Indicative
Is the indicative the most realis mood? Assertions suggest so. But, in English, adverbs are found with the indicative, modifying speaker-commitment. And it is also used in conditional clauses, where speaker commitment is suspended.
   
Palmer and others suggest that the indicative is in fact 'epistemically neutral'.
   
But he has to add the following rider: "it will generally be assumed that the purpose of the presentation is that he [the speaker] thinks it is relevant and probably true" (1986: 87).
   
Better term: 'positive epistemic stance', as introduced by Fillmore. This term can explain the use of the indicative in the whole range of conditional clauses in Homeric Greek.

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