ABSTRACT
The basic mood in Spanish is the indicative. Its verb endings and uses distinguish it from the subjunctive and the imperative. The mood and tense system in Spanish show an aspectual differentiation, represented by the perfective and imperfective aspect. The subjunctive mood in Spanish consists of three simple tenses: the present, past and the future, which has disappeared almost entirely from modern Spanish; and three compound tenses: the present perfect, the past perfect and future perfect, which has disappeared as well. Some linguists and grammarians do not want to give the imperative the same status as the indicative and subjunctive. Utterances in subjunctive - as well as imperatives and infinitives - are per definition non-assertions. Rather than referring to independent or absolute facts, they characterize the embedded predicate as representing the personal attitude of the main subject, the effect or result of the main predicate, its cause or condition.
