In some languages, evidentiality (whether evidence exists for the statement, and if so what kind) and mirativity (surprise) may also be included.
Several features (or categories) may be conveyed by a single grammatical construction (for instance, English -s is used for the third person singular present).
Creoles, both Atlantic and non-Atlantic, tend to share a large number of syntactic features, including the avoidance of bound morphemes.
Tense, aspect, and mood are usually indicated with separate invariant pre-verbal auxiliaries.
Typically the unmarked verb is used for either the timeless habitual or the stative aspect or the past perfective tense–aspect combination.
When any of tense, aspect, and modality are specified, they are typically indicated separately with the invariant pre-verbal markers in the sequence anterior relative tense (prior to the time focused on), irrealis mode (conditional or future), non-punctual aspect.[10]: pp.
The future of the past tense/aspect uses the future form since the use of the past tense form to mark the time of perspective retains its influence throughout the rest of the sentence: Da gai sed hi gon fiks mi ap ("The guy said he [was] gonna fix me up").
There are various preverbal modal auxiliaries: kaen "can", laik "want to", gata "have got to", haeftu "have to", baeta "had better", sapostu "am/is/are supposed to".
The subjunctive mood form is used in dependent clauses and in situations where English would use an infinitive (which is absent in Greek).
In addition, all the basic forms (past and non-past, imperfective and perfective) can be combined with a particle indicating future tense/conditional mood.
However, the aspectual participles can also have the verbs rêhnā (to stay/remain), ānā (to come) & jānā (to go) as their copula which themselves can be conjugated into any of the three grammatical aspects hence forming sub-aspects.
French has inflectionally distinct imperative, subjunctive, indicative and conditional mood forms.
The conditional mood form can also be used for hearsay: Secondo lui, sarebbe tempo di andare "According to him, it would be [is] time to go".
[18]: p.76 The indicative mood has simple forms (one word, but conjugated by person and number) for the present tense, the imperfective aspect in the past tense, the perfective aspect in the past, and the future (and the future form can also be used to express present probability, as in the English "It will be raining now").
[18]: p.75 As with other Romance languages, compound verbs shifting the action to the past from the point in time from which it is perceived can be formed by preceding a past participle by a conjugated simple form of "to have", or "to be" in the case of intransitive verbs.
[18]: p.71 Unlike French, Italian has a form to express progressive aspect: in either the present or the past imperfective, the verb stare ("to stand", "to be temporarily") conjugated for person and number is followed by a present gerund (indicated by the suffix -ando or -endo ("-ing")).
Using the present tense form of the helping verb gives a true perfect aspect, though one whose scope is narrower than that in English: It refers to events occurring in the past and extending to the present, as in Tem feito muito frio este inverno ("It's been very cold this winter (and still is)").
[19]: p.84 Portuguese expresses progressive aspect in any tense by using conjugated estar ("to stand", "to be temporarily"), plus the present participle ending in -ando, -endo, or indo: Estou escrevendo uma carta ("I am writing a letter").
61–62 VouI goverto seeJoãoJohnestathistardeafternoonVou ver João esta tarde{I go} {to see} John this afternoonTemoswe havequethatverto seeJoãoJohnhojetodayTemos que ver João hoje{we have} that {to see} John todayHeiI havedeofverto seeJoãoJohnamanhãtomorrowHei de ver João amanhã{I have} of {to see} John tomorrowSpanish morphologically distinguishes the indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and conditional moods.
Spanish expresses the progressive similarly to English, Italian, and Portuguese, using the verb "to be" plus the present participle: estoy leyendo "I_am reading".
[20] Danish has the usual Germanic simple past and non-past tense forms and the compound construction using "to have" (or for intransitive verbs of motion, "to be"), the compound construction indicating past tense rather than perfect aspect.
Progressivity can be expressed periphrastically as in: erisvedin processattolæsereader ved at læseis {in process} to readerisiinfærdprocessmedwithattovaskewasher i færd med at vaskeis in process with to washsiddersitsogandlæserreadssidder og læsersits and readsstårstandsogandtalertalksstår og talerstands and talksThe subjunctive mood form has disappeared except for a few stock phrases.
[21] The simple non-past form can convey the progressive, which can also be expressed by the infinitive preceded by liggen "lie", lopen "walk, run", staan "stand", or zitten "sit" plus te.
There are various conjugated modal auxiliaries: kunnen "to be able", moeten "to have to", mogen "to be possible" or "to have permission", willen "to want to", laten "to allow" or "to cause".
This aspectually unmarked past tense form appears in innately stative verbs ("I felt bad.")
This form is negated with an invariant analytical construction using the morphologically unmarked verb (I / he did not feel bad, I did not take a brownie).
Both of these morphological changes can be combined with the compound verbal constructions given below involving invariant auxiliaries, to form verb phrases such as will have been taking.
There are also some constructions showing an even greater degree of periphrasis: one for progressive aspect and ones for the modalities of volition ("want to"), necessity/obligation ("have to", "need to"), and ability ("be able to").
Hawaiian[4]: ch.6, [28] is an isolating language, so its verbal grammar exclusively relies on unconjugated auxiliary verbs.
Pono conveys obligation/necessity as in He pono i na kamali'i a pau e maka'ala 'Children should beware'; ability is conveyed by hiki as in Ua hiki i keia kamali'i ke heluhelu 'This child can read'.