The indicative is the unmarked mood, in the sense that it refers to verb forms typically used in the formation of declarative clauses and questions. The indicative marks that the clause refers to a state of affairs that is claimed to be actual within the domain of discourse (domain D). By uttering an example such as (161a), the speaker asserts that the proposition stroke (Jan, the cat) is true in domain D. Similarly, the question in (161b) expresses the speaker’s belief that there is an ongoing cat-stroking event, but asks who is the agent of the event: ?x (x strokes the cat). And the question in (161c) requests information about the truth of the proposition stroke (Jan, the cat) in domain D.

Since the indicative forms have already been discussed in Section 1.3, we need not elaborate further here, but can begin immediately with a discussion of the two more marked moods, the imperative and the subjunctive.