, rather than an irrealis is Nyulnyul where the particle nyanangkarr ‘perhaps’ is used with the realis,while other cases, such as (unrealized) volition take the irrealis morpheme –la.

(55)
Nyulnyul (Nyulnyulan; McGregor and Wagner, 2006, p. 353, 365) a. mi-la-r-an karrkuj.
discussion of these

nce and reality sta

points.

tus.

2.MIN.NOM-IRR-kill-PAST
dead ‘You wanted to kill him.’ [but didn’t]
b.
nyanangkarr kinyingk-in i-na-ngurl kinyingk walangk. perhaps this-ERG 3.NOM-CM-throw this spear ‘Maybe he threw the spear.’
In other languages, such particles pattern with the irrealis, and similar examples can be adduced for any number of thesecategories.26 That is, there are no unambiguously realis or irrealis categories and this fact casts severe doubt on the ontologicalstatus of realis and irrealis.

5. Non-irrealis forms and frequency effects: the case of will

The next question that concerns us is the fact that some morphemes may not be analyzed in grammars explicitly as (ir)-realis morphemes, yet still have meaning ranges that show striking similarities to reality status morphemes. In many waysthis is the inverse question of the one we have been concerned with in previous sections: here we are dealing with mor-phemes that are not classified as reality status morphemes in grammatical descriptions, but perhaps could be. Here weare dealing with the question of why that is the case, using the English morphemes will and would as examples.27

There may be several reasons for not listing them as (ir)realis morphemes. For one, the author may not think of them asreality status morphemes or is simply unaware of the existence of such morphemes. It may be that another term is preferred.For instance, if there exist a future–non-future split in the language it may be analyzed as a temporal distinction or a modalone.28 Only in the latter case will there be reason to refer to the system as a realis–irrealis opposition. If the split is analyzed inpurely temporal terms, the issue will not arise. Such issues are more scholar-dependent than theory-dependent, although itshould not be underestimated that there may be good language-internal reasons for choosing a specific term.

There is a more interesting case of not having an (ir)realis label despite there being good reasons for doing so. That is thecase in which a morpheme has one core meaning and several more peripheral meanings. In grammatical descriptions the


core meaning of such morphemes tends to be favored and the peripheral ones disregarded. This core–periphery analysis isreminiscent of a prototype analysis and cases such as these provide some of the best arguments in favor of a prototype anal-ysis. If we take English will as an accessible example of such a morpheme, we see that it has one core meaning, namely (ofcourse) future:

29

ou30

cosim

31

32

(56)

Here I will conflate wtside the scope of the

It is outside the scopntracted to ‘ll, it must r

ply due to the differeThe grammaticalizatBybee et al. (1994, p

John will go to school tomorrow.

However, there are a number of other areas in which will can be used, which are not necessarily future, but do seem to con-vey irrealis notions. Such areas include volition, habituality, and hypothetical meaning.29 The following examples are fromQuirk et al. (1976, p. 100–101), whose labels are given in square brackets

(57)
He‘ll help you if you ask him.
ill and would, and take the latter as the past form of will. I am awarepaper.e of this paper, but there is a clear morphological difference betweeemain in its full form in (58), as it receives heavy stress. For the samnces in prosody or whether there is a deeper diachronic reason reion path volition > future has been well-studied, see Fleischman (1. 157) remark that for some speakers it can occur in the protasis a

[willingness]
(58) He will do it, whatever you say. [insistence] (59) The game will be finished by now. [specific prediction] (60) He’ll (always) talk for hours if you give him the chance. [habitual prediction] (61) It’s your own fault; you would take the baby with you. [insistence] (62) Every morning he would go for a long walk. [characteristic activity] (63) He would smoke too much if I didn’t stop him. [hypothetical] (64) That would be his mother. [probability]
Although this section is not meant to be an exhaustive study of the different notions that will can express, some remarks onthe examples are in order. Examples (57) and (58), and also (61), exemplify different types of volition. Sentence (57) ex-presses a willingness on the part of the subject while (58) and (61) express a stronger intention on the part of the subject.30

It is well-known that will as a future morpheme derives from an earlier Germanic volition verb so the fact that there are stillvolition remnants should not be surprising.31

What may be more surprising is the fact that there are other irrealis-type meanings that can be expressed by will. Perhapsmost prominently, will and would can express present and past habituality, respectively, as exemplified by examples (60) and(62). There is an alternative construction for past habituality, the construction used to as seen in example (65) below, butthere is no similar alternative for present habituality, except the simple present tense.

