Moods or not moody moods

Question

I see there are three moods in Spanish. Why isn't the conditional a mood? It surely can't be a tense, as it can take tenses (future, past, etc.) the same as the subj. verb can have various tenses. Is the conditional just called the conditional, as a separate verb category?

If I were you, take lazarus's word for it..messy stuff, jeje - 00494d19, Jun 15, 2011

Answer 1

You are getting into grammatical theoretical field, and without a deep understanding of mood, aspect, tense and pragmatics, you are not likely to stand a chance against any current theory. But to answer your question, "subjunctive" is used in subordinate clauses, whereas conditional tense is always used in main clauses. Don't take it bad, but you can't defend your theory unless you know the background well, and it is not just complex, but messy.