Abstract

This chapter surveys some of the most important findings in the literature regarding the syntagmatic interactions between linguistic expressions of mood and of modality and some other categories, and regarding how these interactions may be explained in terms of the semantic properties of the categories involved. After a preliminary exemplification of the syntagmatic interaction of mood with other categories, showing how infelicitous combinations are either blocked or reinterpreted, the chapter deals, in subsequent sections, with the interaction with modal and modality related markers, with tense, with aspect, with negation, and with person. It concludes with a further discussion of the factors regulating the interaction of mood with other categories, viz., most importantly, functional compatibility, markedness and economy.