(65)
Every morning he used to go for a long walk.
(Bybee et al., 1994, p. 156–158, see also Ziegeler, 2006, p. 91ff) report that the habituality meaning can already be foundin Old English. As mentioned in Section 4.4 above, there may be a more modal side to the habitual expression with will thanwith used to, although I am not aware of any study to compares the two expressions, but the fact remains that will can ex-press habituality, a meaning associated with the irrealis.

Sentence (59) shows the predictive meaning of will, which is currently the topic of debate in typological issues of eviden-tiality (see de Haan, 2009 for details). Based on comparisons with other predictive elements it is suggested in de Haan (2009)that the predictive meaning of will arises out of the future meaning. The interesting aspect of a sentence such as (59) is that itrefers to an event that is already finished, showing that there is no future meaning present. Sentence (64), with the past tensewould, is similar, but perhaps with more doubt expressed. This, then, is a case where the past tense is used to add doubt tothe prediction.

Finally, sentence (63) shows that would can be found in the apodosis of conditional sentences.32 This example is a hypo-thetical conditional, but counterfactual examples can be found as well.

From these examples it is clear that will and would display a wide range of meanings. Moreover, these meanings corre-spond to the range of meanings that are typically expressed by putative irrealis morphemes. There is no reason not to callwill and would irrealis morphemes, except for the fact that will is primarily a morpheme expressing future. We are dealingwith a morpheme with one core meaning and several peripheral meanings. This would seem to set will–would apart from‘‘true’’ reality status morphemes in that there is no ‘‘core’’ meaning for those morphemes, apart from the general (ir)realisnotion. If we wish to view will as an irrealis morpheme, we have a morpheme that spans a large part of the irrealis areabut its main function is the expression of futurity. The expression of unreal or unactualized events is not the core meaningof will or would.

of the problematic aspects of such a position, but such details are

n the expression of will in (57) and (58). While will in (57) can bee reason, would in (61) cannot be contracted to ‘d. Whether this is

mains to be studied.982) and Bybee et al. (1994) among many others, for details.s well.


On the other hand, that may also be true of reality status morphemes in, say, New Guinean languages, as we have verylittle information regarding the precise nature of such reality status morphemes. This is true for both frequency informationand information on core meanings. So, it remains an open question whether morphemes such as will or would are compa-rable to ‘‘irrealis’’ morphemes in other languages, but the question is relevant for studies into the notion of reality status.

6. What then is irrealis?

This section looks again at the theoretical positions outlined in Section 2 in the light of the data in Sections 3–5. We find,perhaps surprisingly, perhaps not, that the data on reality status provide evidence both for and against the major theoreticaloutlooks. That is, we can find evidence that supports Bybee’s, Givón’s, Cinque’s, Foley and Van Valin/Van Valin and LaPolla’s,and Plungian’s assertions, even though these positions often seem contradictory. The only possible theoretical position thatis not supported is the position where realis and irrealis are in binary opposition. That is, any given category, such as presenttense or prohibitive is always either [+realis] or [�realis]. This is the starting point for Bybee’s (1998) investigation, but as faras I am aware this position is not currently held by anyone in the debate. Even in those frameworks where binary featuresplay an important role, (mainly) the generative approaches, (ir)realis is defined in terms of scope, not unlike the positions ofChafe (1995) and Mithun (1995).

Arguments for a scope approach are based on observing relations between categories. The fact that in some languagessentential negation always triggers an irrealis morpheme is under this approach evidence of the fact that negation has scopeover irrealis in these languages. In languages where negation does not (always) trigger irrealis, irrealis has scope overnegation.

The main problem with an approach relying on scope relations is that there seems to be too many variations to be takeninto account. In Section 3.2 above on Amele clause chaining it was already mentioned that sentence-final particles have noinfluence on the choice of reality status morpheme, yet they mark various types of modality, ranging from those markingillocutionary force to those marking obligation (see the discussion on example (22) above). These types occupy variousplaces on the hierarchy, no matter whether one chooses the RRG hierarchy (7) or the Cartography of features (5). As men-tioned towards the end of Section 2 above, a Mithun/Chafe-type approach might be better able to account for the typologicalvariation encountered. Such an approach fits in well with the bottom-up approach favored in this paper.

Another problem with the scope approach is that different scope relations entail different underlying universal semanticfeatures. One example is the problem of habituals: if habituals are classified in a given language as realis, the underlying fea-ture in that language can be [±real], but if it is irrealis in a given language the feature cannot be [±real], since habitual actionsare not unreal (as a habitual denotes a number of real events, either in the past or present, but without picking out a specificone). In that case the underlying feature is something like [±actual].33 This problem is repeated for all possible scope relations,not to mention those cases with less common relations, for instance those cases where counterfactuals are marked realis orpresent tense is marked irrealis.

