Publication ｜Sophia Linguistica
Daisuke Inoue
The aim of this article is to consider the indicative and the subjunctive mood choice in the
completive of French opinion verbs from the viewpoint of discourse. In French linguistics,
the notion of endorsement (prise en charge) has been used to describe this mood choice.
Therefore, if the proposition is considered true, the indicative is used. On the other hand,
if the proposition is considered false or presupposed, the subjunctive is used. However,
according to Inoue (2021), there are cases in which the indicative is used even though
the proposition is presupposed. To explain this phenomenon, we apply the analysis of
Delin (1992) on It-Cleft presupposition to show that discourse properties of assertion
and presupposition have an influence on the mood choice in the completive of Pourquoi
crois/penses-tu que P?. According to Delin (1992), presupposed information is regarded
as existing before the conversation and nobody has to be responsible for it. Therefore, by
using the subjunctive in the context where the indicative should be used if we follow the
notion of endorsement, the speaker can presents the listener as not responsible and be able
to save his or her face (Brown & Levinson, 1987.)
