Irrealis i engelsk, dansk og tysk - en grammatisk kategori uden systemisk adresse

This paper is concerned with the apparent absence of a ‘systemic address’ for the functional category irrealis in grammatical descriptions of English, Danish and German within the framework of systemic functional linguistics (SFL). Based on a thorough discussion of our understanding of this functional grammatical concept, we present a summary of the lexicogrammatical potential of irrealis in English, Danish and German. By comparing and contrasting the three languages, we find among them equivalent connections to other grammatical systems. The existing SFL-descriptions of English, Danish and German offer some proposals with regard to irrealis, but these, to some degree, contradict our findings concerning how irrealis is actually realized. Hence, we discuss if and how irrealis can be combined with other grammatical systems like CLAUSE STATUS, POLARITY and MODALITY TYPES in the interpersonal grammar of the clause, which leads to a suggestion on how to incorporate irrealis in the MOOD-system.