There is also evidence for a prototype approach, as advocated by, among others, Givón (1994, p. 326–327). As mentioned,there is as of yet no cross-linguistic prototype proposal available, however. It does not seem that one will be forthcomingsoon either, at least not one that has cross-linguistic validity. In Table 2 above we saw a proposal, but we have seen that thereare quite a few exceptions to the proposed core. Counterfactuals, for instance, may be (partly) marked as realis, even if in thesame language the hypothetical is marked as irrealis.

In a Roschian approach, there is a core focal point and peripheral notions, and there is some evidence that such a thingactually occurs in reality status environments, but with severe caveats. It is unclear that there actually is a core focal point onboth the realis and irrealis side. There seems to be no category that is unambiguously realis or irrealis. True, there are cat-egories that come close. On the realis side, the present tense comes close, with Muyuw the dissenting language; on the irre-alis side, we can point to counterfactual conditionals as being as close to unreal, unactualized, or potential events as one canwish for, yet at least one language, Sursurunga, allows for realis morphemes in the counterfactual. This is evidence against aninvariant core, focal, meaning of (ir)realis, at least one that is typologically invariant. It is then more fruitful to look for invari-ant meanings in one language or language family, as is done, for instance, in McGregor and Wagner (2006). It is more inter-esting to see why counterfactuals in Sursurunga are not marked with an irrealis morpheme than to find reasons to force aprototype interpretation on a disparate data set.

Yet it cannot be denied that cross-linguistically it is more common for counterfactuals to be marked as ‘‘irrealis’’ than‘‘realis’’ (if one takes reality status for granted) or if one does not accept reality status, counterfactuals pattern more oftenwith hypothetical conditionals than not. That is a fact that demands an explanation, but there is no reason not to assumethat the answer lies in diachronic patterns within a given language family, patterns for which standard grammaticalizationtheory can give answers. There is no reason to assume a category of reality status to preclude such answers.

Another argument against a prototype approach is that such an approach in this case demands that there is a universalmeaning for the (ir)realis. Such a meaning may not exist. The most obvious meaning of irrealis would be that of the markingof unreal events. However, from the examination of the data above we know that cannot be the case: we have seen manycases where categories that clearly show unreal events are marked with the realis morpheme, and vice versa. It is possible

33 This is also a problem for the prototype approach, see below.


that ‘‘unreal’’ is not the proper universal meaning for irrealis, and there has been some discussion in the literature about pos-sible alternative meanings. One such is ‘‘unactualized’’ which refers to actions and events which are not necessarily unrealbut rather events that cannot be located individually on the time line. This would take into account such events as habituals,which are often marked irrealis but are not unreal. Habitual events are not viewed individually but rather as a group andhence any individual event is unactualized. Consequently, it could be argued that in some languages or language familiesthe core meaning of the irrealis is [�real] (or [+unreal])34 while in others it is [-actual], depending on whether such categoriesas past habituals are grouped with realis or irrealis categories. Other core meanings have been proposed, but usually for a lim-ited set of languages, such as a language family. See McGregor and Wagner (2006, p. 363ff)’s analysis of irrealis morphemes inNyulnyulan languages for details.

Regardless of whether a core meaning can be proposed for the irrealis that is cross-linguistic, there is another obstacle inderiving a prototype for the category of reality status: unlike in other prototype accounts, we are essentially trying to derivea prototype for a category that is itself made up of other categories, categories which themselves may be prototypes.35

Taking irrealis as example here, if we assume that the irrealis consists of a core and a periphery, first we have to decidewhat the core is. Since we do not have a category that is universally cross-linguistically marked as irrealis, we have to findanother way. The obvious and probably only solution is that we take the category that is cross-linguistically most oftenmarked irrealis as the core (although this is a questionable approach, see below). Even though a true typological study is stilloutstanding, it would seem likely that counterfactuality is the category most often marked irrealis. If we assume then thatcounterfactuality is the core for irrealis then we treat counterfactuality as a uniform category and disregard the typologicalvariation in counterfactual construction (see Xrakovskij, 1998) which can contribute to the variation in reality status expres-sions. One problem, already remarked upon in Section 4.6 above in the discussion on Sursurunga, is that there needs to be aseparation of the apodosis and the protasis, which can be marked differently, but in practice that never happens.

