ONLINE FIRST
published on April 25, 2023
Richard Polt
https://doi.org/10.5840/jcp202342036
The Language of the Irreal
¡°Irrealis¡± grammatical moods, such as the subjunctive, provoke linguistic, literary, and phenomenological questions. What is the ontolog?ical status of the domain revealed by irrealis moods? How does it solicit signification? Is it a mere illusion or a distraction from the real? I propose not only that our ventures into the irreal are indispensable ways of making sense of things, but that the irreal is necessary to the being of language and to our own being.