On the modal system of Ndonga

Abstract

Mood in Ndonga, as is the case with most Bantu languages, proves to be a controversial topic. In this article mood is approached from a universalist perspective, and it is argued that mood is inflected verbal modality. As Ndonga is agglutinating with tendencies to inflection, the moods do not always exhibit clear-cut inflection, but the tendencies are clearly distinguishable.