 I'm lying. Lie to me. Do I lie? I wish I were lying. If I couldn't tell the truth, I would lie. You probably already know that when we speak or write, we have a lot of options for how to express time. These are called tenses, present, present continuous or progressive, past, past perfect, future, future perfect. All of these tenses help us explain where the time of the text is in relationship to the things that the text itself is describing. Tenses provide accuracy and also flavor for our writing. But now take a closer look at the sentences that opened this video. I'm lying. Lie to me. Do I lie? I wish I were lying. If I couldn't tell the truth, I would lie. Like sentences in different tenses, each of these sentences expresses a different relationship between the text and the things that it's describing. But take a look at the tenses of the verb to lie in each of these sentences. That's right. Even though it might not at first seem or feel like it, they're all in the present tense. In this case, the verbs differ not in tense, but in mood. If tense indicates the relationship of a text to its time relative to the moment that the audience reads it, then mood indicates the relationship of the text to a set of possible worlds or states of mind relative to the reality of the text around it. So when we talk about mood in grammar, we're talking about that relationship and we're also talking about how we indicate it using the words or sentence structures we have in our language. Many languages, for instance, change something about the verb in order to indicate what mood a sentence is. Maybe a vowel change or adding an ending. Others reorganize the syntax that is the word order of phrases within the sentence to indicate changes in mood. Because English is a hodgepodge of different languages, English does both. So let's look at some examples. In the declarative mood, we're in real space. This is the space of what's actually happening in the text. Usually, but not always, in English, we use subject plus verb order in the declarative mood. For instance, I'm lying. Imperative mood is a mood that commands. It articulates what we'd like someone else to make happen. Lie to me. Here we have a verb in the first position, the subject of the sentence is understood, and we might that we don't need to use an exclamation point. Interrogative mood asks a question. It expresses uncertainty about what's happening or has happened or is trying to get information. Did I lie? This question uses a dummy operator or an auxiliary, the word did, as well as having a question mark. But some sentences in the interrogative mood can use question words like who, what, when, where, how, and why. The subjunctive mood expresses desire. It presents a contrary to fact situation. You might even think of the subjunctive mood as a tiny bit of fantasy that you can throw in to your sentences. Like, I wish I were lying. Here we have the phrase I wish, or we could also use if only or would that, plus the subject I, plus the verb were. Though the verb were to express subjunctive is now kind of archaic, and we might see people use the word was or could instead. The exclamative or exclamatory mood expresses a strong emotion. This one starts out like a question with a question word and an object plus subject plus verb order, and it ends in an exclamation point. How well I'm lying or what a lie I'm telling. And finally the conditional mood. This sets up if then statements. Here, the occurrence of the second part of the sentence depends upon the first part becoming a reality. If I couldn't tell the truth, I would lie. With the exception of the declarative, each of these moods presents counterfactual spaces in the world or in the mind. Things that the speaker wishes might happen, tries to make happen or thinks. It might seem tricky, but with a little bit of practice you can use each of these moods to express nuance and subtlety in your writing. Try it with different verbs like eat, sleep, somersault, and leave a comment about your results. That sentence, by the way, is in the imperative mood. What sort of stories can you create using only the subjunctive? That sentence was in the interrogative. I wish I could read them. That one was subjunctive.