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Irrealis is Real

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Kilu von Prince ,
Ana Krajinović  and
Manfred Krifka
Kilu von Prince*
Affiliation:
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Ana Krajinović*
Affiliation:
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Manfred Krifka*
Affiliation:
Leibniz-Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS)
*
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätsstr. 1, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany, [kilu.prince@hhu.de]
[ana.krajinovic@hhu.de]
[krifka@leibniz-zas.de]
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Abstract

The question of whether Irrealis is a meaningful concept in crosslinguistic comparison has been the subject of long-standing controversy. In this article, we argue that the semantic domain of irreality is split into two domains—the possible and the counterfactual—and that an ‘irrealis’ marker in a given language may refer either to only one of these domains or to both. A significant part of the crosslinguistic variation in what is referred to by the term irrealis can be traced back to this distinction. Other factors that obscure the realis/irrealis divide include functional subdivisions of the irrealis domain and paradigmatic competition within the TAM system of a language. We conclude that ‘irrealis’ is a crosslinguistically meaningful notion.

Keywords

irrealismoodsemanticstypologyOceanic languages

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 98 , Issue 2 , June 2022 , pp. 221 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © 2022 Linguistic Society of America

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Footnotes

*

We thank Valérie Guérin for her data collection on Mavea, and Lena Weißmann for her support on the typological studies. We also thank three anonymous referees and the editors for their insightful and constructive criticism. This research was funded through the DFG (MelaTAMP Project, 273640553).

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