This is the well-known problem of top-down vs. bottom-up approaches and the different assumptions that each approachmakes. In a top-down approach, such as a prototype approach, one starts with the category and works one’s way down to thelevel of individual morphemes. A bottom-up approach starts with the individual linguistic material and works upward to thecategory.36 A top-down approach assumes that a category is uniform (this assumption is usually implicit), but in the case ofprototypes this does not hold. If we then have a category which is itself made up of prototypes, as is true for reality status,it should then not come as a surprise that the resulting theory is less than applicable cross-linguistically.

Finally, another argument against the core-periphery approach for reality status is that as far as the core of (ir)realis isconcerned, it is not all that clear that we can distinguish between it and the periphery on the basis of meaning. That is, ifwe assume that counterfactuality is the core of irrealis, then there is no difference between counterfactuality and, say, future,in the basic meaning of [�real] (or [�actual]). Both are [�real] and the argument that counterfactuality constitutes the coreand not future or hypothetical condionality is then one of statistical preponderance rather than inherent differences. Anyargument that one category within irrealis is more or less real is necessarily based on extraneous facts, such as typologicalpreponderance, not on language-internal grounds.

7. Conclusions

In the conclusion it is time to return to the three points raised in the introduction under (1). Point (1a), the extra-linguisticnotion that there is a division between real and unreal events, is a priori true. From an ontological point of view, there areevents that are real, and there are events that are unreal. From this perspective it is possible to claim that there is a notionalcategory of reality status. Beyond this basic fact, the situation is much less clear. If we take point (1b) into account, the lin-guistic notion that languages make grammatical distinctions between real and unreal events, we run into immediate prob-lems. In the previous sections we have surveyed various grammatical categories and found that there is no category that ismarked uniformly as either realis or irrealis. This means that both realis and irrealis lack a core from which to operate. Otherproblems include the wide range of morphological means of marking realis and irrealis and the fact that there are categories(the Habitual for one) for which the underlying justification for treating them as realis or irrealis does not appear to be thereality of the action (habitual actions are, under point (1a), real), but rather that actuality. This shows that there is not even acommon semantic phenomenon that binds the categories. From this we can conclude that we cannot map point (1a) ontopoint (1b) and that there is no link between the philosophical notion of reality and the linguistic reflection of this. From thisit follows that point (1c), the typological status of the notions realis and irrealis, is also invalid. There is no linguistic basis forthe category of reality status. It is true that within any typological category, be it nominal, verbal, propositional or whatever,some variation is found, and indeed expected, but it is still always the case that for any category there is a core for which we

34 It may seem that [�real] and [+unreal] are equivalents, and logically that is true, if one assumes that there is no middle. However, it may be preferable forsome languages to have a feature [+unreal] if there is a dedicated irrealis morpheme but no corresponding realis morpheme, and the absence of the irrealismorpheme simply means the absence of the category of reality status. Hence, a zero morpheme in such languages does not imply the realis category. Then froma linguistic point of view it can be argued that there is a feature [unreal] and not [real].

35 This objection can also be raised against the scope approach: we are assigning an scope position to something that is comprised of categories that arescope-bearing themselves.

36 For an investigation into the differences see de Haan (2010). This is a paper on the difference of top-down vs. bottom-up in the construction of semanticmaps.


can predict that it is marked a certain way.37 Since we can identify no such core for the proposed category of reality status, wemust conclude that there is no such category in language. Another way of putting this that if we label a certain morpheme, con-struction or passage in a given language as irrealis, there is no way in which we can predict the semantic range of that mor-pheme within the language or how comparable it is to morphemes labeled irrealis in other languages.

The demise of reality status as a typological category should not be seen as a negative conclusion, but rather as an oppor-tunity to shift the focus onto more important matters. After all, we are just throwing away a label, not a linguistic analysis.While we have seen that (with Bybee) there are good grounds for not having an overall category reality status, we have alsoseen (with others) that we are not dealing with a total chaos; there is some order perceptible in the chaos. Although we havebeen unable to derive a cross-linguistically valid underlying meaning for the category, we have been able to find connectionsbetween a wide variety of languages with morphemes with a similar semantic range (English will and ‘morphemes formerlyknown as irrealis’, for instance). The main conclusion to be drawn here is that there is something that needs to be explained,given the cross-linguistic similarities. Even though these similarities do not permit us to posit a typological category realitystatus (beyond a purely notional one), these similarities should be looked at through (synchronic and diachronic) studies ofindividual languages and language families. That way we not only get a true account of how individual languages and lan-guage families extend meanings of individual morphemes within the notional domain of reality, but we do this withoutprejudicing the analysis by assigning an a priori categorial label to such descriptions. In other words, we would be takinga pure bottom-up approach, similar to the analysis of will.

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Irrealis: fact or fiction?