ABSTRACT
The subjunctive is an expression of modality which has always attracted the interest of philosophers, grammarians, linguists and anyone trying to understand the mechanisms governing language use. In general, modality is seen as a reflection of the speaker's attitude towards propositional contents. The truth value of a statement has always been the main concept in defining mood and modality, until today. For the German philosopher Kant, modality was the degree of truth or certainty that the speaker attributes to a statement. The concept of 'modality' is clearly wider than that of 'mood', but the connection between both notions is very close. Based on the division by Bally and other French linguists, the Nueva gramatica de la lengua espanola (NGLE) distinguishes two kinds of modality: first 'modalidades de la enunciacion' and second, a 'modalidad proposicional' or 'modalidad del enunciado'. Among the first, the NGLE lists an imperative, interrogative, exclamative, optative, desiderative and assertive modality.
