Nepalese Linguistics, Vol. 29, 2014, pp. 52-58. MOOD AND MODALITY IN MAGAR DHUT Pratigya Regmi This paper presents mood and modality in Magar Dhut, a Tibeto-Burman language as spoken in Nawalparasi district, within the functional-typological framework. As a grammatical category, both mood and modality are expressed inflectionally as well as lexically. There are six types of mood and two major types of modalities in Magar Dhut. Keywords: mood, modality, indicative, subjunctive 1 Introduction Mood and modality are the properties of verb. According to Bybee and Fleischman (1995:2), mood refers to a formally grammaticalized category of the verb which has a modal function. Moods are expressed inflectionally, generally in distinct set of verbal paradigms, e.g. indicative, subjunctive, optative, imperative and conditional which may vary from one language to another in respect to number as well as to the semantic distinctions they mark. Modality, on the other hand, is the semantic domain referring to elements of meaning that language expresses. Palmer (1986:21) notes that cross-linguistically, mood manifests in verbal morphology, whereas modality is alalytic and periphrastic. According to Grunow-Hasta (2008:238), Magar semantically and formally separates mood from modality. This study is primarily based on the data collected from the seven language consultants, language spoken in four villages of Benimanipur VDC in Nawalaprasi district. The data used in this study are the recorded spontaneous texts produced by the native speakers using Audacity audio editing software. The collected data were transcribed phonetically using IPA and analysis was carried out in Toolbox 158. 2 Mood Mood describes the speaker’s attitude towards a situation, including the speakers belief in its reality or likelihood (Payne 1997). Basically six types of mood are found in Magar Dhut. They are: indicative, imperative, interrogative, optative, subjunctive and hortative. 2.1 Indicative mood The indicative mood asserts the truth value of proposition. A verb inflects for tense and aspect in normal SOV order of a clause, which may indicate the truth value of the proposition. There are two types of indicative mood in Magar Dhut: non-past and past. A verb inflects for past tense asserts the truth value of the proposition in the past. In the same way, a verb inflects for non-past tense asserts the truth value of the proposition in the present time as in (1). (1) a. kanuŋ garʰa kʰolʌi dᶻja kan-uŋ gar ̤ ʰa kʰola-i dᶻja-a we-POSS field river-ERG eat-PST 'Our field was wiped out by the river.' b. ŋa tˢaĩ buɖasjo bʰjat ̺ a ŋa tˢaĩ buɖasjo bʰjat ̺ -a 1SG EMPH old complete-PST 'I became old.' c. ilak wak le i-lak wak le P.DEM-ALL pig EXIST.NPST ‘Pig is here.’ d. ilaŋ nʌ kei dᶻat ̺ ke ɦjokle i-laŋ nʌ kei dᶻat ̺ -ke ɦjok-le P.DEM-LOC EMPH some do-INF able-NPST '(We) can do something here.' In examples (1a-b), the verb roots dᶻja and bʰjat ̺ with the past tense or past perfective marker -a codes the truth value of proposition in the past. In (1c), the speaker declares that the pig is here at home or near to the speaker. Similarly, in example (1d), the speaker declares that we can do something here in own village. So, in examples (1c-d) the non-past tense or non-past perfective marker -le codes the fact of proposition in the present time. 2.2 Imperative mood The imperative form of the verb is used to express the direct command and request to the second person in Magar Dhut. There are two ways of encoding the imperative mood: honorific and non- honorific. The non-honorific imperative has transitive-intransitive distinction. The transitive