Is the conditional an indicative tense?

[Hiperbólico]

¡Hola a todos! I admit my appearances on this forum are rather sporadic, but there are always bound to be more questions.

In conjugation tables and other references, I've noticed that the conditional tense is often listed under the indicative mood. The conditional is defined by uncertainty, possibility, or wonder — which to me doesn't sound very "indicative", so to speak.

However, in other references, the conditional tense is listed alone in its own category, much like the imperative. So which is it? Is the conditional indicative, subjunctive, or neither? Thanks in advanced!

[Rusty]

The indicative is a mood.
The imperative is a mood.
The subjunctive is a mood.

The conditional is classified as a tense and, therefore, gets lumped in with the other indicative mood tenses. The conditional tense is also know as the 'hypothetical future tense'.

[aleCcowaN]

That's right, but until some 50 years ago it was considered to be the potential or conditional mood.

[wrholt]

RAE groups the conditional with the other tenses of the indicative mood, as you can see here.

The names that RAE uses for the conditional (condicional, pos-pretérito) perhaps give us a clue about their reasoning: the conditional tense describes a future event from the perspective of a specific past moment in the same way that the future tense describes a future event from the perspective of "now".

Both the future and the conditional have other uses besides describing a future event from the perspective of a particular moment in time: this seems to affect how confident we feel about the classification of the conditional as a tense of the indicative mood, and I feel that this also contributes to the popularity of other systems of organizing Spanish verb forms.

[Hiperbólico]

Thank you all for your replies.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rusty
The indicative is a mood.
The imperative is a mood.
The subjunctive is a mood.

The conditional is classified as a tense and, therefore, gets lumped in with the other indicative mood tenses. The conditional tense is also know as the 'hypothetical future tense'.

That makes sense I guess. Forgive me if my thread title was badly worded. I did mean to ask if the conditional was a tense of the indicative mood, not that the indicative is itself a tense. (for any lurking readers)


Quote:
Originally Posted by aleCcowaN
That's right, but until some 50 years ago it was considered to be the potential or conditional mood.

Quote:
Originally Posted by wrholt
Both the future and the conditional have other uses besides describing a future event from the perspective of a particular moment in time: this seems to affect how confident we feel about the classification of the conditional as a tense of the indicative mood, and I feel that this also contributes to the popularity of other systems of organizing Spanish verb forms.

Neat insights; this clears up a lot. I have seen a few textbook references separate the conditional from the indicative tenses, as if it were its own mood. However, grouping them altogether seems to be more popular — more so given that the RAE gives an authoritative decision on the matter.

Also, I recently found that the Spanish-version Wikipedia does have an article on the conditional, reading:
Quote:
"El modo condicional es uno de los modos del verbo en algunas lenguas romances y germánicas. Otro nombre alternativo es el de modo potencial porque en ocasiones se refiere a acciones hipotéticas o posibles. Frecuentemente se considera que el condicional es simplemente un tiempo verbal y no un modo independiente."